| Donald Trump has given his infamous vow to “drain the swamp” new meaning as he rampages through the federal government. In addition to the DHS deportations that have shaken college campuses over the past couple of weeks, the president has been on a tear: waging war on public lands, dismantling the Department of Education, and more generally destroying the economy as we know it.
“Leaving aside the buckets called ‘culture wars’ and ‘foreign policy,’ we may distinguish eight distinct forces at work in Trump’s economics,” James Galbraith explains this week. Among Galbraith’s list—which includes everything from “the targeted destruction of specific regulatory agencies” to Reaganism and tariffs—is general “uncertainty and chaos.” In this landscape, Galbraith writes, “those in position to move quickly…could be the biggest winners.” In other words, “the apex financial and tech predators, already at Trump’s feeding trough, could end up in control of the whole economy.” And that, he says, just “may be their goal.”
-Alana Pockros
Engagement Editor, The Nation |
