Donald Trump isn’t in the White House yet, but the world is already getting a peek into what his presidency will look like. As expected, his choices to lead the massive bureaucratic federal agencies he will oversee are a mix of sycophants, loyalists, TV personalities, and capitalists. It’s easy to think this is typical Trump behavior: surrounding himself with his clearly corrupt buddies. That’s absolutely true, but there’s more to it this time around.
Unlike Trump’s first presidency, many more extremely powerful and wealthy people wanted Trump to win, planned for it, then made a concerted effort to make that happen. Among this cohort are Silicon Valley billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, whose direct support of the Trump campaign now earns them a mainline into the White House. Their goal, shared by many conservative capitalists, is to dismantle the massive bureaucracy of the federal government. To them it’s a battle for freedom from an oppressive state; to cut through the red tape that supposedly holds the American people down, but this has dangerous consequences for working class people around the world.
