Did you think that William Jennings Bryan's "Imperialism" speech was the first time he hijacked the Democratic National Convention to give crazy long speech on a topic that (probably only) he found interesting?

Well, it wasn't.

His "Imperialism" was actually more like the Bryan 4 President 2.0 speech than an isolated incident. Bryan had the irritating habit of using his presidential runs as opportunities to start ranting and raving about whatever was politically important to him at the time.

Kinda like Facebook.

In 1900, Bryan was all into imperialism, but in 1896 he was obsessed with the getting rid of the gold standard. He wanted to make both gold and silver the center of the economy as a way to go after those one percent-ers.

But true to the Bryan way, he lost the 1896 election to William McKinley. The 1900 election turned out to be complete déjà vu in that regard since he lost that one too—to the exact same guy.

The "Cross of Gold" speech made Bryan famous due to its eloquence and sense of conviction. The problem was that he would not shut up about it. He even brings it up as "bimetallism" (9) in his "Imperialism" speech even after it had been a bit irrelevant for some time.

Just let it go, man. Let it go.