After Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, the Heritage Foundation—a right-wing think tank that, among other things, has developed the Project 2025 agenda, an outline of what politics will be like if Trump wins—waved a American flag upside down, which has become an emblem of support for MAGA [Haz que Estados Unidos vuelva a ser grande] in general and the denial of elections in particular. This action may have shocked some old-guard conservatives who still thought Heritage was a serious institution, but it is, after all, nothing more than a think tank. It’s not as if upside-down flags are being waved by people we expect to defend our constitutional order, like Supreme Court justices.
Heritage’s acceptance of what amounts to an attack on democracy is a useful symbol of one of the troubling developments of this election, which now enters its final stretch. Heritage presents himself as a defender of liberty, but his real mission has always been to produce arguments—often based on shoddy research—in favor of low taxes for the rich. And his tacit support for anarchy illustrates the way many plutocrats—both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street—, after flirting with the maverick candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are uniting around Trump.
Why would billionaires support Trump? It’s not that things went bad for them. with President Joe Biden. Share prices have skyrocketed on the stock market. High interest rates, which are a burden for many Americans, are in any case a net positive for the rich with money to invest. And I doubt the super-rich are suffering much from the increase of fast food prices. However, the rich are surely betting that they will pay less taxes if Trump wins.
Biden and his team have offered guidance quite explicit about their fiscal program, which would directly raise taxes on high-income Americans and also the corporate tax, which would indirectly be primarily a tax on the rich. The higher income taxes these measures would produce would not be remotely comparable to those of the Eisenhower years, when the top marginal income tax rate was 91% and large estates could face inheritance taxes of up to 77%. Still, Biden’s plans, if carried out, would make the rich a little less rich.
Trump has been much less explicit, but it’s clear he wants to keep his 2017 tax cut in full, and his allies in Congress are committed not only to tax cuts but also to starving the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS), which would allow more wealthy Americans to avoid the taxes they legally owe.
So billionaires are not wrong to think they will pay less taxes if Trump wins. But why aren’t they more concerned about the bigger picture?
After all, even if all they care about is money, Trump’s agenda should make them very uneasy. His advisers’ plans to deport millions of immigrants would deplete the American workforce and be hugely disruptive. His protectionist proposals (which would be very different from Biden’s selective measures) could mean an all-out global trade war. If he is able to carry them out, his attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve risk causing inflation far more serious than any we have experienced in recent years.
Beyond all that, Trump will almost certainly try to weaponize the judicial system to go after those he perceives as his enemies. Only someone with a total ignorance of history could imagine themselves safe from that type of weapon; Although Trump considers him an ally at the moment, that can change in an instant.
And if you’ve been following Trump’s rantings, you know that, week by week, his rhetoric becomes less rational and more vindictive. However, his support among billionaires appears to be solidifying.
So what is going on? This is what I think, although I have to admit that it is conjecture. First, oligarchs probably believe that their wealth and influence will protect them from the arbitrary exercise of power. Trump and company may use corrupt law enforcement and a cowed judiciary against other people, but certainly not against them. By the time they realized how wrong they were, it would be too late. As I’ve written before, the super-rich can be extraordinarily obtuse and ignorant of history. Secondly, in a way, I don’t think it’s a money issue. At the top of the pyramid, wealth has largely to do with status and arrogance; As Tom Wolfe wrote long ago, it’s about “watching them jump.”
And when politicians don’t jump in, when they don’t treat the very rich with the deference and admiration they feel is their due, some of them get angry. We saw it when many on Wall Street turned against President Barack Obama—after he helped bail them out in the financial crisis—because they felt insulted by his occasional criticism.
Biden is no class warrior, but he clearly doesn’t worship the super-rich. And many of them are turning to Trump out of sheer pettiness.
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