Only a working class party can fight Donald Trump’s corruption

The late Mario Cuomo had a rueful line that he liked to repeat: “You champion poetry; You govern in prose.” Donald Trump has an even simpler political formula: campaign like a populist; rule like a plutocrat. That was the pattern of his first term, when he ran as the incarnation of working-class anger – but filled his cabinet with more millionaires and billionaires than any previous president, with his most enduring domestic policy legacy being massive tax cuts that tended to enrich the already wealthy already super rich.

All indications are that Trump will repeat the same trick in his second run at the White House, with the only difference being that his second administration will be even more openly corrupt when it comes to accepting dark money donations from the rich. Trump’s shell game is so obvious you’d think it wouldn’t work on even the most gullible guy at a carnival. But Trump has a unique advantage in pulling off this deal: In a two-party system, voters must choose between him and the Democrats – a party so reliant on corporate money that it consistently suppresses criticism of Trump’s corrupt plutocracy.

Two current ones New York Times Reports illustrate how Trump will rule as president of the rich, evading even the most basic anti-corruption protections.

On Monday, the newspaper reported on how Trump’s economic policies will be dominated by Wall Street:

When Donald J. Trump first ran for the White House in 2016, his final ad decried Wall Street’s influence in Washington and featured threatening images of big banks and billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros.

Now, as president-elect, Mr. Trump has appointed two Wall Streeters to carry out his economic agenda. Scott Bessent, who invested money for Mr. Soros for more than a decade, is his choice for Treasury secretary, and Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, is named head of the Commerce Department. Mr. Trump’s decisions to lead his economic team show the prominent role of billionaire investors in setting an agenda intended to fuel a “labor boom” but which skeptics believe will primarily benefit the rich.

On Sunday, the Just reported that the Trump transition was paid for by large groups that enjoyed unprecedented protection from public disclosure:

President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping secret the names of donors funding his transition efforts, a break with tradition that could make it impossible to see which interest groups, corporations or wealthy people are backing him as he launches his second term.

Mr. Trump has so far refused to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that would impose strict limits on that fundraising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funding for the transition. By bypassing the agreement, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to fund staff, travel and office space needed to prepare for the takeover of the government.

What’s striking about these reports is the relative lack of complaints from Democrats about Trump’s betrayal of his populist promises or his blatant corruption. Watchdog groups like Accountable.US have criticized Trump’s Wall Street Cabinet, but most of the press and political opposition’s attention has focused on candidates accused of scandalous sexual misconduct, such as Matt Gaetz (who announced his candidacy for the presidency). Attorney General resigned) or Pete Hegseth (still on track to become Defense Secretary despite a disturbing sexual assault allegation).

On Thursday, Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Biden administration warning that the lack of an ethics plan for the Trump transition team “increases the risk that the new administration will govern for the benefit of special interests rather than the benefit of the American public.” .

Warren’s sober words contrast with Democrats’ general silence about the dangers of plutocracy and corruption in the Trump administration. In the decade since Trump emerged as a national figure, Democrats have not shied away from attacking the Republican demagogue on other issues, but have generally chosen fights in which they believed they could win bipartisan support. That’s why Democrats invested so much in the Russiagate investigation, which largely failed: It was a transparent ploy to win over Republican national security hawks concerned about Trump’s heterodox foreign policy ideas. But Trump’s ties to Russia were unclear, especially compared to his family’s close ties to Middle Eastern autocracies like Saudi Arabia. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who played a major role in setting Middle East policy in Trump’s first administration, later ran a hedge fund that received at least $2 billion in Saudi funding. But doing business with the Saudi autocracy is a bipartisan vice intertwined with the power and influence of the military-industrial complex.

The Democrats are themselves too tied to the plutocracy to mount an effective populist critique of Trump’s corruption. In the recent election, Kamala Harris allowed Wall Street donors to shape her economic message, such as by vetoing the naming and shaming of those who engage in price gouging.

After Harris’ defeat, Bernie Sanders revived his criticism of the Democratic Party’s shift away from the working class and economic populism. Over the weekend, Sanders wrote:

Will the Democratic leadership learn the lessons of its defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is ready to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life?

Highly unlikely.

They are far too tied to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their campaigns.

The only way forward remains the model that Sanders laid out in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns: a campaign financed by small donors that, by foregoing corporate funding, has the freedom to rely on unvarnished economic populism. The unique advantage of such a campaign is that it does not wallow in complicated distractions like Russiagate, but instead has the freedom to openly denounce Trump for the plutocrat he is. Sanders himself is too old to run again, but the path remains open for a future candidate (perhaps Shawn Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) to take over and give the Democrats the run there is only combative leadership that can truly defeat Trumpism.