The GOP plutocracy thrives as long as the Democrats stay loyal to Wall Street.
The late Mario Cuomo had offensive phrase he liked to repeat: “You campaign in poetry; you rule in prose.’ Donald Trump has an even simpler political formula: campaign as a populist; rule as a plutocrat. That was the pattern of his first term as president, when he ran as an avatar of working-class anger but filled his cabinet with more millionaires and billionaires than any previous president, and his most lasting domestic legacy was massive tax cuts that leaned toward enriching the already ultra-rich.
There is every indication that Trump will repeat the same trick in his second run at the White House, with the only difference being that his second administration will be even more openly corrupt, accepting dark money donations from the wealthy. Trump’s account is so obvious that you’d think it wouldn’t work on even the most gullible of carnival loggers. Still, Trump has a distinct advantage in making this mess: In a two-party system, voters have to choose between him and the Democrats, a party so beholden to corporate money that it has consistently silenced criticism of Trump’s corrupt plutocracy.
Two recent ones New York Times reports highlight how Trump will govern as a president for the wealthy and avoid even the simplest of anti-corruption fences.
On Monday, the newspaper informed on how Trump’s economic policies will be dominated by Wall Street:
When Donald J. Trump first ran for the White House in 2016. his final campaign ad lamented the influence of Wall Street in Washington, blaring ominous images of big banks and billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros.
Now, as president-elect, Mr. Trump has tapped two Wall Streeters to lead his economic agenda. Scott Besantwho invested money for Mr. Soros for more than a decade, belongs to him election to the post of Minister of Financeand Howard Lutnick, chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, will be nominated for the to head the Ministry of Trade. That Mr. Trump chose to lead his economic team shows the importance of billionaire investors in crafting an agenda that is supposed to fuel a “blue-collar boom” but that skeptics say will mostly benefit the wealthy.
On Sunday Times informed that Trump’s transition was paid for by big groups that enjoyed unprecedented protections from public disclosure:
President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping the names of the donors funding his transition efforts secret, in a break with tradition that could make it impossible to see which interest groups, businesses or wealthy individuals are helping launch his second term.
Mr. Trump has so far refused to sign agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fundraising in exchange for $7.2 million in federal transition funds. By avoiding the deal, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from anonymous donors to pay for staff, travel and office space involved in the run-up to taking office.
What’s striking about these reports is the relative absence of complaints from Democrats about Trump’s betrayal of his populist promises or his blatant corruption. Watchdog groups like Accountable.US are criticized Trump’s cabinet is on Wall Street, but most of the attention of the press and political opposition is focused on candidates accused of scandalous sexual abuse, such as Matt Gaetz (who withdrew his candidacy for the position of attorney general) or Pete Hegseth (still on the way to the post defense minister, despite a disturbing allegation of sexual assault).
Current issue
Elizabeth Warren on Thursday sent a letter of the Biden administration, warning that the Trump transition team’s lack of an ethics plan increases “the risk that the incoming administration will govern in favor of special interests rather than the American public.”
Warren’s sober words contrast with the general silence of Democrats about the dangers of plutocracy and corruption in the Trump administration. In the decade since Trump became a national figure, Democrats have not hesitated to go after the Republican demagogue on other issues, but have usually picked fights where they believed they could win bipartisan support. That’s why Democrats invested so much in the Russiagate investigation, which largely failed: It was a transparent ploy to win over Republican national security hawks worried about Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy ideas. But Trump’s ties to Russia have been murky, especially compared to his family’s deep ties to Middle Eastern autocracies like Saudi Arabia. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was instrumental in shaping Middle East policy in the first Trump administration, went on to run a hedge fund that received at least $2 billion with Saudi funding. But doing business with the Saudi autocracy is a bipartisan vice intertwined with the power and influence of the military-industrial complex.
The Democrats themselves are too connected to the plutocracy to effectively criticize Trump’s corruption in a populist way. In the recent election, Kamala Harris allowed Wall Street donors to shape its economic message, such as vetoing any naming and shaming of those involved in price gouging.
After Harris’ defeat, Bernie Sanders renewed his criticism of the Democratic Party’s rejection of the working class and economic populism. On the weekend, Sanders wrote:
Will the Democratic Party leadership learn the lessons of its defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is willing to take on the extremely powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media, and our political life?
Very unlikely.
They are too connected to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their companies.
The only way forward remains the model Sanders laid out during his 2016 and 2020 runs: a small-donor campaign that, while eschewing corporate funding, can run on pure economic populism. The only advantage to such a campaign is that it won’t be mired in convoluted distractions like Russiagate, but instead will be able to openly denounce Trump for being such a plutocrat. Sanders himself is too old to run again, but the way remains open for a future candidate (perhaps United Auto Workers chief Sean Fein or Alexandria Rep. Ocasio-Cortes) to take up the mantle and give Democrats the only type of combative leadership that can truly win Trumpism.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the adoption of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and to expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
