Should you’re feeling despair over Trump’s second regime, which begins at the moment, I perceive.
But I stay hopeful about America. Let me clarify why.
Trump hoodwinked common working Individuals into believing he’s on their aspect, and satisfied sufficient voters that Kamala Harris and Democrats have been on the aspect of cultural elites (as exemplified by Trump bogeymen the “deep state”, “wokeism”, and “coastal elites”).
However his hoax is not going to work for lengthy, given the oligarchy’s conspicuous takeover of America beneath Trump’s second regime.
That regime has barely begun nevertheless it’s already exposing a actuality that has been hidden from most Individuals for many years: the uncooked, stinking energy of the American oligarchy, and its use of obscene wealth to realize and enhance this energy.
My hope is based on Individuals lastly seeing and responding to this actuality. How can they not?
Immediately, seated collectively on the platform the place Trump is giving his inaugural deal with, would be the three richest individuals in America, every of whom contributed $1m to the occasion – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.
Every of them additionally owns highly effective social media platforms and have huge sway over what Individuals see and study.
Musk sank 1 / 4 of a billion {dollars} into getting Trump elected. He additionally turned his large social media platform, X, right into a cesspool of lies and bigotry in help of Trump.
Trump has licensed Musk, together with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, to focus on for elimination packages that Individuals rely on – thereby making means for a large tax reduce for the rich.
Bezos, the second-richest particular person in America and proprietor of Amazon, has reportedly agreed to pay $40m for a documentary about Melania Trump for which she is government producer, to run on Bezos’s streaming service, Amazon Prime.
Beforehand, Bezos blocked the newspaper he owns, the Washington Submit, from endorsing Harris within the 2024 election.
Zuckerberg, the third-richest particular person in America and CEO of Meta, has determined to permit lies and bigotry on his Fb and Instagram platforms, presumably in help of Trump.
Zuckerberg says the deciding issue for eliminating factchecking moderators was the “cultural tipping level” of Trump’s election.
Immediately, Zuckerberg is co-hosting a black-tie reception with the Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson to have a good time the inauguration.
The conflicts of curiosity are mind-numbing.
Apart from Musk’s social media powerhouse X, his SpaceX is a serious federal contractor by means of its rocket launches and its web service, Starlink. Along with Bezos proudly owning Amazon Prime and the Amazon distribution service, Amazon is a serious federal contractor by means of its cloud computing enterprise. Apart from Zuckerberg proudly owning Fb and Instagram, Zuckerberg is pouring billions into synthetic intelligence, as is Musk, in hopes of giant federal contracts.
To not point out the billionaires Trump is placing in command of key departments – treasury, commerce and training – to resolve on taxes and expenditures, tariffs and commerce, and even what younger Individuals study. And the opposite billionaires he’s bringing into the White Home.
Not because the gilded age of the late nineteenth century has such huge wealth turned itself into such conspicuous shows of political energy. Unapologetically, unashamedly, defiantly.
This flagrancy makes me hopeful. Why? As a result of Individuals don’t abide aristocracy. We have been based in revolt towards unaccountable energy and wealth. We is not going to tolerate this barefaced takeover.
The backlash might be beautiful.
I can not inform you exactly how or when it’s going to happen, however I count on it’s going to begin with common Individuals serving to their communities and defending probably the most weak.
We’ll then see it within the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, when Individuals elect true leaders who care about working individuals and the widespread good.
And simply as we did on the finish of the primary gilded age of the late nineteenth century when the oligarchy revealed its hubris and grandiosity, we are going to demand and get elementary reforms.
We’ll drive massive cash out of our politics.
We’ll elevate taxes on the rich to pay for what most Individuals want.
We’ll bust up large companies so they can not train untrammeled financial or political energy and regulate massive finance so it can not maintain the economic system hostage to its wanton playing.
And we are going to maintain big social media platforms accountable to the general public somewhat than to a handful of multibillionaires.
In gentle of Trump’s re-election, some individuals have concluded, wrongly, that Individuals don’t care about democracy – they’re extra involved about the price of residing or reproductive rights or immigration.
However no different situation will be addressed if we lose our democracy. Self-government is the means by which a free individuals grapples with its widespread challenges.
We couldn’t stay on the trail we have been on. Even beneath Democratic administrations, the sludge has been thickening for a few years. Elementary, systematic flaws have remained unaddressed. Inequalities have continued to widen. Corruption and bribery have worsened.
Even earlier than Trump, we have been on the way in which to dropping our democracy – however we didn’t concentrate. Now, we now have no alternative however to take care of it, to protect what’s left of it, and transfer ahead to strengthen it.
It’s unlucky that America has come so far. However, as a good friend put it, the authoritarian forces which have been constructing for years are just like the pus in an unsightly boil. The one means we work up sufficient outrage to lance it, she stated, is for the boil to get so massive and ugly that it disgusts all of us.
A number of years of one other Trump regime much more disgusting than the primary might be laborious on many individuals. We can not gloss over the magnitude of the struggling that can happen.
However when the oligarchy is uncovered for what it’s, the nation will see, extra clearly than ever earlier than, that we now have no different aside from to take again energy.
Solely then can we proceed the important work of America: the pursuit of equality and prosperity for the numerous, not the few. The preservation and strengthening of a authorities of, by and for the individuals.
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Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public coverage on the College of California, Berkeley, and the creator of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Widespread Good. His latest e book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Repair It, is out now. He’s a Guardian US columnist. His e-newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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