For decades I've expected the US to swing towards a more forthright authoritarian form of government, and this has been happening unabated regardless of who occupies the White House. Clinton massively expanded the police state and prison industrial complex. Bush the Younger waged wars in Asia with reckless abandon. Obama unleashed the drones and ordered the first extrajudicial killing of a US citizen that we know of for sure. Biden backed Israel's monumental crime in Gaza and worked to stifle free speech in the US to defend it. Trump is not an anomaly except that he doesn't try to keep the facade of normalcy to sugar coat his actions.
During his first term Trump only had two constituencies that had clear demands he had to act on. The first were the evangelicals, for whom he ended Roe V. Wade and the other were the Capitalists who wanted taxes and regulations cut. Those things were done and the rest of his presidency was just sound and fury signifying nothing. This time around he has a new source of support that clearly wants something for themselves- the Technogarchs. These mighty modern age titans of Capital have achieved a level of market dominance not seen since the Gilded Age and there seems to be no Roosevelt to bring them to heel on the horizon. The Great Lockdowns solidified their control and they now rake in so much money that two of them have even decided to try and colonize space with their companies because they have so much excess Capital to splurge. So what do these men want and why have they decided to throw their lot in with Trump?
My assumption is that they just see Trump as a means to an end. The economy is rapidly shifting into a strange new era in which consent is manufactured by algorithmic social media, which the Technogarchs control completely. The only rival outside of their power was TikTok, which they have used the power of the state to enfeeble. Trump has done a lot to weaken the courts and this surely benefits them. The gargantuan trade war that Trump has kicked off over the past month is a bit trickier to explain. Many of the well established Capitalists are horrified at this, but surprisingly not the Technogarchs it seems. Apple got their exemption and I'm sure Tesla will as well. How Amazon can function without cheap goods from China is hard to fathom, but they haven't raised much of a fuss about what is happening. At any rate, these so called Techno-Feudalists are absolutely working hand in hand with Trump on this project and so is much of Wall Street. So the question becomes, what are they all aiming at?
A book written a few years ago called 'Trade wars are class wars' helps explain this to some extent. I'll allow the authors to speak for themselves:
"Regular people everywhere are being deprived of purchasing power — and tricked by chauvinists and opportunists into believing that their interests are fundamentally at odds. A global conflict between economic classes within countries is being misinterpreted as a series of conflicts between countries with competing interests."
This gets to a crucial element of this new alliance between the Technogarchs and the Don.
The Covid era undoubtedly helped the Technogarchs in many ways, but it also saw a strange moment in labor relations unfold. The drastic reduction in immigration and the opportunity for people to benefit from a much tighter labor market saw the working class actually make some gains. The American economy bounced back much faster than the rest of the world and this has led to wages actually rising; although it is worth pointing out that inflation has kept this from making workers actually more secure. Higher wages and empowered workers are things that all Capitalists from all eras are obviously against. Even so, the stock market was doing well, the dollar was strong and the Technogarchs prospered ever more. The creative destruction of Capitalism abhors stagnation, however, and anyone at the commanding heights of the game always needs to think several moves ahead to stay in that position.
Now I'm getting into outright speculation here. No reason to pretend I can see the future, just taking a wild guess at where this is headed. I think the goal is destroy the Federal Government as we know it and instead have fiefdoms dominated by corporations. Amazon might take over the Postal Service. SpaceX may seize NASA. The defense industry already has captured the Pentagon, so no need for change there. Labor in the US will be subdued by a combination of huge trade barriers for anyone not connected to Trump and radical change in immigration patterns. I suspect there will be some move against the Federal Reserve, although I can't begin to wrap my head around what they plan to do with the goose that lays the golden egg, but they are surely up to something. Radically reducing the social safety net started during the New Deal will make workers even more vulnerable and a housing market that is very soon to be inaccessible for huge swathes of Americans will ensure that many of the American working class become ever more dependent on their corporate overlords.
I also anticipate a serious attempt to start a major conflict with China. They need a big distraction to pull this all off without triggering a class war. As we have seen in the response to Gaza, the Muslim world just doesn't serve the purpose it once did. China is in a very vulnerable position as the global economy starts to wobble. Militarily they are still at least a decade out of being able to go toe to toe with the US and its allies. The one part of the equation that just makes no sense to me is the boisterous antagonism against America's allies. Why threaten Canada and Denmark? What is this madness about pulling out of NATO? That is a piece of the puzzle I just don't understand. I'm confident when it plays out a bit more we will start to see what the strategy is there. Perhaps just a strategic scare to make them all up their defense spending and make them realize how they can't take American military support for granted so when the shit really hits the fan our allies know they will need to pull their weight more than they have.
It will be a fascinating few years to see how the pieces start to fall into place. I've never been part of the 'Trump is an idiot' crowd. The guy hijacked the Republican party and has taken it down a radically different path in just under a decade. This is not to say he isn't going to completely fail in his grand designs, only that I think he does indeed have such plans that he is working intensely to realize and the Technogarchs are instrumental in all of this.
