Under Trump the US has emerged as a kleptocracy, where the president has built up a system of private patronage networks that provide kick-backs. It’s a criminal enterprise masquerading as a presidency. I mean, the fact that Trump maintains a crypto-coin, that “investors” can purchase, is just one step removed from big sacks of cash placed on the president’s desk. For patrons looking to bend the presidents ear, it appears that gold bars also are welcomed.

Qatar bought Trump a fucking jumbo-jet.

The kleptocracy has bi-partisan participation and a neoliberal pedigree. We’ve heard it all justified for decades. This was the justification for deregulating Wall Street: the justification for free trade deals that wiped out millions of industrial jobs; the justification for permitting corporations to lay off workers to pay for leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks while avoiding taxes; and the justification for public-private partnerships that enriched the private partners at taxpayer expense.

I’ve said this for a while but neoliberalism, with its mantra of “no alternative” only took off with the demise of the Soviet Union and communism to provide an alternative economic order. As long as the USSR existed the capitalist bosses had to accommodate labor and communities, but as soon as communism collapsed capitalism began to return to its natural state, where society is divided into the rich and super-rich, without a significant middle class.

The USSR and communism forced FDR’s response to the Great Depression, with its New Deal policies which forced capitalists, plutocrats, and bankers to share their wealth with the common people. The state forced capital to invest in science and education, culture and art, infrastructure development programs, and the military-industrial complex. It taxed them, taking up to 90% of their profits to finance state programs. It was then that a huge middle class emerged, the pillar of stability and democracy. It arose not through the development of a free market and democracy, but thanks to the state.

That was a long time ago and now the corruption, looting and graft have reached terminal velocity, where Trump is pardoning drug dealers, crypto-swindlers and pretty much anyone who can offer a large enough bribe. South Park had a whole episode on the rank dealings.

Then there’s the ultimate klept endeavor–endless war for profit. What we are seeing today with Trump vaporizing Venezuela boaters is simply the new reality as the US militarized empire retreats to the Monroe Doctrine. The 2025 National Security Strategy, lays out the details, but don’t expect the masters of war to be likewise limited. Every change in the global battlefield has simply meant that the U.S. weapons industry grew richer with each intervention, lobbying for policies that kept the country in a constant state of conflict. 

The “market go up” and the “rich get richer” has been the policy since Reagan, while neoliberalism is criminogenic so it’s perfectly logical that we ended up with a kleptocracy. The next wars were always there because we never confronted the political and economic system that made endless wars a profitable cornerstone of U.S. power.

Trump’s secret power is that he makes it all obvious.