In this
interview with Joseph Stiglitz, he talks about stuff you probably already know, like Trump not understanding tariffs (I’m not even sure he’s been told that US importers pay US tariffs), but around twenty minutes in, they talk about comparisons between now and the Gilded Age. He points out that this is waaay worse than the Gilded Age.
I never stopped to compare, but yes, the robber barons of the 1890s never literally got inside the government and shut down entire agencies. It would have been unthinkable. This is our the worst age in terms of oligarchy.