A clear consensus has emerged that the economy was the key factor behind Trump’s
stunning victory. However, that may not be a very accurate description about what led a
disaffected electorate wanting to see Trump back in the White House as the U.S.
economy had been in a rather good shape from the second quarter of 2022 to the third
quarter of 2024 and was in fact outperforming all other advanced economies by a wide
margin. Indeed, surveys had consistently shown that the majority of voters had negative
views on the economy at large, thus revealing a disconnect between economic numbers
and public sentiment. Unemployment was the lowest it had been in decades, consumer
spending was up, and inflation had cooled off. Yet voters still thought the economy was
trash.

The U.S economic system does stink, no matter what the numbers show, and the
political system is totally dysfunctional, which explains why so many voters were not
fazed by Democrats’ core message that Trump posed a threat to democracy. They were
probably wondering where democracy was to be found when economic elites run the
show. Forty-five years of neoliberal economics have exacerbated capitalism’s inherent
tendencies toward economic inequality, created a permanent state of economic
insecurity, and led to the rise of an oligarchy.

The United States is the most unequal society in the developed world. The rich are
growing richer with every passing year while the middle class shrinks, and the poor are
left to their own fate for survival. Massive social inequalities and economic disparities
destroy trust and confidence in government and leave people thinking that the future is
unavoidably grim. This is the primary reason for the rise of ethno-nationalism and
authoritarian populism in the developed world, including of course Trumpism in the
United States. It is the disastrous socio-economic and political consequences of
neoliberalism that produce feelings of neglect, powerlessness and anger and lead
voters in turn to cast their ballots for demagogues like Donald Trump who promise a
return to a golden era.

The irony is that while Trump is an authoritarian bully who wishes to use the iron fist of
the state to rollback immigration and crush social agendas and even those who oppose
him, his economic views are overall staunchly pro-market and outrageously neoliberal.
In that regard, there is nothing fascistic about Trump when it comes to the economy.
Statism lies at the heart of fascist ideology. The state is the all-powerful entity for
fascists. The question of state-controlled planning of the economy is of paramount
importance to fascism. For fascists, the state should not control all the means of
production, as is the case with traditional socialism, but should dominate them.

Trump’s proposals for the economy are seen as a mixed bag. That’s because while he
has proclaimed himself a champion for deregulation, he is in favor of protectionist trade
policies. But Trump’s trade policy should not fool people that he is not a neoliberal. With
protectionist trade policies, Trump, as with the way he runs his own business, only sees
the short-term advantages in economic policy. Moreover, protectionist trade policy does
not depart from neoliberalism. As has been acutely pointed out by British political
economist Tom Wraight, Trump simply uses “the coercive power of the state to force
other nations to conform to market-based economic logic.”

Trump has promised an anti-regulation blitz from Day One upon his return to the White
House on virtually all aspects of the economy, including environmental and public health
regulations. After spending months lying to voters about his knowledge of Project 2025,
Trump has picked scores of people who worked on this ultra-reactionary policy
manifesto for top posts in his administration. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025
agenda for the economy, if fully implemented, would create a far more unequal and
harsher society as it entails policies that will lead to massive cuts on all social programs,
including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and food assistance, and
calls for massive disinvestment in public services and a host of new tax cuts for wealthy
households and corporations.

Project 2025 is the ultra-right wing game plan for the full completion of the neoliberal
economic vision and political nightmare that started nearly half a century ago. It will
produce far greater social dislocation and greater economic anxiety than any other time
since the onset of the neoliberal counterrevolution. Most of those who voted for Trump
on the basis of their perceptions about the direction of the economy and their belief that
the country is on the wrong track will be deeply disturbed by the new economic and
social realities that will emerge in the United States during the second Trump reign and
will hopefully rethink their support for Trumpism. The problem is that the Democratic
Party is either incapable or unwilling to offer citizens a new vision for the United States,
one that will end the rule of oligarchy, restore democracy, and put people and the planet
above profit.

Here are some policies that should be included in a socio-economic agenda for the
specific needs of the people in the twentieth-first century United States of America:

1. Implementing Universal Health Coverage (UHC). That is, a publicly administered
   system that guarantees that all people have access to the full range of quality
   health services when and where they need them. Financing of UHC could come
   entirely from broad-based tax revenues. Coverage would be universal and
   automatic. Covered services would include inpatient, outpatient, dental, mental
   health, and long-term health, as well as prescription drugs. All three levels of the
   U.S. government (federal, state, and local) would be involved in the health care
   system.
2. Getting rid of all challenges and obstacles of union organizing, which include
   making illegal threats to close a plant if workers select a union to represent them

and threatening workers with loss of jobs or benefits if they join a union. Current
U.S. law makes it difficult for workers to join unions and even excludes certain
categories of workers.

3. An industry-level approach to collective bargaining with active participation in
   social dialogue. An industry-level approach to collective bargaining will secure
   the best economic compensation possible for workers.
4. Undertaking a large-scale federal program of social housing construction. The
   United States faces a deep and persistent housing affordability crisis that
   demands active government intervention. It is beyond naïve belief to think that
   the market can fix the housing crisis. Repairing the house market with market-
   oriented solutions such as liberalizing zoning rules and other regulations have
   never worked. They do not lead to a major increase in housing supply or in more
   affordable housing. A strong housing safety net should also be introduced to
   address the problem of homelessness and ensure home security for the most
   vulnerable.
5. Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 or even $20 per hour. The current
   federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has been stagnant since 2009 and
   maintaining it is a scandal of grand proportions. No decent society, let alone the
   richest country in the world, should accept having such a thing as the “working
   poor.”
6. Fighting poverty and inequality. Poverty should not be defined one-dimensionally
   based on income alone. Poverty should be seen as access to a variety of
   resources, such as education, health, energy, jobs, rights and personal security.
   The task of eliminating poverty should include both short-term (cash handouts)
   and long-term approaches (delivering social services and addressing the
   structural causes of poverty with initiatives such as the guaranteed-jobs
   program).
7. Implementing the Green New Deal. Greening the economy is a vital and urgent
   task to save humanity and the planet from the impacts of global warming but also
   provides a macro-economic approach to sustainable economic growth. It’s a win-
   win situation and only vested interests (fossil fuel industry, banks, oil-producing
   nations) and lack of political stand on the way to transitioning to a green
   economy.
8. Cutting military spending. The United States spent $820 billion on national
   defense during the fiscal year 2023. It spends nearly 8.4 times as much on its
   military as Russia does and more than three times the amount of China. While
   the U.S. comprises just over 4 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for
   nearly 40 percent of global military spending. Between 2001 and 2022, the U.S.
   spent $8 trillion on war. The notion that such enormous defense spending is
   important for national security questions is utterly absurd. The U.S. homeland
   has never been invaded and no nation threatens U.S. national security. The
   obscene amount of money that the U.S. spends on defense, which different
   methodologies estimated to be above $1.5 trillion for the fiscal year 2022, is for

the building and maintenance of the U.S. empire. The U.S has over 750
overseas military bases, which only provoke geopolitical tensions and harm the
United States, as David Vine demonstrates in his book Base Nation: How U.S.
Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. Money saved from cuts in
the defense budget can go towards supporting social programs and/or for
reducing the national debt. Arguing for reforms in Social Security and Medicare
when the country spends so much money on the military is morally indefensible
and will become politically unacceptable if people realize how wasteful and
harmful military sending is.

At the heart of the neoliberal vision is a societal order based on the prioritization of
corporate power and free markets and the abandonment of public services. The
neoliberal claim is that economies would perform more effectively, producing greater
wealth and economic prosperity for all, if markets were allowed to perform their
functions without government intervention. This claim is predicated on the idea that free
markets are inherently just and can create effective low-cost ways to produce consumer
goods and services. It is all rubbish, of course; nothing but an ideological pretext to
make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Neoliberalism is indeed not simply an
economic doctrine but also a socio-political ideology that places individual self-interest
before the common good, displays indifference to social inequalities and economic
disparities and subsequently justifies plutocracy.

Trump’s approach to government and corporate interests, which he will undertake with
an extra heavy authoritarian twist, will magnify all aspects of the neoliberal nightmare
that has engulfed the United States under both Republican and Democratic
administrations for the past several decades. Unfortunately, a majority of the U.S.
electorate refused to see what Trump really stands for and was duped into believing that
their great leader is the one to take on the detestable liberal/neoliberal establishment
and create in turn a system that works for the average citizens, not just the rich.
The next four years promise to be one of severe cruelty for the most vulnerable people
in the United States and a nightmare for the environment. We should raise walls of
resistance as much as we can. More important, though, we should demand from the
democratic forces to adopt a socio-economic agenda that puts people’s needs above
corporate interests and consigns neoliberal capitalism to the dustbin of history.

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