In the twilight of American democracy, a battle is brewing – not just against Donald Trump’s executive overreach, but against the creeping oligarchy embodied by Trump and his billionaire enablers, chief among them Elon Musk. The question haunting progressives is not just whether Democrats can resist, but whether they have the will to fight.
Trump’s latest executive orders – gutting federal education funding, rolling back environmental protections and dismantling worker protections – are not aberrations but the natural culmination of a system increasingly designed to serve the ultra-rich. Musk’s shadow looms large, as he consolidates influence over critical infrastructure, social media, and even space exploration. Together, Trump and Musk are architects of a new, more insidious form of corporate authoritarianism, one where political power is wielded not only from the White House but from the boardrooms of tech monopolies.
The fragility of Trump’s economic war
Trump presents himself as the ultimate economic warrior, fighting China, reshoring American jobs, and punishing corporations that fail to comply with his nationalist agenda. But beneath this rhetoric lies an economic policy built on contradictions and fragility. His sweeping tariffs and trade wars have left American consumers burdened with rising costs, while the deregulation spree has benefited the wealthy at the expense of working-class voters.
Trump’s so-called economic populism is, in practice, a Trojan horse for oligarchic control. Musk, a direct beneficiary of tax breaks and deregulation, has capitalised on these policies while touting his own brand of libertarian techno-optimism. Meanwhile, corporate tax cuts have accelerated wealth concentration, making billionaires even more powerful in shaping economic policy. If history is any guide, this is a formula not for long-term economic strength but for increased volatility and widening inequality.
Yet, the Democratic response has been equally hollow. Biden’s trade policies have maintained Trump’s protectionist rhetoric while doing little to challenge the deeper structural inequalities of the American economy. This bipartisan failure reveals the essential truth of American politics: economic policy is dictated not by the needs of the people but by the demands of capital.
War on immigrants: A political distraction
As Trump prepares for another election cycle, his administration’s renewed war on immigrants serves as a convenient distraction from economic mismanagement. His aggressive deportation policies, family separation tactics, and draconian border measures do little to address real immigration challenges but succeed in stoking nationalist fervour.
The moral and economic consequences are profound. The labor market, dependent on immigrant labor, suffers under Trump’s restrictive measures. Industries from agriculture to healthcare struggle with workforce shortages, while asylum seekers – many fleeing crises worsened by U.S. foreign policy – are turned into scapegoats for broader societal problems. This xenophobic agenda is not about security or economic policy; it is about consolidating power through fear.
Democrats, for all their rhetorical opposition, have largely upheld the status quo. The Biden administration has maintained Trump-era border policies, expanded detention centers, and failed to deliver on immigration reform. Cruelty is not an anomaly; it is a bipartisan doctrine. Both parties treat immigrants as political fodder, diverting public outrage downward while shielding the billionaires who profit from the exploitation of both native-born and migrant workers.
Trump’s assault on American colleges: A war on knowledge
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Trump’s autocratic vision is his recent war on higher education. His administration’s efforts to defund institutions, eliminate diversity initiatives, and crack down on academic freedom reflect a broader attack on critical thinking itself.
The Republican strategy of branding universities as elitist indoctrination centers is more than just culture war rhetoric – it is an authoritarian playbook designed to weaken institutions that produce independent thought. Musk, too, has joined this crusade, using his influence over social media to amplify attacks on academia, labelling it as an enemy of innovation and free enterprise.
By targeting universities, Trump and his allies seek to dismantle one of the last bastions of democratic resistance. History shows that authoritarian regimes first target intellectuals, artists, and educators, silencing dissent before tightening their grip on power. The defunding of public education and the erosion of tenure protections are not isolated policies; they are part of a broader effort to render the public more susceptible to oligarchic rule.
The Democrats condemn attacks on education yet ignore the deeper corporatisation of academia, where billionaire donors and think tanks dictate curricula, research, and hiring. The result is a university system that serves capital more than the public good.
Can the Democrats fight back?
The Democratic response has been predictably tepid. Party leaders issue carefully worded rebukes, but their actions betray a paralysis born of institutional inertia. While progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders electrify crowds with their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, the larger question remains: will the Democratic Party serve as a bulwark against creeping autocracy, or merely preside over democracy’s managed decline?
The frustration is unmistakable. Chants of “Primary Chuck!” at rallies underscore the growing impatience with figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose deference to Trump-era funding deals has alienated a disillusioned base. The Democratic establishment, ever risk-averse, invokes pragmatism – but too often, pragmatism has been little more than a polite name for capitulation.
Historical stakes
Trump and Musk’s America is not just conservative – it is oligarchic. In this vision, policy serves the wealthiest, labor unions are dismantled, dissent is suppressed by algorithm, and public institutions bow to private power. Democracy, in such a system, becomes ornamental.
History is clear on what happens when democracies fail to confront rising autocracy. The Weimar Republic’s hesitance did not stop Hitler; it paved his path. Democrats now face a choice: fight to preserve democratic institutions or be remembered as passive witnesses to their collapse.
Some within the party grasp the urgency. Ocasio-Cortez’s openness to challenging Schumer signals a growing resistance to institutional inertia, while Sanders’ appeal to working-class voters underscores the need for mass mobilisation. But resistance cannot rest on a handful of progressives. It must be systemic, enforced through legislation and backed by a party willing to wield power as unapologetically as those who seek to dismantle it.
The illusion of opposition
The Republican and Democratic parties, far from being ideological adversaries, are best understood as two wings of the same ruling class. They manufacture political conflict to create the illusion of choice while ensuring that power remains concentrated in the hands of the elite. This system is not a democracy but a controlled political marketplace where billionaires fund both sides, dictating policy while the public is left with hollow electoral rituals.
As long as billionaires control both parties, the American people will remain spectators in a political drama designed to distract rather than liberate. The only real choice is whether to continue playing along – or to rewrite the script entirely.
Democratic Party’s final test
Democrats have been here before. The New Deal was not born from polite negotiations; it was wrenched into existence by a party willing to defy the wealthy elite. The Civil Rights Act did not pass through half-measures; it passed because leaders understood that history does not remember those who hedge their bets – it remembers those who fight.
The coming months will reveal whether the Democratic Party has absorbed these lessons or whether it remains trapped in its cycle of performative opposition. But if it fails – if it continues to cower in the face of billionaire power and executive authoritarianism – then it will not be Trump or Musk alone who erode American democracy. It will be the Democratic Party itself, through its failure to act, that writes its obituary.
Debashis Chakrabarti is a political columnist and Commonwealth fellow, UK.
