Not Different in Substance
Many commentators have claimed that Trump’s Republican Party is different from the pre-Trump party. It is said that while he pre-Trump party was the party of business, the new party is the party of the working class. The old party supported low taxes and limited regulation of business. It supported free trade and opposed labor unions. The new party, on the other hand, is a populist party that supports trade restrictions in order to benefit working Americans, and the new party opposes immigration on the ostensible grounds that immigrants take jobs away from Americans and also pollute American culture. The new party supports conservative positions on cultural issues, as well.
It is true that the Republican Party has changed its
position on free trade, but we should not delude ourselves into
thinking that the changes indicate an interest in the welfare of working
Americans. The Republican Party is still the party of business, but the
interests of American business have changed both because new types of
businesses have emerged and because the competitive environment in the world’s
market has changed. The Republican Party may no longer the party of General
Motors and U.S. Steel, but it is the party of Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
And yet, Trump's Republican Party seems very different from the pre-Trump party, and "seems" is the key word here. The Republican commitment to business-friendly policies is concealed by a change in political style and rhetoric. Trump's brash, flamboyant, populist style makes the party seem new, and his willingness flout the traditional norms of political discourse have attracted millions of voters. People who feel that "the system" is rigged against them are inevitably attracted to a politician who expresses a willingness to tear it down.
However, Trump's iconoclastic style is a front. It conceals his commitment to policies that favor big business over other interests. That commitment should not surprise us. After all, he is himself a billionaire, and so are his friends and advisors.
A Standard Republican Cabinet and a Billionaire Advisor
Anyone who doubts the real identity of the "new" Republican Party need only look at the list of people whom Trump has picked for his cabinet. Here are a few of them:
Secretary of State: Marco Rubio, a senator from the very Republican State of Florida and a member of the state's reliably Republican Cuban community
Secretary of the Treasury: Scott
Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager
Secretary of Defense: Peter
Hegseth, a former military officer and a conservative TV commentator
Secretary of the Interior: Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a conservative politician with longstanding ties to the oil and gas industry
Secretary of Agriculture: Brooke
Rollins, a conservative lawyer and CEO of America First Policy Institute.
Secretary of Commerce: Howard
Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street executive.
Director of the E.P.A: Lee Zeldin, a conservative politician who has a long, consistent record of opposing environmental regulation of business
The list of goes on, and – apart from a few genuine nuts like R.F Kennedy, Jr. - it is a list of members and supporters of corporate America who would not have appeared out of place in any Republican administration in the twentieth or twenty-first century. These are the people who will make and execute the policies of Trump’s administration, and there is hardly a MAGA populist among them.
Then, there is Elon Musk, who seems to have a unique place as an advisor to Mr. Trump. Musk is a billionaire, and his friends and advisors are a “who’s who” of Silicon Valley billionaires, venture capitalists and executives. They will add the weight of their pro-business attitudes to those of the members of Mr. Trump's cabinet.
A Split Over Immigration
The lack of MAGA populists among Trump's closest advisors creates a problem for the party as a whole and for Trump’s
administration. He was elected as a populist, and the millions of
voters who responded to his MAGA message are not expecting business as usual.
The strain that this situation creates is already apparent.
Part of the MAGA message was a pledge to shut down
immigration. The MAGA voters do not interpret the pledge to mean that immigration
will be shut down except when corporations want to hire immigrants, but people
like Elon Musk want immigration to continue and even to expand when it is
profitable for his companies and those of his friends. This difference has
already surfaced in a public
dispute over expanding the number of H1-B visas for technical workers.
The dispute over H1-B visas is just the beginning. The MAGA voters have been promised a program of massive deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, but we can be sure that if anything like that is really attempted, it will generate opposition from the big farmers and agricultural corporations who fund Republican campaigns in many states. Big agriculture will resist any attempt to take away its work force, which is composed largely of undocumented immigrants.
Don't Bet Against the Influence of Big Business
It would be risky to bet against corporate agriculture on this issue. The big farmers and agricultural corporations will probably get what they want just as big business usually has throughout our history. In general, when popular policy proposals have been opposed by big business in this country, the popular proposals have been abandoned or watered down in ways that eliminate their threats to big business. Mr. Trump may be a danger to democracy in this country, but on matters of domestic policy, his administration will almost certainly be a standard, pro-business, Republican administration, which will do its work behind a screen of vindictive, iconoclastic, populist rhetoric. The MAGA Republicans will love the rhetoric and may not notice that their pockets are being picked, but Democrats will have a big opportunity.