Zachary Basu
President Trump's grand economic vision relies on a simple tradeoff: that Americans will accept short-term personal sacrifice — higher prices, fewer options, slimmer profits — in service of long-term national strength.
Why it matters: Trump is breaking sharply from free-market orthodoxy in his second term, blending bursts of anti-capitalism with a top-down, nationalist agenda for American dominance.
Critics on the left and right warn of an emerging "MAGA Maoism" — a movement that demands ideological purity, glorifies economic sacrifice, and embraces state power as a means to reshape society.
- Trump's strongman instincts — and his deep skepticism of cultural elites and bureaucrats — have only intensified the provocative comparisons to China's revolutionary leader.
What they're saying: "MAGA Maoism is spreading through the populist right," former congressional speechwriter Rotimi Adeoye wrote for The Washington Post last month.
- James Surowiecki, the first journalist to deduce that the White House used trade deficits to calculate its reciprocal tariffs, argued Monday that Trumpism is "becoming perversely, farcically Maoist."
- Drew Pavlou, an Australian anti-communism activist, wrote on Substack that "the entire world is now held hostage to Trump and his primitive, strangely Maoist worldview."
No comments:
Post a Comment