Trump Dream History

Trump recently said that America was never so rich as 1870- 1913. He claims that it was due to tariffs. What he didn't mention was the instability of the economy, including what was known as the Great or Long Depression prior to 1930. The Panics of 1873 and 1893 bookend the Depression and both featured burst speculative economic bubbles. To make things worse, this era featured massive political corruption of a kind that modern Americans can't really comprehend. The winner-take-all spoils system and machine politics combined to spread corruption throughout society.

Are there really people who look at that time period longingly? I suppose it was a good time to be a 1% but really when isn't it? Am I wrong to see parallels between then and now? Do they really think scrapping the income tax for some kind of consumption tax would improve things? Would a tariff based system be any more or less corrupt than the current system?