Donald Trump vs. Washington Elites

Donald Trump’s second presidency is best seen as a revolt against elites, a revolt that has succeeded in sidelining moderating influences in not only the Democratic party but also the Republican party.

Trump ran against what he calls the Deep State. His rhetoric dwelled on suspicions that elite experts are running and ruining Americans’ lives. Presenting himself as simultaneously an extraordinary genius and a tribune of the people, he said he could solve most problems by himself.

Trump has said he knows more about the military than the generals. He is better equipped than the Federal Reserve’s trained economists to set interest rates. “Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure,” he once said. Trump knows “more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have.”

Trump, who also claims he is as knowledgeable about illnesses as any medical doctor, is nominating anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has said, without evidence, that fluoride in water is “associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.” He has argued for firing experts at the Food and Drug Administration, which is part of HHS, who block the sale of raw milk. Raw milk can carry bacteria that causes kidney failure.

During the vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance bluntly stated that many of our troubles are the result of “listening to experts.” Instead, we need to listen to “common sense.”

Trump’s professed goal of reengineering the federal government is apparently driven by the idea that political loyalists are best equipped to solve national problems. Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth is in line to be Secretary of Defense. He has no experience that would qualify him to run a department of 3 million people. Florida firebrand Matt Gaetz has been nominated for Attorney General. When that news came out, Gaetz resigned from his House seat just ahead of a House Ethics Committee report investigating allegations that he had sex with a minor. The committee, which is divided equally between Republicans and Democrats, was widely expected to issue a damning report. According to Politico, a trump advisor said Gaetz was selected for AG because all the other people being considered talked “about legal theories and constitutional bullshit.”

Liberal elites have brought much of this on themselves. Democrats took a beating in the recent elections because they pursued an agenda that is out of touch with the sentiments of a great number of ordinary working-class Americans. Defunding the police is a catchy slogan, but an insane way to court voters. Most people find it absurd to use tax dollars to pay for sex change operations for prisoners. A liberal myself, I have been appalled by the illiberality of many on the left and their prioritization of identity politics over the needs of the great mass of Americans who are struggling.

But there is more to consider about the attack on elitism than the mistakes of Democrats.

First, this is not a brand-new problem. It has deep historical roots. In his tract “Common Sense,” written in 1776, revolution-minded Thomas Paine used homely wisdom to argue that the distant elite class of British should be replaced by everyday Americans. Once the Constitution was written, conspiracy theorists argued that it was an elite trick. “Lawyers, men of learning, and moneyed men,” one critic said, “… gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill.”

The sharp rise of anti-immigrant sentiment in the 1840s gave rise to the Know Nothing party. (The name was a reference to the injunction that members were to say they knew nothing about their secret nativist organizations.) Hostility to government elites emerged again with the Populist movement at the end of the 19^th century. Both movements were a reaction to economic insecurity and the appearance of cultural threats caused by demographic changes.

In each case, these reactions ebbed. The common understanding, which does have common sense under it, has been that a democratic society should have many opinions but cannot function without professional fact-finders. Otherwise, how do people reach consensus?

Second, the anti-elitist stance of Trump and his supporters is, at the very least, ironic. Trump is a plutocrat, if ever there was one. He was born with a gold spoon in his mouth. He brags about having gone to the elite Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. His vice president, J.D. Vance, may have had humble beginnings, but he went to Yale Law School and worked at elite law firms. Rebel Steve Bannon has a Harvard MBA and earned millions as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere. Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. RFK Jr. is a scion of a wealthy political dynasty.

Trump’s followers will be disappointed by what he does for them materially. His administration is much more likely to lower taxes for the rich than exempt tips from taxation. We urgently need to fix the immigration crisis, but not with mass deportations, which will be inflationary, if not callous. Raising tariffs on imports – which also hike prices – won’t hurt millionaires the way it will for the poor living on the margins.

The costs of vilifying expert opinion and overriding established processes for orderly government will be damaging for MAGA Americans and everyone else. Disenfranchised Americans may like the idea of lightning fast, extra-legal changes. But, like it or not, the problems facing the country are too complex to be left to party hacks on either side of the political equation.

We may wish to take the positive view that we will live through this as we did through Known-Nothingness. But that is not guaranteed.

Principled people in both parties will need to focus on keeping Americans safe by ensuring that we have expert advice and cabinet officials who honor this idea.

Meanwhile, Democrats have a special task, which is to reorient themselves. They need to go back to their roots, when they spoke to and for working-class Americans, instead of alienating them as they do today. The place to start is with a truly liberal understanding of “inclusivity” to include struggling whites as well as struggling minorities.

Then Democrats need to attack the most important problem we face – 40 years of rising income inequality. Today, as at other times in history, dimming hopes make people want to revolt. Rising expectations give fact-finding experts a greater opportunity to help make things even better.