MAGA’s elite ‘anti-elites’
One of the great myths of US President Donald Trump’s political career is that he’s an anti-establishment warrior, fighting on behalf of the everyman.
The corporate media have pushed this narrative, publishing hundreds of articles arguing that Trump represents the revenge of the “white working class”—a term used by elites of both the liberal and right-wing varieties to refer to either dumb uneducated masses or salt-of-the-earth patriots, respectively.
Indeed, this is the way he’s pitched himself since 2015. “Today we are not just transferring power from one administration to another”, Trump said in his first inauguration speech. “We are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the people.” His early calls to “drain the swamp” (remove nefarious lobbyists and insiders from Washington) have evolved into Elon Musk’s DOGE: they claim they are ending the wasteful spending of taxpayer money on programs designed by a DEI-obsessed urban elite. Or, in Musk’s words, “@DOGE will reprogram the base code of the matrix”.
The claim that an army of billionaires taking state power somehow represents a victory for factory workers, nurses, receptionists and agricultural labourers is absurd. They have climbed their way to the top by trampling on those below.
Musk, who has fast become something like an unelected co-president, is the richest person on the planet. Just half of his US$360 billion net worth could end world hunger by the end of the decade. He made his fortune after getting a hefty leg up from his emerald-mine-owning dad, and protects it today by resisting unionisation inside his companies (Tesla workers make 30 percent less than members of the United Auto Workers). In 2023, Musk said: “I disagree with the idea of unions ... I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing”. What?
Trump has a net worth of US$6.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine (though he claims it’s much higher). His wealth comes from a substantial inheritance and a career in real estate, although his most valuable asset is Truth Social, his hard-right Twitter knock-off. He first gained super stardom by telling a succession of people “you’re fired” on reality show The Apprentice and for twenty years owned the Miss Universe pageant organisation (in which creepy old men like him leer at bikini-clad young women). He owns a multimillion-dollar Manhattan penthouse plated with gold.
Man of the people he is not.
Trump has assembled the wealthiest administration in history, with thirteen billionaires appointed to government posts. His cabinet is worth at least US$7 billion. These people have made their wealth by exploiting millions of workers and the environment and hoarding profits in offshore tax havens.
In case there is any illusion that they might be forgoing their own interests to rule in the interests of American workers, just take a look at what the Trump administration has done since taking office.
In late February, the House of Representatives moved forward a mammoth budget blueprint that contains much of Trump’s legislative agenda. In it are massive tax cuts—worth up to US$4.5 trillion—and deep cuts to social spending. The tax cuts, which mostly extend those made during Trump’s first administration, mostly benefit the already wealthy. Medicaid and Medicare (which provide health insurance to poor and elderly Americans), student loan repayment plans and school breakfast and lunch programs that serve low-income children have all been slated for cuts.
This is what the administration is really about: taking from the poor to give to the rich. Trump is Robin Hood in reverse.
The DOGE cuts will also have a terrible impact on working people, not least the tens of thousands of public sector workers who have just lost their livelihoods after being fired by Musk. Public education is under attack, as are whatever measly regulations exist to put a check on corporate power.
There’s nothing new in this political strategy. Former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan claimed to represent the “silent majority” of everyday Americans, who supposedly shared their conservative world view. During their bid for power, the Nazis said they wanted to serve the German people who had been betrayed by the elites. They even went so far as to call themselves socialists, just “national socialists” interested only in the good of the German masses. When winning an election requires securing the votes of a substantial section of the population, overtures must be made to the issues they care about. But once the political right takes power, it’s a different story.
The “anti-elite” message can ring a little true because the Democrats indeed come from another wing of the US elite. When in power, they rule for the rich. The squabble between the major parties does not represent a battle between opposing class interests, but simply different strategies for managing capitalism.
The MAGA crowd are picking on the vulnerable to stoke divisions among workers, all of whom will be oppressed by Trump’s administration. He’s using hyper-nationalist rhetoric to try to bind a section of the population to his project: generate fear about and loathing towards a purported enemy within—migrants and progressives, among others.
Like many of Trump’s business ventures (google “Trump University”), it’s a con job to enable his wealthy capitalist friends to get even richer than they already are.
