How stupid is America’s ruling class?

Jan 24, 2025
Washington, United States. 20th Jan, 2024. President Donald Trump speaks to the crowd in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United State on Monday, January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Behind him is Vice-President JD Vance and to his right is House Speaker Mike Johnson. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News Contributor: UPI / Alamy Stock Photo Image ID: 2S82EAX

Yes, there is an American ruling class, and we’ve now got the photos to prove it.

Not so long ago talking about the possible existence of a ruling class frequently induced eye-rolling and derision amongst ‘serious’ policymakers and commentators. Marx’s suggestion that the modern state is ‘but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie’ did seem a bit of a dated way of describing the complex reality of modern economic and political orders.

And yet during Donald Trump’s second inauguration prominent members of America’s ruling class lined up to have their photos taken with the president. No doubt many of America’s most prominent capitalists think that direct access to the most powerful man in the world will directly benefit their business interests, at least in the short term. They may be right. But surely someone like Elon Musk, who Trump describes as a ‘genius’, must recognise that things could go badly wrong in the longer term?

Of course, Trump’s not the best judge: he thinks he’s a genius, too. A more accurate assessment was provided by the president’s former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who called the Trump a ‘fucking moron’. An absence of any obvious talent, other than for self-promotion, is no obstacle to getting the most important job in the world, though. Perhaps we should get rid of democracy after all. Don’t worry, Donald’s team are on it.

Unfortunately, they don’t inspire confidence either. Is it possible that most of the people around Trump are either none too bright, obsessed with money-making and power, or just incapable of controlling their baser impulses? Musk’s Nazi salutes at the inauguration were not a good look even by his megalomaniacal standards. There’s a distinct possibility that Trump may either not have recognised its significance or cared if he did, of course.

Indeed, the merits of public decorum and probity are probably not ideas that get much of an airing in the Trumpian halls of power. After all, one of the first things the leader of the not-so-free world did on regaining the presidency was to monetise the moment by issuing a meme coin; which has no intrinsic value, is purely for speculation, and is likely to lead to many of his less well connected proletarian supporters to lose their money. Even Melania’s getting in on the act. The Trump clan are quite the advertisement for wholesome family values.

Among the many compelling reason for being alarmed about Trump’s return one stands out, however: his rapid winding back of essential but insufficient efforts to do something about climate change. To be fair, withdrawing from the Paris agreement is probably most important symbolically given its modest impact. But there’s a good chance that Trump genuinely thinks that the climate emergency has been cooked up by left wing academics, although quite why they would all want to do that has never been made clear.

By contrast, we know that many of Trump’s plutocratic supporters really do understand the danger unaddressed climate change poses, which is why they are buying up large chunks of New Zealand in the hope that they can ride out the looming climate apocalypse. Good luck with that. Perhaps Trump’s cronies are so beguiled by the possibility of making even more money that they are incapable of thinking about the relationship between free-market capitalism and the destruction of the natural environment upon which we all depend.

There really are limits to how far greed and self-interest can take us, though, and not just at the individual level either. On the contrary, the actions of the tech bros, and even the suckers who get in too late on the crypto scams, are all part of an economic system that looks increasingly past its use by date; quite useful initially to lift living standards and incentivise economic growth, but only at the eventual cost of wrecking the natural environment. Despite the fact that it’s becoming clear we need a different basis for a sustainable environment, these seem to be realities that leaders around the world are either incapable of recognising or studiously ignore because it suits their short-term political and economic interests to do so.

Maybe Trump really is too stupid to make sense of a complex world, but surely there must be some people in his orbit who can see how things could go badly wrong, if only as a consequence of triggering yet another economic crisis that was unambiguously made in America. You would think that would be the one thing the ruling class might recognise.

But before we start congratulating ourselves that at least we’re smarter than the Yanks, it’s worth remembering that sucking up to them has been the default foreign policy position for generations, no matter which party was in power. At this moment of increasing international uncertainty and environmental calamity it rather begs the question: who is the more stupid, those who create policies that are likely to cause catastrophe, or those who slavishly align themselves with them despite their well-grounded reservations?

Share and Enjoy !