Trump Is Planning a Presidency of, by, and for the Rich
Now that the “pro-worker” GOP led by Donald Trump holds the reins of government, what does it plan to do? A program of handouts for big business and austerity for the rest of us.
Branko Marcetic
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Jacobin.
After a demoralizing election loss, the Democratic Party is deep in the throes of debate and finger-pointing as it figures out what it wants to actually be in the years ahead: a party of working Americans, or one of CEOs and billionaires. Donald Trump’s side, meanwhile, has already made up its mind: it’s going with the CEOs and billionaires. Everything we’re learning about the incoming administration’s plans from insiders make very clear this is going to be a government of, by, and for big business.
Trump’s advisers have told Axios that on day one, the incoming president is going to push “a business-friendly agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and expanded energy production,” and “will fill his top ranks with billionaires, former CEOs, tech leaders and loyalists.” Reportedly in the works are plans to slash corporate tax rates further, deregulate a variety of industries like crypto, artificial intelligence, and big banks, and push out anti-monopoly Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan to make way for more corporate consolidation.
This is hardly surprising, since Trump has already handed the reins of his presidency over to the corporate elite. Trump’s transition is being led by two millionaire donors to his campaign: Linda McMahon, who as former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO racked up a long record of screwing over workers (and may be rewarded further with the commerce secretary post), and trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, who financially cut off the families of his employees killed in the September 11 attack just one day after crying on national television over their deaths. Trump’s just-named chief of staff is a corporate lobbyist who has worked for tobacco, insurance, and coal companies. A couple of hedge fund managers are in the running to be his treasury secretary.
These are just a few of the billionaires and executives quietly shaping Trump’s future presidency behind the scenes, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and former Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter. But one name deserves special mention: billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk is yet another megadonor to Trump’s campaign who is now having the favor repaid to him by the president-elect. He will be tasked, it seems, with cutting $2 trillion of supposed government waste and fraud, an idea that’s been personally endorsed by Trump in public. What’s being signaled is a program of pitiless austerity for the poor and middle class, one that Musk has openly and repeatedly admitted will plunge Americans into “hardship” and a “severe” economic downturn, even as the administration lavishes the ultrarich with government handouts.
Is it any wonder, then, that the world’s ten richest men already grew their wealth by $64 billion off of Trump’s victory this past Tuesday, which sent the stock market fizzing in anticipation of giveaways to the business elite?
With the election in the bag, Trump and his team are not even bothering to pretend anymore that they’re going to spend the next four years fighting the economic elite on behalf of the put-upon American worker. They are, very openly, instead going to link arms with that elite to pursue an agenda that will further immiserate the many voters who placed their trust in Trump to pull them out of economic hardship.
The GOP’s rebranding as the “party of workers” was always a sham, especially coming from a leader whose main legislative accomplishment the first time around was a massive tax cut for the rich. Everything suggests they’re about to make that rebranding even more of a joke.
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Branko Marcetic is a staff writer at Jacobin magazine and a 2019-2020 Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting fellow. He is the author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.
