President Trump, Inc.: How Big Business and Neoliberalism Empower Populism and the Far-right

With Trump in the White House, big business has direct power in government. Trump has stacked his cabinet with former employees of investment banks, Big Oil, and international corporations. Now that big business has its representatives in the cabinet, it no longer needs to bear the cost of expensive lobbying. Under Trump, corporations control U.S. policy. How and why did this happen, and what does it mean for the bulk of the population?

T. J. Coles presents the background to Trump’s rise, tracing the history of economic neoliberalism. He shows what a “liberal economy” means in practice―privatization of public resources, cutting “red tape” for corporations, and internationalizing volatile money markets. For ordinary working people, neoliberalism translates to ongoing falls in living standards, fewer protections for workers, spiraling housing costs, and social cutbacks. As a consequence, many voters are turning their backs on mainstream politics, with many now supporting far-right populist parties, including the Trump faction of the Republican Party and UKIP in Britain, despite the fact that those parties support the very policies that make most people poorer.

President Trump, Inc.exposes the Trump hoax. He sold himself as a maverick, but in reality Big Business has been lobbying Congress for years to do what he campaigned for―tearing up the international TPP trade agreement, keeping out low-skilled immigrants while fast-tracking specific foreign workers, and helping repatriate corporations to the U.S. Trump’s seemingly personal agenda―“Make America Great Again”―is actually Big Business’s wish list.

Coles concludes on a positive note, offering tangible hope. Real change, he notes, doesn’t come from the top down. Millions of people all over the world are working at local levels to win power back from centralized elites for their communities. The first step in this process of true democratization is to understand what’s really happening, and Coles’ essential analysis provides a clear picture of the present reality.