Trump’s Policies Offer Plutocracy on Steroids, Not Economic Populism

Trump’s Policies Offer Plutocracy on Steroids, Not Economic Populism

Trump’s Policies Offer Plutocracy on Steroids, Not Economic Populism

Democrats must expose the president’s broken promise to working people.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

In May 2016, journalist Joshua Green asked Donald Trump, who had just clinched the Republican presidential nomination, to envision the future of the party under his leadership. “Five, 10 years from now—different party,” Trump predicted. “You’re going to have a workers’ party.”

The notion that Trump, with his record of callousness and corruption, would ever seriously address the challenges facing working people was always ridiculous. As president, Trump has demonstrated that his interest in workers begins and ends with his ability to profit, both politically and financially, from their anger and pain. He spent much of his first year in office traveling to his own business properties at taxpayers’ expense, and his only significant legislative achievement is a massive tax break for corporations and the rich. This is plutocracy on steroids, not economic populism. It’s not simply that Trump has failed to live up to his lofty promises to protect factory workers and negotiate better trade deals. Since taking office a year ago, Trump has presided over a systematic assault on the rights of American workers that is poised to intensify in 2018.

The attack is being waged on several fronts. Among other destructive steps, Trump’s Labor Department abandoned an Obama-era rule to expand overtime pay and recently proposed a new rule that would enable employers to legally steal workers’ tips. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the rule would rob tipped employees of $5.8 billion annually. In December, the National Labor Relations Board also issued a series of pro-corporate rulings, including one that will make it more difficult for smaller groups of workers within large organizations to unionize. Meanwhile, after a year in which the number of coal miner fatalities across the country doubled, the administration is reportedly considering doing away with regulations intended to prevent miners from contracting black lung.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Be part of 160 years of confronting power 


Every day,
The Nation exposes the administration’s unchecked and reckless abuses of power through clear-eyed, uncompromising independent journalism—the kind of journalism that holds the powerful to account and helps build alternatives to the world we live in now. 

We have just the right people to confront this moment. Speaking on Democracy Now!, Nation DC Bureau chief Chris Lehmann translated the complex terms of the budget bill into the plain truth, describing it as “the single largest upward redistribution of wealth effectuated by any piece of legislation in our history.” In the pages of the June print issue and on The Nation Podcast, Jacob Silverman dove deep into how crypto has captured American campaign finance, revealing that it was the top donor in the 2024 elections as an industry and won nearly every race it supported.

This is all in addition to The Nation’s exceptional coverage of matters of war and peace, the courts, reproductive justice, climate, immigration, healthcare, and much more.

Our 160-year history of sounding the alarm on presidential overreach and the persecution of dissent has prepared us for this moment. 2025 marks a new chapter in this history, and we need you to be part of it.

We’re aiming to raise $20,000 during our June Fundraising Campaign to fund our change-making reporting and analysis. Stand for bold, independent journalism and donate to support The Nation today.

Onward, 

Katrina vanden Heuvel 
Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x