The Second Trump Administration Is About Ideology, Not Oligarchy

The Democrats, casting about for an anti-Trump narrative, have found a word: “oligarchy.” It was part of Joe Biden’s farewell address; it’s central to Senator Bernie Sanders’s barnstorming; it shows up in the advice given by ex-Obama hands. It aspires to fold together President Trump’s self-enrichment, Elon Musk’s outsize influence, the image of Silicon Valley big shots at the inauguration with a familiar Democratic criticism of the G.O.P. as the party of the superrich.

I don’t want to pass premature judgment on its rhetorical effectiveness. But as a narrative for actually understanding the second Trump administration, the language of “oligarchy” obscures more than it reveals. It suggests a vision of Trumpism in which billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots. And certainly, the promise of some familiar Republican agenda items — like deregulation and business tax cuts — fits that script.

But where Trump’s most disruptive and controversial policies are concerned, much of what one might call the American oligarchy is indifferent, skeptical or fiercely opposed.

Start with the crusade against wokeness and D.E.I., a fight spreading beyond the federal bureaucracy to everything (state policymaking, university hiring) influenced by federal funding. Is this a central oligarchic agenda item? Not exactly. Sure, some corporate honchos were weary of activist demands and welcomed the rightward shift. But before the revolts that began with politicians like Ron DeSantis and activists like Christopher Rufo, the corporate oligarchy was an ally or agent of the Great Awokening, either accepting new progressivism’s strictures as the price of doing business or actively encouraging D.E.I. as both a managerial and a commercial strategy.

Capital, in other words, is flexible. It can be woke or unwoke, depending on the prevailing winds, and it will adapt again if anti-D.E.I. sentiment goes away.

Next, consider Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with its frantic quest to slash contracts, grants and head counts at government agencies. Is this oligarchy? No doubt some corporations stand ready to fill spaces left open by the public-sector retreat. But the American corporate sector as a whole is deeply enmeshed with governmental contracting, heavily invested in public-private partnerships, accustomed to cozy lobbying relationships and eager to take advantage of government largess.