Status update on what Trump and MAGA are delivering

Context

Trump and MAGA elites with their authoritarian, kleptocratic Project 2025 blueprint have been power long enough to start assessing what they are delivering. Not surprisingly, their product is broken promises for us and the public interest and a vast cornucopia of benefits for the rich and powerful people and allied business interests. The broken promises were necessary to put MAGA’s wealth and power movement in power, so there’s no surprise in what has been delivered. The cornucopia of benefits to the rich and powerful include gutted protections and loss of vast power for consumers, workers and the environment, with vast wealth and power gains for allied elite MAGA authoritarians and kleptocrats.

Of course, we’re not yet in a full blown kleptocratic dictatorship-oligarchy-Christian nationalist theocracy. But those are the main goals that Trump and MAGA elites are clearly working to attain in their ruthless quest for more wealth and power. The elite MAGA mindset is elitist, kleptocratic, and authoritarian. Most of the MAGA rank and file mindset is, more or less, the opposite of that. With their relentless demagoguery, lies, slanders, crackpottery, bigotry and irrational emotional manipulation, MAGA elites have successfully deceived, manipulated and betrayed most of the rank and file.

Some of what has been delivered

A NYT opinion piece, Trump’s Broken Promises, in 11 Charts, lays out some of what he and MAGA elites have delivered. This only scratches the surface. However, is it exemplary of MAGA’s overall authoritarian-kleptocrat wealth and power project. These are some of the delivered goods:

Q: Can widespread false beliefs among the MAGA rank and file about what they falsely believe they support vs what they rationally support a belief that their ignorance grounded in MAGA deceit constitutes an existential threat to secular democracy, the even-handed rule of law and civil liberties that MAGA elites target for elimination or major scaling back?

Info sources:

Democratic Backsliding Reaches Western Democracies, with U.S. Decline “Unprecedented”

Project 2025 — (the blueprint includes dedicated chapters on gutting or neutering the EPA, Labor Department, Treasury, CFPB, FTC, SEC, FCC, and Federal Election Commission, and reorienting their missions from service to the public interest to service to elite people and allied special interests)

The People’s Guide to Project 2025 — What we discovered was a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people. From attacking overtime pay, student loans, and reproductive rights, to allowing more discrimination, pollution, and price gouging, those behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to create a country only for some, not for all of us.

Heritage Foundation

Strategic anti-corruption communications: Guidance for behavior change interventions

Congressional Budget Office: Distributional Effects of Public Law 119-21 — The changes in resources will not be evenly distributed among households. The agency estimates that, in general, resources will decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources will increase for households in the middle and toward the top of the income distribution.

How Politicized Prosecutions Undermine the Rule of Law — The U.S. Department of Justice is the American people’s law firm. Traditionally independent from the political motivations of any given administration, the Justice Department is supposed to defend the rule of law without prejudice and protect the rights of all Americans. It is not the president’s personal law firm and should not be used for politicized prosecutions. But since starting his second term in office, President Trump has aimed his animus at political opponents through the Justice Department by threatening arrests, ordering unwarranted investigations and prosecutions, and jeopardizing military retirements.

The Department of Justice’s Broken Accountability System

Congressional Research Service: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Related Nutrition Programs in P.L. 119-21: An Overview

Things most Americans want from politics but mostly don't get

When one looks at poll data from over recent years, a number of things most Americans claim to want come up. By and large, they get these things either partially or somewhat, just a little, or not at all. Some things Americans want and have to some extent are subject to being taken away by some or all of the federal government (courts, president, executive agencies, or congress) or by state governments. Abortion and reasonable gun safety laws are two examples of fading rights most Americans want but don't universally have. 

Dems vs Trump & MAGA

On the 23-item list, Democrats are usually much closer to majority public preferences than Trump/MAGA policy. Of course, the Dems don't have enough power to enact any of the favored policies most Americans say they want. As long as Dems stay out of power, average Americans much have less chance of getting more of what they want. 

The matter of what many Americans believe they are getting or not getting is a different issue. Millions of Americans sincerely believe they are getting various things they want from politics, while in fact that is false. Often the opposite is true. That is a well-documented phenomenon in modern American politics.

Between the two big parties, the differences are greatest on voting access, guns, abortion, immigration, citizenship, and due-process, paid leave/child care, health coverage, cannabis, global warming, and anti-corruption rules. For all of those issues, Trump and MAGA are bitterly opposed to what most Americans say they want. 

Now that is not to say that Trump and MAGA openly claim to be opposed to those things. For the most part, their demagoguery, lies, crackpottery, and irrational emotional manipulation indicate that they support those things. That is a major source of beliefs that tens of millions of Americans sincerely but falsely believe to be true.

That's just part of the human condition. In politics, many people can be terribly deceived, manipulated and betrayed. But, there's no law against it.

Q: What convincing evidence is there, if any, that the Dem Party is generally more opposed to what most Americans say they want than Trump and MAGA elite politics and policy have delivered since 2017? 

Info sources: 

2024 Democratic Party Platform

What We’re Fighting For

Americans Widely Support Paid Family and Medical Leave, but Differ Over Specific Policies

Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election

Trump’s protests aside, his agenda has plenty of overlap with Project 2025

Project 2025, Explained

Americans’ Views of Government’s Role: Persistent Divisions and Areas of Agreement

Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated

Poll Shows Americans Support Independent Commissions for Redistricting

America’s frustration with the cost of living continues to rise

Trump Clings to Inaccurate Climate Change Talking Points

Social democracy vs. democratic socialism

After recent primary election results, it's hard to ignore the concept of social-something or another rampaging around in the Dem Party. 

As usual and expected, Trump and MAGA demagoguery are spewing tons of toxic mental miasma about communism in the Dem Party. MAGA's tippy-top best hyperbole and lies attacks are trying to make the liberal social-whatever sound like a horrific, imminent overwhelming catastrophe. No surprise in any of that moral rot. 

MSM reporting like this, New CNBC Generation Lab poll shows almost half of 18- to 34-year-olds favor democratic socialism, is becoming more prominent. Apparently, most of those folks have a very negative view of the American economy and capitalism generally. 

Social democracy vs. democratic socialism

Social democrats support the concept of social democracy. Modern social democracy evolved from a movement seeking a peaceful transition to actual socialism into a politics that generally accepts a regulated capitalist mixed economy with significant public welfare. These people want much better regulation of capitalism than what the GOP has been arguing for since the 1960s, and what Trump and MAGA policy have been delivering since they came into power in 2017.

By contrast, democratic socialists are real socialists. This group wants a democratically run socialist economy, including abolishment of capitalism, not just regulation of it. This group has completely given up on capitalism, and they want socialism to replace it. That's true radicalism. They want public ownership of assets used to produce services and goods to insure that they serve the public interest before serving wealthy people and entities and their special interests. 

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) elected officials or candidates are generally aligned with the DSA’s stated premise, which is that working people should run the economy and society democratically to meet human needs rather than generate profits for a few. Apparently a growing portion of Americans find that appealing (but some of us do not).

 

Policy overlaps

Policy overlap between the two groups is huge. In general, both social democrats and democratic socialists want things like (1) universal or near-universal health coverage, often by Medicare expansion, a public option, or single-payer insurance, (2) stronger labor unions by easier organizing, penalties for union busting, sectoral bargaining, wage floors, and public-sector labor rights, (3) progressive taxation, expanded refundable tax credits, Social Security and Medicare protection, paid leave, child care, and affordable higher education, (4) investment and industrial policy that protects the environment, coupled with supporting labor standards and public infrastructure, and (5) aggressive antitrust, consumer regulation, financial rules, and public provision in selected areas.

Polling indicates that most Americans mostly support those policy goals. The Democratic Party platform itself is fundamentally aligned with those policy goals. The Dem Party still does not support full social ownership of the economy. The Dem Party supports reconstructing labor bargaining power and decommodifying or subsidizing some necessities (health care, shelter, education, water, mobility) while retaining a predominantly a private-enterprise economy. 

Obviously, MAGA elites and Trump oppose all of it, despite their gaslighting propaganda telling us they support the little guy and his concerns. By now it is crystal clear that MAGA propaganda is a huge pile of . . . . .

Big stinking pile of MAGA propaganda

about working for the little guy

Policy differences

There are big differences between the two groups. Democratic socialists support major changes like (1) worker-owned or worker-governed firms, (2) public, municipal, cooperative, or social ownership in essential sectors, typically energy, transit, housing, finance, health care, and broadband, (3) public banking and democratic control over investment, (4) social housing that is permanently outside speculative private markets, (5) a greater role for democratic planning, especially in climate transition and essential goods, and (6) universal programs for wealth redistribution, and as a means of reducing people's dependency on employers and markets.

That's real socialism. Those people aren't messing around with capitalism any more. The reasons for that level of discontent are obvious. MAGA and trickle down economics mostly trickles wealth and power up to elites and allied special interests. In the process, most of get shafted and are left in a grumpy mood.

Oats are natural resources, means of production, control of money and finance, the horse is the elites and special interests, the emoji is what it looks like, and we are the sparrow

A critically important point: American democratic socialism is not the same as Soviet-style state socialism. The American theory emphasizes pluralist democracy, civil liberties, decentralized or mixed forms of social ownership, and worker/community governance. By contrast with the USSR, which substitutes state bureaucrats for private owners, keeping nearly all of the citizenry in crappy, permanently shafted conditions. MAGA demagogues routinely lie about this critical distinction.

Where or what is the Dem Party establishment in all of this?

 The Dem establishment is heterogenous, reflecting the bigger tent it lives in compared to the GOP. It is composed of mostly of wall street Democrats or business- and finance-friendly liberals, labor liberals or New Deal liberals, civil-rights and rights-based liberals, and state and local party machines.

The Dem establishment is reasonably described as conventional social liberalism. That means market-friendly capitalism with targeted benefits, anti-discrimination law, limited regulation, and incremental reform when needed. Social democracy is generally to the left of that. Democratic socialism is further left than that.

Q1: Does it feel as if the Dem Party establishment is too timid, conservative and cautious to adequately deal with the aggression and corrupt power of Trump, MAGA elites and their brand of brutal political warfare?

Q2: To what extent is the rise of American style socialism on the left the fault of Trump and MAGA party politics and policies, with their failures to deliver for the little guy -- mostly their fault, some, a little, or none at all?

Info sources: 

Social democracy

Democratic socialism

What is a democratic socialist? Inside the movement behind Mamdani’s rise

Social Democracy vs. Democratic Socialism: What’s the Difference?

Tyranny and corruption hide in agreement, disagreement reveals it

It may seem counterintuitive, but right now in the US policy agreement, including false perceptions of agreement, helps hide tyranny and corruption. Conflict reveals authoritarianism and kleptocracy. That is the heart of the message from research by Martin Gilens and Ben Page. 

Their work, and that of other researchers, helps explain why a country like the US can retain elections, produce some popular policies, and still undergo serious democratic degradation. Majorities remain highly visible, but their power to get outcomes they want against bigoted authoritarian wealth, racial hierarchy, organized politics, and authoritarian influences disappears over time. Power and wealth quietly, usually unnoticed, flows from the people to the elites in control. 

That is what is happening right now in the US under Trump, MAGA elites and their major donors and enablers. Their agenda is kleptocracy and authoritarianism, the latter being mostly a mix of dictatorship, oligarchy, white-power nationalism, and virulent Christian nationalist theocracy. Such corrupt and authoritarian politics translate into core goals of concentrating wealth and power with a few trusted, mostly above-the-law elites, and their major donors, allied corporations and special interests. Except for the theocrats, it's almost all about wealth and power for themselves, almost always at our expense. 

Digression: The theocrats? They and their divine vision of God demand culture war. It's waged largely by attacking, hating, slandering, and/or oppressing immigrants, LGBQT people, women's equality, secular law, and transparency in government. For the most part, Christian theocrat elites are a very nasty bunch of hypocrites, liars, bigots and racists.

Anyway, public majority does not exercise governing power when because it sometimes receives policies it favors. If it receives those policies because affluent citizens and/or powerful organized interests also approve, that is not majority political power in effect. In those cases, the majority benefits from elite consent. Democracy is truly tested when preferences conflict. Unfortunately, research indicates that American policy has most often been tilted toward wealth and organized power. The wealthy and organized interests have systematically disproportionate influence, especially when preferences diverge on consequential economic questions. Wealth and power flows to the top, not to the rest of us.

The relevant test is not whether ordinary people ever get what most of them want. The real test of democracy is whether the majority prevails at least equally as often when their preferences conflict with wealth and organized power. For the US, the empirical truth is no. When the elites oppose, the American majority usually loses. That is exactly and inextricably how authoritarianism and kleptocracy work. Frighteningly, that ugly truth about Trump and his MAGA elites, is mostly or completely hidden from millions of demagoguery-deceived Americans.