"In America, an oligarchy is being created, which has tremendous wealth, power and influence, which threatens our democracy and freedoms," he late observed in his farewell message Joe Biden. Given what's been happening for weeks, it's hard to ignore akin warnings. Donald Trump's inauguration brought together an full parade of American billionaires, headed by large tech barons. Trump's first cabinet from 2017 to 2021 was the wealthiest in U.S. history, including – how She calculated Public Citizen Consumer Rights Organisation – He's got 16 billionaires to sit down..
The most crucial individual in the fresh administration, next to Trump, is the head of the peculiar Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk. The richest man in the planet would spend up to $250 million on a Republican campaign. Today, in the name of the fight against the overgrowth of bureaucracy and the inefficiency of the state apparatus, he is trying to carry out a revolution in the government administration, which creates a possible conflict of interest – Musk, as a libertarian crusader, earns on government contracts – while raising serious constitutional doubts.
The problem with the impact of large money on American politics does not start and does not end on Trump – for at least 20 years the discussion on this subject has returned in all election cycle. He alone is not liable for the social oligarchization of the States, for the uncontrolled accumulation of wealth in the hands of the narrow elite – the oligarchy nature of his second word is besides clear, but the Democrats could not (or did not) remedy these processes. Now a direct influence on politics has gained part of the richest enemy of any redistribution.
At the same time, Trump's return to power cannot be portrayed solely as a triumph of oligarchy. For the first time since the 1960s, most of the voters from the lowest income group – in the United States it includes people from households with income below $50,000 a year – voted for a Republican candidate. Compared to 2020, Trump's support in this group increased by 15 percent points. Kamala Harris In turn, she won not only among voters from households with over $100,000 a year – that is, the richest 3rd of Americans – but besides among those with twice as much income – and this is the advanced decile.
Rebellion against the management-expert class
Adam Tooze in abroad Policy puts the thesisThat the mysterious ingredient that allowed Musk to meet and the workers of the sawmill from Montana was the rebellion against the management-expert class. According to Tooze, the American society can be divided into 3 groups: an elite that effectively controls the means of production, a working class and a class of experts, managers, administrators.
The second includes persons who hold a university diploma and another evidence of qualifications, usually operating within institutions powerfully attached – at least declaratively – to meritocratic ethos. They build their sense of value on the basis of cognition and competence. In Tooze's view, this class extends from kindergartens to professors of the best universities, from region officials to the most crucial civilian servants in Washington, from bank branch heads to top corporate positions, from private activists of non-governmental organizations to prominent, active intellectuals.
Most Americans have no regular contact with billionaires, but almost everyone met with representatives of the management-administrative-expert class. And it is they who are frequently seen as imposing, or at least trying to impose burdensome rules in all areas of life, almost from cradle to grave. It starts with a teacher enforcing school discipline and evaluating postcards. Then there is simply a direct supervisor at work, an annoying woman from HR, an activist of a non-governmental organization conducting equality and inclusive training for our company. In addition, there is simply a doctor ordering us to limit fat, fried foods, a bank worker deciding whether we will get a debt to buy a house, and an authoritative stating whether and how we can rebuild it. erstwhile we effort to relax in front of the tv after work, passing canals, we find an expert who explains that consumption needs to be drastically reduced for the sake of the planet.
Trump's large political capital is the reluctance that this group has raised. The apparent contempt with which she is spoken of, the strength with which she rejects her ethos and values, unites him with unprivileged voters who have had adequate people telling them how to live and looking down on their life choices. The fact that Trump does this out of power position, able to argue the capital of knowledge, competence, education and titles his hard financial and celebrity capital, only strengthens his listing in part of the folk class. It shows that it is not essential to accept the value of the management-expert class to succeed. On the another hand, Democrats present are a organization in the universal consciousness bonded with its values and aspirations.
Democracy, meritocracy and oligarchy
The rebellion against the managerial-expert class besides fuels a contradiction between 2 principles that form the ethos of modern Western societies: democratic and meritocratic. Trump and another right-wing populists are mobilizing the genuine social anger that comes from strengthening meritocracy at the expense of democracy. This is revealed both in the silence of democratic demands in the name of cognition represented by meritocratic institutions and in the increasing inequalities between part of the best-paid meritocratic elite and all the rest.
The Trump Revolution fuels fears and hyper-democratic objections to meritocratic institutions: from civilian service, through the wellness system, to universities and conventional media. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoting eccentric medical theories, Musk attacking media on X and along with his Government's Department of Efficiency liquidating full government agencies, right-wing activists drawing up lists of "fore-left professors", parents' rights activists demanding the censorship of school libraries – they are all part of the same, targeted front-front meritocracy.
Despite the hyper-democratic slogans that are utilized in this fight, its targets are profoundly responsive. The crusade against meritocracy led by billionaires will end not by strengthening democracy, but by expanding oligarchisation. Trump and Musk are trying to dismantle the U.S. administration not to make the state more open to democratic control and demands of citizens, but to replace the comparatively independent authoritative corps—with its ethos, knowledge, any independence—of people completely loyal to their political patrons and their business sponsors.
Trump and Musk search to make a society in which there are virtually no institutions independent of oligarchs, in which respective political-medial-business leaders are able to impose their will on the full public sphere, utilizing ranges and algorithms to mobilise their own followers and completely marginalize the voice of expert elites, activists, organised civilian society.
Will this alliance survive?
The question is how long he'll be able to last the oligarchy-people alliance. In 2016, Trump became president thanks to a win in 3 states of rust belt. In 2020, he failed to hold them. The policies of his first administration cannot be considered pro-working or serving American interests without a diploma.
In the Trump coalition politicians are convinced that Republicans should abandon neoliberalism and make a strong social adjustment of their positions. specified views may be preached to Vice president J. D. Vance. However, it is dominated by a powerful block, for which the improvement of AI, the colonization of Mars and the general turbo acceleration driven by technological advancement of past are key. This block sees the expert-manager class – and especially its part liable for issues specified as equality education or the fight against discrimination – as a brake. Like liberal democracy.
In 2019 a akin transclass coalition gathered in the UK around Boris Johnson. – an infinitely little dangerous and sympathetic policy than Trump. His election success seemed so large that experts promised that returning to power would take the Labour organization at least a decade. Meanwhile, 5 years of chaotic Conservative regulation were sufficient.
It cannot be ruled out that chaos and decisions hitting the poorer condition of Trump voters will rapidly reverse the political situation besides in the States. So far, the Trump coalition is dreaming of a presidency that will change the United States as profoundly and irreversibly as Reagan's 8 years, if not thirteen Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
