Trump, Musk Have Launched A New Class War. Societies Reverting to Oligarchies, Fight for Democracy
"Trump and Musk have launched a new class war. In the UK, we must prepare to defend ourselves," by George Monbiot, The Guardian, Jan. 19, 2025. Ed. - Across the world, societies are reverting to oligarchies. How to resist? Fight for democracy with all we’ve got.
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Seldom in recent history has class war been waged so blatantly.
Generally, billionaires and hectomillionaires employ concierges to attack the poor on their behalf. But now, freed from shame and embarrassment, they no longer hide their involvement. In the US, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, will lead the federal assault on the middle and working classes: seeking to slash public spending and the public protections defending people from predatory capital. He shares responsibility for the Dept. of Government Efficiency with another billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy. They have been recruiting further billionaires to oversee cuts across government. These plutocrats will not be paid. They will wage their class war pro bono, out of the goodness of their hearts.
Musk, with a fortune of more than $400bn (£330bn), has warned: “We have to reduce spending to live within our means.” But he doesn’t mean “we”, he means you.
Trump and Musk want to cut the federal budget so they can slash taxes for the ultra-rich. Since 2020, the wealth of the 12 richest men in the US has risen by a mere 193%. Collectively, the poor dears now own only $2tn. Musk’s stated aims may be impossible to realise. When he took the role, he claimed he would cut the $6.75tn in federal spending by $2tn, which is actually more than the entire discretionary budget. But the intention is clear: a contraction whose consequences would be devastating for most Americans. Trump's election was a response to the cruel failures of neoliberalism, but it will also be their ultimate expression. It was a response to the corruption of the political system by private money. And it will be the system’s ultimate corruption.
If Musk’s programme succeeds, we hardly have to imagine its impacts on human life and the living world, because for the past year a similar plan has been enacted in Argentina. There, Javier Milei has been waging his class war on behalf of international capital. The results include a horrifying surge in poverty; a collapse in the number of people with health insurance, coupled with critical underfunding of the public health system; proliferating hate crimes; a coordinated assault on science and environmental protection; and a free-for-all for the foreign corporations hoping to seize the country’s minerals, land and labour. In the US, the motherfrackers will be released to do as they please.
Trump’s nominated energy secretary, Chris Wright, runs a fracking services company and claims: “There is no climate crisis.” Already, banks and corporations are gleefully tearing up their environmental commitments. The massive programme of cuts and deregulation that Musk and Ramaswamy seek extends the sadomasochistic politics now ascendant on both sides of the Atlantic. Demagogues have found that it doesn’t matter how much their followers suffer, as long as their designated enemies are suffering more. If you can keep ramping up the pain for scapegoats (primarily immigrants), voters will thank you for it, regardless of their own pain..
Why has the class war been unleashed now, not just in the US, but in much of the rest of the world?
Because the democratising, distributive effects of two world wars have worn off...
- Read More,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/19/donald-trump-elon-musk-class-war-uk-us-oligarchies-democracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monbiot
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