“You know it’s funny, when it rains it pours
they got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”[i]– Tupac Shakur
“As soon as you enter the system to denounce it, you are automatically made a part of it. There is no ideal omega point today from which hard and fast judgments can be made. You can see that those who make accusations against the political class are the same ones who replenish it. The class is fed by the accusations made against it. Even the bluntest critic is caught up in this circularity.”[ii]– Jean Baudrillard
In his first inaugural address, Donald Trump declared that upon his entry into the White House, it was the people’s house, no longer the house of the elites that had spend the previous decades hollowing out and ruining the nation. He said “What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”[iii] Although he made no direct reference to the forgotten people, or the displaced class, in his second inaugural address, he asserted that his reelection was a mandate “to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and, indeed, their freedom.”, and he said that “For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”[iv] Again, he made the same populist declaration, that there is a faction of elites that has been robbing the citizenry and ransacking the nation’s wealth, and that he is here to right these wrongs, though this time, it rang hollow, as behind him stood an ensemble of oligarchs, the very oligarchs who Trump was claiming to be wresting power from.[v]
Trump had at one time opposed the technocrats, livened by his banning from social media platforms from Twitter to YouTube, yet, as soon as he became president again, he embraced them. He has also fully embraced artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, incorporating the former into the already pervasive surveillance state and the latter into his personal coffers.[vi] Outside of tariffs, which have been imposed out of spite and as revenge, not to boost domestic industry or protect American jobs, Trump has done very little that can even be spun as a benefit to the forgotten people. However, they are doing just that, and now Trump, in a desperate ploy to salvage the midterm elections, is offering 5000 USD to all American adults if the GOP retains the Congress.[vii] The struggles and desperation of the working class in America is very real and rather than work on their behalf, the Trump regime has tossed them aside as soon as he was elected.
Trump promised to end US adventurism abroad in both his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, and he rightly called out Kamala Harris for campaigning with Liz Cheney.[viii] Many people who now populate the White House defending Trump’s war on Iran were In 2024 declaring that if Harris won, then war with Iran was inevitable.[ix] Once again, Trump has not implemented a populist foreign policy. He has done the opposite of this. Worse yet, he has now fully embraced the foreign policy that he critiqued while running for president. Much of the commentary and analysis of Trump’s abduction of Maduro, and his larger strategy in South America articulated in his National Security Strategy, focuses on the implications for US foreign policy, and where it fits in with how it has been conducted across past administrations.[x] While these are worthwhile and essential analyses, there is an issue that transcends the foreign policy arena that has received little attention, and that is the implications for the Trump movement and other populist movements around the world. I explored this in a previous post, referencing an essay by Peter Rodgers in which he argued that there is a clash between Trump the candidate and Trump the operator. As Rodgers notes, amid a policy that directly contradicts what was promised, MAGA is forced to defend it and to reshape their own worldview in the process, making space for a policy that was once considered anathema. Rodgers writes that “Trump’s social base, rather than being the primary beneficiary of foreign policy, becomes a source of political cover for the return of the same interventionist elites he once vowed to displace. This contradiction erodes trust and hollows out the populist narrative from within.”[xi] In essence, Trump’s base was exploited to rise to power, just like Barrack Obama and George Bush before him. Both Obama and Bush ran on a restrained foreign policy, and both executed an incredibly violent and militaristic one instead.
The forgotten men and women have not only been used then, but they have also been forgone, cast aside once again. They were useful for Trump when he wanted to get elected, but once in office, they are useless. This betrayal is as bad, if not worse than, the betrayal by the Democratic elite, as they at least pretend to fight for the displaced and working classes. There is an aesthetic of revolution and grass roots organization, and it is phony, but with Trump and his regime, there is no pretending. They aggressively deny their betrayal, after channeling their outrage and using it to get elected, Trump entered office, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work for the permanent regime and his donors. The Democratic elite does this as well, but they hide their corruption behind niceties and proclaimed adherence to politics of civility and bipartisanship.
On the other hand, Trump is brazenly corrupt. He openly flouts his initial promises, and instead of admitting that no, kidnapping Maduro and rebuilding Venezuela are not in any way ‘America First’, he and his cronies instead work overtime to argue that it does fit into the America First doctrine. They have crafted an alternate reality, one where Trump is a masterful strategist playing 8D chess, and that everything he does is on behalf of the American people, even policies that are overtly against their interests, like reinvigorating imperial conquest in South America or the war with Iran. Despite the obvious failings of Trump’s chaotic foreign policy, the most ardent in the MAGA cult seem to be unswayable on the matter of Trump’s belief in America First. Trump did not forget his promises, he never intended keep them, and thus he chose to forgo them.
What Trump has proven through his time in office so far, culminating with the moronic and catastrophic decision to go to war with Iran, is that not only is he not America First, but he never intended to reclaim the White House for the forgotten men and women, as he pronounced in his 2017 inaugural address. This is much of what the discourse, both among the liberal and conservative elite, misses, and most outlets and commentators squabble over how Trump ousted Maduro or how he is conducting the war with Iran. Some are outraged and are calling out the naked imperialism of the Trump regime, a departure from his predecessors in presentation, not execution, and they note that imperialism/empire is not America First.[xii] These are important criticisms, but more important is the who is being betrayed.
The displaced class’s despair is ignored by the illiberal liberal class, which led to them turning to Trump. It is obvious that Trump exploited their rage. How does increasing the US defense budget to 1.5 trillion dollars, as Trump proposed, helping the forgotten people, the displaced class? The conservative elite foam at the mouth when discussing ‘socialist’ policies like free school lunches and student loan debt forgiveness, but they have no issue with the arms industry and the Pentagon, a black hole for money, siphoning off billions and soon trillions into their network of contractors and permanent wars. In 2025, the Department of Defense failed its 8th audit in a row, and trillions of dollars cannot be accounted for, yet every year, like clockwork, the National Defense Authorization Act passes and is signed by the president, giving the permanent regime even more piles of money, set to be burned flying drones and hurling missiles at Somalia. The Department of Defense and the security state, especially the CIA, is a money laundering organization. The biggest mistake of DOGE is not razing the security state and exposing the true extent of their waste and corruption.
The message from Washington is clear, there is always money for empire. Trump even floated the idea of giving every citizen of Greenland between 10,000 and 100,000 dollars in exchange for annexation, and the displaced class gets zilch.[xiii] They get told, indirectly, that their problems, lack of clean water, poor education, endless poverty, will never be as important as fighting boogeymen in Iran, North Korea, China, Colombia, and numerous other states. The coming of Trump was not a case of out with the old, in with the new, it was a case of out with the old civility obsessed empty suits and in with the slick, sociopathic suits.
In John Carpeter’s They Live, Nada needed a special pair of sunglasses to witness the web of deceit that had enshrouded the world he thought he knew.[xiv] Donning a pair of piercing sunglasses, he saw what he thought were advertisements, but which were messages demanding obedience and enslavement. He saw what he thought were people, but who were really aliens who had colonized earth and had manipulated the media to shape people into passive consumers. We do not need mystical sunglasses to pierce the propaganda being pumped into our brains on a daily basis, we simply need the courage to call out the illiberal liberal and the illiberal classes for their hypocrisy, their greed, their destruction, and importantly, shed ourselves of the notion that Trump, or any other single person, is a savior and voice of the people. Trump can only be a voice for who and what lines his pockets, as is the case with any other politician. Thus, we must use our own voices to demand and foster change, not rely on faulty and selfish vessels. Those who truly believe in America First should distance themselves from Trump and escape the delusion that he is anything other than what he so obviously is, another self-servant masquerading as a public servant.
[i] 2Pac, Keep Ya Head Up, Interscope, October 28, 1993, 4:23.
[ii] Jean Baudrillard and Sylvère Lotringer, The Conspiracy of Art: Manifestos, Interviews, Essays, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series (Semiotext(e), 2005).
[iii] Donald J. Trump, “The Inaugural Address – The White House,” The White House, January 20, 2017, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/.
[iv] Donald J. Trump, “The Inaugural Address,” The White House, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/the-inaugural-address/.
[v] Ben Norton, “World’s Richest Billionaires at Center of Trump’s Inauguration: Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg,” Geopolitical Economy Report, January 21, 2025, https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/01/21/big-tech-billionaires-trump-inauguration/.
[vi] Finya Swai, “Trump Plans AI Force and New Czar Role,” Text, The Hill, September 19, 2026, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6099970-trump-proposes-ai-force-czar/; Peter Stone, “Trump Has Amassed Staggering Wealth in ‘Most Openly Corrupt’ Presidency,” US News, The Guardian, August 13, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/trump-presidency-revenue-wealth.
[vii] Ryan Mancini, “Donald Trump Says $5,000 Dividend Checks Will ‘Happen 100 Percent,’” Text, The Hill, September 14, 2026, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6087307-trump-promises-5000-dividend-checks/.
[viii] Holly Otterbein and Natalie Allison, “Kamala Harris Deploys Liz Cheney to Woo Anti-Trump Republicans,” POLITICO, accessed September 22, 2026, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/03/kamala-harris-liz-cheney-republicans-wisconsin-00182470.
[ix] Sara Braun, “‘This Is a Needless War’: Americans Share Their Thoughts on the US-Israel Attacks on Iran,” World News, The Guardian, March 5, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/05/guardian-readers-us-israel-war-on-iran; Irie Sentner and Eric Bazail-Eiml, “Trump Blasts Harris on Iran, Says Biden Administration Is ‘Leading Us to Brink of World War III,’” POLITICO, accessed September 22, 2026, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/01/trump-blasts-harris-iran-biden-administration-leading-world-war-iii-00181938; Aaron Blake, “Analysis: Trump Launches the Regime-Change Effort in Iran That He Pledged to Avoid | CNN Politics,” CNN, February 28, 2026, https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/politics/regime-change-iran-trump.
[x]Emily Harding, The National Security Strategy: The Good, the Not So Great, and the Alarm Bells, December 5, 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/national-security-strategy-good-not-so-great-and-alarm-bells.
[xi] Peter Rodgers, “Trump vs. Trump: When ‘America First’ Turns into a War That Was Never Promised,” CounterPunch.Org, December 19, 2025, https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/trump-vs-trump-when-america-first-turns-into-a-war-that-was-never-promised/.
[xii] Peter Rodgers, “‘America First’ or Endless War? How Republicans Are Betraying Their Own Base Over Iran,” CounterPunch.Org, May 22, 2026, https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/22/america-first-or-endless-war-how-republicans-are-betraying-their-own-base-over-iran/; Charles A. Kupchan, “Trump’s ‘America First’ Rhetoric Masks a Neo-Imperialist Streak,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 7, 2026, https://www.cfr.org/articles/venezuela-and-beyond-trumps-america-first-rhetoric-masks-neo-imperialist-streak; Spencer Neale, “What Kind of ‘America First’ Is This?,” The American Conservative, November 5, 2025, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-kind-of-america-first-is-this/; Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande, Trump’s Naked Imperialism, January 4, 2026, https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trumps-naked-imperialism/; Tiago Rogero, “‘Naked Imperialism’: How Trump Intervention in Venezuela Is a Return to Form for the US,” January 4, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/naked-imperialism-how-trump-intervention-in-venezuela-is-a-return-to-form-for-the-us.
[xiii] Gram Slattery, “EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Mulls Payments to Sway Greenlanders to Join US,” Europe, Reuters, January 9, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-administration-mulls-payments-sway-greenlanders-join-us-2026-01-08/.
[xiv] They Live!, directed by John Carpenter (Universal Pictures, 1988), 94 minutes.
References
2Pac. Keep Ya Head Up. Interscope, October 28, 1993. 4:23.
Baudrillard, Jean, and Sylvère Lotringer. The Conspiracy of Art: Manifestos, Interviews, Essays. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series. Semiotext(e), 2005.
Blake, Aaron. “Analysis: Trump Launches the Regime-Change Effort in Iran That He Pledged to Avoid | CNN Politics.” CNN, February 28, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/politics/regime-change-iran-trump.
Braun, Sara. “‘This Is a Needless War’: Americans Share Their Thoughts on the US-Israel Attacks on Iran.” World News. The Guardian, March 5, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/05/guardian-readers-us-israel-war-on-iran.
Charles A. Kupchan. “Trump’s ‘America First’ Rhetoric Masks a Neo-Imperialist Streak.” Council on Foreign Relations, January 7, 2026. https://www.cfr.org/articles/venezuela-and-beyond-trumps-america-first-rhetoric-masks-neo-imperialist-streak.
Donald J. Trump. “The Inaugural Address.” The White House, January 20, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/the-inaugural-address/.
Donald J. Trump. “The Inaugural Address – The White House.” The White House, January 20, 2017. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/.
Harding, Emily. The National Security Strategy: The Good, the Not So Great, and the Alarm Bells. December 5, 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/national-security-strategy-good-not-so-great-and-alarm-bells.
Holly Otterbein and Natalie Allison. “Kamala Harris Deploys Liz Cheney to Woo Anti-Trump Republicans.” POLITICO. Accessed September 22, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/03/kamala-harris-liz-cheney-republicans-wisconsin-00182470.
Irie Sentner and Eric Bazail-Eiml. “Trump Blasts Harris on Iran, Says Biden Administration Is ‘Leading Us to Brink of World War III.’” POLITICO. Accessed September 22, 2026. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/01/trump-blasts-harris-iran-biden-administration-leading-world-war-iii-00181938.
John Carpenter, dir. They Live! Universal Pictures, 1988. 94 minutes.
Kornbluh, Peter, and William M. LeoGrande. Trump’s Naked Imperialism. January 4, 2026. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trumps-naked-imperialism/.
Mancini, Ryan. “Donald Trump Says $5,000 Dividend Checks Will ‘Happen 100 Percent.’” Text. The Hill, September 14, 2026. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6087307-trump-promises-5000-dividend-checks/.
Neale, Spencer. “What Kind of ‘America First’ Is This?” The American Conservative, November 5, 2025. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-kind-of-america-first-is-this/.
Norton, Ben. “World’s Richest Billionaires at Center of Trump’s Inauguration: Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg.” Geopolitical Economy Report, January 21, 2025. https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/01/21/big-tech-billionaires-trump-inauguration/.
Rodgers, Peter. “‘America First’ or Endless War? How Republicans Are Betraying Their Own Base Over Iran.” CounterPunch.Org, May 22, 2026. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/05/22/america-first-or-endless-war-how-republicans-are-betraying-their-own-base-over-iran/.
Rodgers, Peter. “Trump vs. Trump: When ‘America First’ Turns into a War That Was Never Promised.” CounterPunch.Org, December 19, 2025. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/trump-vs-trump-when-america-first-turns-into-a-war-that-was-never-promised/.
Slattery, Gram. “EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Mulls Payments to Sway Greenlanders to Join US.” Europe. Reuters, January 9, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-administration-mulls-payments-sway-greenlanders-join-us-2026-01-08/.
Stone, Peter. “Trump Has Amassed Staggering Wealth in ‘Most Openly Corrupt’ Presidency.” US News. The Guardian, August 13, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/trump-presidency-revenue-wealth.
Swai, Finya. “Trump Plans AI Force and New Czar Role.” Text. The Hill, September 19, 2026. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6099970-trump-proposes-ai-force-czar/.
Tiago Rogero. “‘Naked Imperialism’: How Trump Intervention in Venezuela Is a Return to Form for the US.” January 4, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/naked-imperialism-how-trump-intervention-in-venezuela-is-a-return-to-form-for-the-us.
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