How to Beat the “King” of Debt at His Own Game

Billionaires like Trump don’t face critique and stigma for their debt the way the rest of us do, even when, in this President-elect’s case, the debt is a staggering $346 to $455 million. Trump and the wealthy elites, unlike most debtors, are also often able to play games with their debt to leverage even more wealth — and then the debts are somehow used as evidence (like Trump’s previous bankruptcies) that they are shrewd businesspeople. It often works, so that when Trump says things like ​“You’re talking about something that’s very, very fragile, and it has to be handled very, very carefully,” it can sound like sage wisdom despite being shallow nonsense.

Meanwhile, more than 75% of U.S. households owe banks and creditors an average of more than $100,000 in debt, a total that has risen to around $18 trillion. Most of those households owe multiple kinds of debt — from medical bills to student loans to credit card debt — and don’t have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense. 

And now it’s going to get worse. There is a proposal from within the incoming administration for some $2 trillion in cuts to government spending, and Trump’s team of conservative sycophants would likely try and get there — the equivalent of slashing one-third of every government program — by unleashing a wave of austerity similar to other aspiring autocrats like Argentina’s President Javier Milei.

Debt will increasingly dominate public discourse over the next several years because of this promised austerity, the elimination of workplace protections and the draconian assaults on working people’s paychecks.

But instead of playing defense, this is a profound opportunity for systemic change because debt can be a key unifying cause that bonds disparate members of the working class and impoverished Americans.

Already, organizing people with debt has been winning major gains. In Kansas City and Los Angeles, for example, tenants unions are injecting new strategic formations and tactics into the organizing landscape, and are helping beat back corporate landlords in ways never seen before.

Elder student debtors have been coming together in different parts of the country and this year marched on Washington D.C., signaling the emergence of a broad new group of activists fighting back against debt. Families in rural Pennsylvania who had lunch debt — a disturbingly common type of debt where students can’t pay for their school lunch and wind up under an avalanche of debt — won bi-partisan legislative lunch debt relief over the summer, a landmark effort that shows us, among other examples, that debt can be a winning issue across the aisle.

As the legal landscape for workers and unions is also expected to dramatically worsen, debt can be a place where the labor movement and other justice movements can squarely intersect. In a series of interviews I did with labor leaders for In These Times, debt was described over and over again as fundamentally a labor issue. This is partly because weakening labor protections, hollowing out unions, keeping workers from unionizing, suppressing wages and making workers more dependent on credit for survival will add layers and layers of debt.

But also, as the wave of austerity gets underway, some of the issues that Brittany Alston, executive director of the Philly Black Worker Project, told me about will become even more profound. ​“Social programs have been systematically and intentionally underfunded,” she told me over the summer. ​“Our safety nets have been destroyed. This disinvestment opens the door to the privatization of goods and services. These aren’t victimless acts. People are left to navigate these broken systems. Working class people end up carrying the burden.”

Many more of Trump’s proposed policies for his second term will add even more to the coming mountain of debt, including the goal of dismantling the Affordable Care Act. One consequence would be that the $88 billion of outstanding medical bills for millions across the country currently in collections will skyrocket, and millions will only be able to pay for their medical needs, like abortion access, with credit cards or other high interest loans. 

If Trump’s orientation toward his massive debt was not insulting enough to working people — he has boasted about not paying laborers for their services — he has appointed his sideshow on the campaign trail, one of the world’s richest men, to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

That megalomaniac sideshow, Elon Musk, has been trying to condition the public for the economic hardship on the horizon — which is essentially a warning to the public about himself.

Speaking at a virtual town hall hosted on X (formerly Twitter), Musk said, ​“We have to reduce spending to live within our means. … And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

If the broader resistance to Trump does not come together to champion debt resistance, he and his ruling class of MAGA co-conspirators will fill that void by offering guises of debt relief — and we can already see signs of that possible outcome.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to temporarily cap credit card interest rates at 10%. At first glance, this appears a win for those struggling to pay off their collective $1.17 trillion dollars in credit card debt. But in actuality, the proposal would serve to temporarily soften the deep cuts that Musk and DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy will unleash, or to provide a distraction when inhumane plans like mass deportations also lead to higher grocery prices.

So this farce of making credit more accessible and affordable will further mask the growing inequality that will result from Trump’s promised tax cuts for the rich. The ability to buy more — and more often — on credit, would provide an illusion for many that economic stratification isn’t as bad as it is.

The Debt Collective, the nation’s first union of debtors, urged both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to champion debt on both the campaign trail and with meaningful action in Washington. But they failed to recognize the possibilities in front of them, which in many ways crystalized on Election Day. Harris included mentions of medical and student debt in her ​“opportunity” agenda, but the Democratic candidate didn’t champion the issue on the campaign trail. 

Trump, however, often railed about the national debt — which he ironically drove up about $8 trillion while in office in his first term — a perennial go-to issue for conservatives seeking national office.

While voters naming the economy and inflation as dominant reasons they chose Trump may not have said it explicitly, debt surely weighs heavily on their minds as it does for most Americans. At Debt Collective we attempt to adjust the ways people think and talk about economic insecurity, because while debt is an overwhelming factor in our lives, it is often discussed as separate from core economic issues like employment, wages and benefits.

They may not have been asked about it in exit polls, but there is plenty of evidence suggesting debt was on voters’ minds when they cast their votes. ​“About seven in 10 young voters said debt has caused them to delay at least one major life milestone,” according to NBC News.

Another survey commissioned by Unidos US shows that ​“65% of low-income Latinos, categorized as those making $29,000 or less a year, and 66% of Latinos ages 25 to 39 are worried about paying next month’s rent or mortgage bill,” according to the Los Angeles Times-related publication De Los.

It appears that one of the many mistakes the Democratic Party made in the election was to assume that if the economic data says household debt loads are ​“manageable,” then the economy is strong and people are generally happier.

Democrats would have benefitted from talking to people with debt about debt — meaning they would have learned an awful lot if they only talked to regular voters about one of the main issues in their lives. In fact, according to a recent survey by Forbes Advisor, ​“54% of U.S. adults with debt say they always or often feel stressed because of their debt.” And because of ​“debt-related stress, 48% reported sleep problems, 40% had higher anxiety, 38% led diminished social lives and 34% experienced depression.”

These realities and more — how debt shapes and impacts so much of our lives — is the result of what German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck calls the ​“debt state.” Because we do not tax our wealthiest individuals and corporations at levels that are just, individuals and public institutions are forced to rely on debt to get by.

The renewal and likely increase of Trump’s tax cuts and the imposition of broad policies of austerity will further enshrine the United States as a debt state run as a creditocracy in which Wall Street banks and other creditors wield enormous power over everyday debtors and our public institutions, where every ounce of wealth is extracted from the poor and middle classes and transferred to the wealthy.

If we want to resist fascism and put an end to Trumpism and MAGA, we will have to organize debtors.

Whether it be labor unions employing a debt analysis to increase membership, tenant unions organizing renters, or working people joining debtor union formations like Debt Collective, we need to quickly bring debtors together to form an intersectional front against the coming onslaught.

Doing so will not only help us hold the line against the worst of Trump’s ambitions, but also build the power to further seed an emancipatory working-class future to come.

One in which we are free from debt — and the criminal billionaires who would be king.