Donald Trump ran for the presidency as a populist and he won as a populist. All the usual suspects—such as Hillary Clinton—condemned him as a populist. The political playbook his campaign followed served up the typical populist fare for the voters. That is, Trump promised to serve the “common people” by fighting against the ruling class, “draining the swamp,” punishing the corrupt, ending the government gravy train, and generally throwing a monkey wrench in the whole ruling class’s machine of exploitation.  But now, with nearly three years still to go in the Trump presidency, it’s quite clear that Trump will not be doing anything to actually upset the governing elite’s apple cart.

Aside from a very partial victory on immigration—and Trump has now put immigration on the back burner to concentrate on his Israel First policy—Trump has failed on every other matter. I say “failed” because it is failure  from the perspective of those who wanted to see a meaningful change in how Washington rules over its tax farm known as “America.” The failure can be seen in how government spending is higher than ever, monetary policy is inflationist as always, and there have been no major legislative changes that so much as inconvenience the ruling elites. Trump has been either unwilling or unable to translate his electoral success in 2024 into any sort of enduring legislative program. Instead, Trump decided to do the easy thing and rule by decree which means his changes will be easily undone a few minutes after his successor (who will almost certainly be a Democrat) is sworn in. Moreover, as Trump works to expand the prerogatives of the presidency, the next Democrat will be taking over a federal government that is even more powerful than when Trump took office. 

As a result, Trump’s presidency is an immense success from the perspective of the ruling elites who actually control the US government. Who are these elites? They are the combined group of government agents and interest groups which use a mutually beneficial network of client-patron relationships to ensure the continual flow of resources from the general population—i.e., the net taxpayers—to the governing elites and their allies. Institutionally, the governing elites include the permanent government—i.e., the “administrative state” or “the deep state”—on the “patron side.” On the “client” side are key interest groups such as military contractors, labor unions, the Israeli state, Silicon Valley tech firms, major “charitable” foundations, major financial institutions, and others. From the perspective of this patron-client network, partisan politics are largely irrelevant because neither party poses a significant threat to any of these interests. Only if there is an overwhelming sea-change in public opinion—and some portion of the governing network becomes politically radioactive—will one or more of the parties begin to cut off one or more entrenched interests off from the taxpayer-funded flow of resources. Note, however, that his doesn’t endanger the ruling elites overall. This simply changes the composition of elites that control the regime. 

It is now clear that the governing elites have prevailed against whatever forces of populism might have had some hope of threatening the status quo under Trump. After all, Trump arrived in........

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