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The coming showdown in Trumpworld
With Trump’s elite supporters prioritizing their own narrow agendas over democratic principles, the risk of a slide toward authoritarianism should be obvious.
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Enabling elites: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk with his son X Æ A-Xii join United States President Donald Trump as he signs executive orders on Feb. 11 in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP/Jim Watson)
A
lthough Donald Trump came to office riding a tsunami of public hostility against “elites”, his enablers are themselves leading members of the establishment and the plutocracy.
As was true during his first term, Trump, a wealthy businessman and celebrity, has surrounded himself with a mix of conventional Republican politicians, Wall Street financiers and economic nationalists. But this time, these groups have been joined by members of the techno-right, represented most glaringly by Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person.
What unites these groups, at least for the time being, is not Trump’s character or his leadership, both of which leave much to be desired. Rather, it is the belief that their specific agendas will be better served under Trump than under the most likely alternative.
Conservative Republicans want low taxes and less regulation, while economic nationalists want to close the trade deficit and restore US manufacturing. Free-speech absolutists want to end what they see as “woke censorship”, while the techno-right wants a free hand to enact its own vision of the future.
Irrespective of their pet projects, these groups all regarded Kamala Harris (and Joe Biden) as a hindrance, and Trump as a promising ally. Most do not oppose democracy, per se, but they do seem willing to overlook, and hence facilitate, Trump’s authoritarianism so long as their agenda is being served.
Press them on Trump’s anti-democratic impulses and contempt for the rule of law and they will equivocate or minimize the risks.
During Trump’s first term, I shared my concerns about him with one of his leading economic advisers (an economic nationalist). But my interlocutor pooh-poohed my worries and countered that Democrats and the administrative state were the more serious threats. Ultimately, he was interested in his boss’s commitment to tariffs, not any of the possible consequences for democracy.
