How Donald Trump, the Marie Antoinette of US politics, is pursuing a ‘let them eat cake’ strategy

Being in America and watching Donald Trump’s most recent rally in Butler, Pennsylvania – three months after the attempt to assassinate him in the town – there was a sense of disbelief about what I was seeing on my television screen.

There was also a sense of anxiety that, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, America is already irretrievably divided, and hopelessly immersed in different interpretations of history distorted by nostalgia and delusion. This unbridgeable divide, currently wrapped up in the Trump-Harris election contest, says a great deal about the shifting moods of America and what could happen in the future.

Farce and fantasy gripped Trump’s rally, with a sense of fascism as clenched fists cut the air while Trump easily slid into the dark weeds of anti-immigrant sentiment and a nationalism bearing all the characteristics of hate and intolerance.

Good vs evil

The gospel of Trump was victorious, but he didn’t spell out what this would actually mean for his supporters or America. His rhetoric seemed largely irrelevant as boredom etched nearly every face at the rally, but still they were somehow content.

Music from I Wish I Were in Dixie, a Confederate anthem, and Nessun Dorma to YMCA by the Village People helped create a party atmosphere, but that could change if Trump loses. A deep sense of anger and built-up frustration could become the basis of an unofficial, political civil war. Republican vs Democrat, right vs left, but looking increasingly like good vs evil!

A Donald Trump presidency would benefit America's billionaires, rather than his working-class supporters (Picture: Spencer Platt) | Getty Images

Many Americans don’t like big government, respect rugged individualism, are enthusiastic about their guns, love the family, want respect, are real patriots and, in the main, are religious. But there is something more threatening happening. Feelings held by some that they are losing their country, being overrun by immigrants and becoming strangers in their own land are being amplified using fear and lies, the oldest play in the populist book.

Maga supporters being used

But the real beneficiaries of a Trump presidency would not be the people he courts so assiduously, many of whom worship at his feet, but the billionaires, at least 25 of them, who are helping his campaign and stand to see huge benefits from tax cuts, the removal of regulations on industry and finance, and taking the brakes off coal, oil and gas production. An example is Elon Musk, soon to be the planet’s first trillionaire, who took to the stage in Butler, exhibiting power without responsibility, as always, while also looking decidedly ill at ease.

It’s hard to see what material benefits Trump’s hardcore ‘Maga’ followers can expect. They are in danger of being used, tragically so, in a kind of “let them eat cake” political strategy. And many working-class voters are swallowing it.

Before he stepped down as presidential candidate, Joe Biden campaigned on the theme that Trump was a “threat to democracy”. This has been largely dropped by Kamala Harris because her advisers believed it was too complicated for the voters who, without extensive context, would not understand what this meant for America. But complacency, and the belief that this could never happen in America, may also be behind its downgrading as a campaign theme.

Trump’s Supreme Court

A clue to the nature of the Trump presidency, if he wins, can be found in a document released by the White House on January 21, 2021, when he left office after his first term. Listing his administration’s greatest hits, it highlighted the transformation of the judiciary and legal system.

The remaking the federal judiciary – with the appointment of more than 230 judges, a historic number, “who will interpret the Constitution as written” – was a remarkable achievement. But of most significance was the appointment of three judges to the Supreme Court, expanding its conservative majority to six to three. This is now a political court, an arm of the Republican or, more correctly, the Trump party.

They have lost no time in changing the direction of social, family and school policy and, of course, the court overturned the landmark Roe v Wade judgment on abortion. There is likely to be a further dismantling of constitutional safeguards, along with more far-reaching and controversial decisions on family law, a reduction in the power of the federal government and a strengthening of states’ rights. This is how authoritarian states are created, with democracy used to dismantle democracy.

A triumph of populism and authoritarianism

As I have highlighted before, Project 25, a 900-page political guidebook produced by the Heritage Foundation – a right-wing think tank ever keen to influence the direction of Republican policy – details how the White House would seize greater executive power, as well as the dismantling of the federal government. The scrapping of the federal education department. Dismissing thousands of civil servants and bringing in more political appointments. A push to create more religious schools.

Despite Trump knowing many of the people involved in Project 25, assistance from Trump employees, and millions of dollars in funding from Republican sources, the former President himself claims he has no knowledge of the Heritage Foundation’s work. CNN has reported that “at least 140 people who worked for him are involved”.

If he wins, this will be his blueprint for government and the future of America in a triumph for populism and authoritarianism. But you would never know it from his speeches at rallies like the one in Butler. “The benefits of my presidency will now flow to my billionaire friends but can I thank my Maga supporters for their votes,” is what Trump should say if re-elected on November 5. However, those are my words not his!

Henry McLeish is a visiting professor at the University of South Florida and a former First Minister of Scotland