"Donald Trump's Plunder Democracy"





On how a kleptocratic fascist uses his power and why millions continue to support him.



TrumpTakeOver

Few modern politicians have so systematically abused political office for personal gain as Donald Trump. The man who entered the White House in 2016 with the motto “ drain the swamp ” has since succeeded above all in building a swamp of kleptocracy, loyalty cults and anti-democratic tendencies in its place. As Meridith McGraw puts it in her revealing book Trump in Exile : Trump is not simply out for power, but for revenge, recognition and wealth. In that order.

What we’ve seen since his first term is a politics of pure disruption, where the presidency is reduced to three simple facets: divide, conquer and profit. It’s a method that has its roots in classical autocracies, but in Trump’s case finds expression in meme coins , algorithms and stock markets. And it works.

Total plunder

In early April of this year, Trump announced new import tariffs on goods from 60 countries. The stock market reacted violently: the Dow plummeted. But just a week later, Trump partially reversed his decision and announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs. Result: the stock markets immediately shot up again.

But before that announcement, Trump did something remarkable. On his social media platform Truth Social, he wrote, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! – DJT.” Those initials at the end are no coincidence: DJT is also the ticker symbol for Trump Media & Technology Group, a company in which Trump owns a 90% stake. After his message, his company’s stock rose 22%, and then another 5% in the premarket.

Members of Congress are talking about blatant market manipulation, and have called for an investigation into possible insider trading. After all, who knew in advance that Trump was going to adjust his policy? Who could have anticipated that? Except, obviously, Trump himself. How big is the network that profits along with him?

What is once again and painfully clear is a presidential policy that functions as a financial lever for personal wealth. It is no longer a classic conflict of interest, it is the business model.

In Russia, we have known the model for some time: Putin who favors oligarchs and builds a system in which loyalty and silence are rewarded with billions. Trump has not yet directly copied that model, but has adapted it to American circumstances. Where Putin controls his inner circle through fear and state control, Trump uses the market, the media spectacle and the American obsession with individualism to expand his circle of profit. The fear and state control are still reserved for those in American society in the weakest position, in particular immigrants of color and the trans community.

As Anne Applebaum describes in her book Autocracy, Inc. , modern autocrats are bound not by ideology but by deals. It’s not so much about vision as it is about returns: financial, electoral, emotional. The president has become CEO, and the people are shareholders in his myth.

Divide as a strategy

What has distinguished Trump since his rise is his instinct to divide. Not as a byproduct of destructive policies, as with Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, but as a strategy. As McGraw shows, he actively seeks out divisions to magnify: between urban and rural, between elite and “ordinary American,” between black and white, between “patriots” and “traitors.”

Even within his own party, he plays this game. Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and former crown prince of Trumpism, was publicly humiliated after the slightest pushback with nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “governor pudding fingers,” a reference to a story about how DeSantis once ate a bowl of pudding with his fingers, lacking cutlery. It brings to mind Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals , which states: “Ridicule is man’s most powerful weapon.” Trump knows that lesson better than anyone.

But division is not enough, the institutions themselves must also be weakened. In his second term, Trump openly chooses sabotage as a model of governance. Not through back rooms and back routes, but through frontal attacks: eliminating independent departments, violating the Constitution, and waiting to see what happens (usually nothing). He prefers open lawlessness to bureaucratic autocracy. Not undermining the spirit of the law, but finally destroying the law itself.

Why do people follow him? And then the question remains: Why do so many people still follow him? Why do millions of Americans allow themselves to be represented by a man who undermines their interests, destroys their institutions, and uses their economy as a gambling table? Why do they continue to stand by him despite everything, even when he promised them cheaper groceries that are now getting more expensive by the day?

In the book The Cult of Trump , Steven Hassan searches for a psychological explanation. Trump uses techniques typical of cult leaders: he proclaims an absolute truth, demands unconditional loyalty, simplifies complex problems into enemy images, and feeds his followers with a mixture of fear and promise.

Hassan does acknowledge that the cult metaphor is not entirely accurate. Most Trump voters are not zombie-like followers. They are rather politically disappointed people who feel betrayed by the establishment. Their vote is not a declaration of love, but a fist on the table. They do not buy the whole package, but mainly the feeling of revenge. “ I am your retribution ,” Trump promised during his campaign in March 2023.

For this group, Trump is not the cause of chaos, but revenge on those who ignored it for decades. In his hands, the presidency becomes a symbolic cudgel against Washington, against universities, against experts, against the media—against everything that was once considered “authoritative.” And let’s be honest, for a large part of Trump’s supporters, blatant racism is also a common denominator, and they get plenty of use out of that with their president.

Still, it’s important to distinguish between the average Trump voter and the hard core of the MAGA movement. The latter group does indeed display all the classic characteristics of a cult: they worship a charismatic leader who is seen as infallible, a black-and-white worldview in which doubt equals betrayal, a shared sense of persecution, and rituals that reinforce loyalty. They tolerate no contradiction and, in smaller circles, conduct their own reign of terror to win or retain souls. Supporters wear red MAGA hats as a symbolic uniform, chant slogans such as “Stop the Steal” or “Trump won” as if they were prayers, and they regard the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as an act of patriotism, not a terrorist attack.

Trump himself plays on that image by calling the arrested attackers “hostages” and printing their faces on T-shirts at his rallies, while the national anthem blares in the background and people pray together, as if they were martyrs to a holy cause. For this significant group of supporters, Trumpism is not a political movement but a religious community that sees its leader as a Messiah rather than a human being.

The Threat in the Light of Day The irony is poignant. A man who claims to speak for 'the people', but uses the same people as cover for his own enrichment. A leader who claims to restore institutions, but who can only govern by destroying them. A president who presents himself as a martyr, while he sets up a system in which the boundaries between private interest and public office are completely removed.

This is not a conspiracy theory, not a backroom plot. It is happening in the open, on social media, in stock prices, in legislation. It is the plunder democracy: a form of government in which the treasury is open to whoever knows how to play the game.

The big question is no longer whether Trump is still a threat to democracy, that is beyond dispute. The question is how much of that democracy will be left by the time he finally leaves the scene. And how much of the world will have turned its back on an imploded US.





Questa mattina mi sono alzato
o bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
questa mattina mi sono alzato
e ho trovato l'invasor.


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oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
this morning I woke up
and I found the invader.

  
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