Sometimes, when two billionaires with authoritarian inclinations tell you that they want to dismantle the state in order to have more power, it's... worth taking their word for it. It really is about dismantling the state for the interests of a bunch of rich people.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
Donald Trump won. And not by a little, but by a clear margin. One has to be honest, this is a huge success for him, the Republican Party and their allies, with Elon Musk in the lead.
At the same time, it's bad news for the US, and in the long run, for the world. And not for the reasons most often raised.
Too often, critical analyses of Trump turn into pseudo-psychology - that he is a narcissist, that he is a megalomaniac, that he is a mythomaniac.
Such analyses are shallow and fail to capture the deeper political changes that Trump admittedly embodies best, but which go far beyond him.
The recent election campaign is a prime example of this, with Trump and Musk employing a strategy that is likely to be copied by the right (and perhaps not just the right) around the world.
Let's talk about ... the tax office
Public attention has been directed in recent years to such issues in American politics as democracy, climate, abortion rights, Ukraine and Gaza. Through the prism of these topics, it was also usually judged who was the better (or less worse) candidate: Harris or perhaps Trump. This is understandable, as all these are very important issues.
But for me, some small thing is also significant, which has almost completely escaped in Poland, and captures well the differences between the modern Democratic Party and the Republican Party. By the way, it also shows the challenges facing the modern progressive movement.
I am referring to the issue of funding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the federal agency that collects taxes.
In 2019, IRS officials said plainly:we don't have the money or staff to verify the tax returns of the wealthiest. Wealthy taxpayers often use various tricks to reduce their taxes, so catching possible abuses requires additional work.
The Biden administration has decided to remedy this. It allocated an additional $80 billion to the IRS in 2022. And guess what? It gave quite an effect. Not only did it improve tax collection from the richest payers, but it significantly improved the quality of service for ordinary customers.
Republicans were not convinced - they are doing what they can to cut IRS funding back.
This seemingly marginal story contains three morals.
First, we too often allow ourselves to be told that certain phenomena are natural and "there's nothing you can do, ladies." For example, that the rich will always get away with taxes. Well, to what extent they succeed depends on how we shape our public institutions. It's not a matter of nature, it's a matter of politics.
Second, both American parties have too close a relationship with the financial elite, but the Republicans are worse in this regard. Even once they manage to do something about the horrendously unequal American system, they immediately want to undo it.
Third - and this is especially important in the context of Trump's election - Ezra Klein, an American journalist, is right, having recently written that the main line of contention between Democrats and Republicans has become the attitude towards state institutions. The latter completely distrust them, ideally they would abolish them all to hell. Well, except maybe, the military, police, etc.
This is not just about libertarian fantasies of a "cheap state" (although, yes, these fantasies are strong among Republicans), but about something more. About the belief that these institutions are a kind of internal enemy, that they have been irretrievably captured by the wacky left and their purpose is to stupefy true patriots.
This attitude has implications beyond the United States - for it is a symptom of a global phenomenon that, for lack of a better name, can be described as the "right-wing conspiracy".
The new power - the conspiracy right
The conspiracy right is characterized by the fact that it undermines trust in the institutional underpinnings of modern democratic states: the health care system (because it "pushes vaccines"), universities (because they are controlled by the left), scientific expert groups (because they lie about the climate), the media (because they lie about everything), government offices of all kinds (because bureaucrats rule us) - nothing and no one is beyond suspicion.
No one illustrates this process better than the Trump-Musk pair. Their entire campaign was based on constantly undermining trust in one institution after another. You can't trust the election commissions, you can't trust the IRS, you can't trust the civil service, you can't trust the media, you can't trust scientists, you can't even trust FBI crime statistics.
And if you're thinking to yourself "well, but many of these institutions, such as the media, have a lot on their hands, don't they?" then you're right, of course. However, it cannot be overlooked for what purpose Musk and Trump are attacking them.
They want to weaken the IRS not to protect the "common man" from bureaucrats, but because they have caught on to the fact that, after the bailout, it has an unpleasant habit of collecting better from the rich.
They want to weaken state health institutions not because they are going to war with Big Pharma, but because such weakening is the first step to further privatizing public services and subordinating them to rich investors.
They want to weaken the traditional media not because they don't like their oligarchization, but because it is nevertheless not complete - that some journalists still have an annoying reflex to look critically at power. Wouldn't it be better to replace this with X-type platforms - with the omnipotence of the good Czar Musk?
They want to weaken the influence of climate scientists not because they care about the "pluralism of public debate," but because these damn scientists are putting out things that don't calculate with their political and financial interests.
One of Trump's ideas is to create a commission on state efficiency - with Musk at the head. They haven't clarified what exactly it's about, but Musk has repeatedly suggested that it's about cutting social spending, scrapping market regulations and firing government officials. As a reminder, Musk is a fan of Argentine President Javier Mili, who is giving his country shock therapy on steroids.
Sometimes when two billionaires with authoritarian inclinations tell you that they want to dismantle the state in order to have more power, it's... worth taking their word for it. It really is about dismantling the state for the interests of a bunch of rich people.
Unfortunately, the Americans want to test this in practice.
