The U.S. Ruling Class and the Trump Regime

John Bellamy Foster

U.S. capitalism over the past century has had without question the most powerful, most class-conscious ruling class in the history of the world, straddling both the economy and the state, and projecting its hegemony both domestically and globally. Central to its rule is an ideological apparatus that insists that the immense economic power of the capitalist class does not translate into political governance, and that no matter how polarised U.S. society becomes in economic terms, its claims to democracy remain intact. According to the received ideology, the ultra-rich interests that rule the market do not rule the state—a separation crucial to the idea of liberal democracy. This reigning ideology, however, is now breaking down in the face of the structural crisis of U.S. and world capitalism, and the decline of the liberal-democratic state itself, leading to deep splits in the ruling class, and a new right-wing, openly capitalist domination of the state.

In his farewell speech to the nation, days before Donald Trump triumphantly returned to the White House, President Joe Biden indicated that an “oligarchy” based in the high-tech sector and relying on “dark money” in politics was threatening U.S. democracy. Senator Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, warned of the effects of the concentration of wealth and power in a new “ruling class” hegemony and the abandonment of any traces of support for the working class in either of the major parties.

Trump’s ascendancy to the White House for the second time naturally does not mean that the capitalist oligarchy has suddenly become a commanding influence in U.S. politics, since this is in fact a long-standing reality. Nevertheless, the entire political milieu in recent years, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis, has been moving to the right, while the oligarchy is exercising more direct influence over the state. A sector of the U.S. capitalist class is now openly in control of the ideological-state apparatus in a neofascist administration in which the former neoliberal establishment is a junior partner. The object of this shift is a regressive restructuring of the United States in a permanent war posture, resulting from the decline of U.S. hegemony and the instability of U.S. capitalism, plus the need of a more concentrated capitalist class to secure more centralised control of the state.

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