President Donald Trump is nominally a Republican, but in reality, he is putting us on the road to an American version of the national socialism of the 1930’s. Domestically he is attempting to seize the commanding heights of the economy by taking ownership positions in Intel and U.S. Steel and by taking a 15% cut from NVIDIA’s sales to China. ( https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2025/07/on-road-to-serfdom.html ) Remember that under national socialism businesses remain under private ownership but are under the control of the government. This is a far cry from capitalism.
Further Trump is
challenging the independence of the Federal Reserve by demanding the removal of
Lisa Cook from the board for allegedly committing mortgage fraud. How did this
come about? His minion Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance
Agency, pulled the mortgage of files of Lisa Cook as well as the files from
such Trump adversaries as New York Attorney General Letitia James and Senator
Adam Schiff. Let us be clear, this was no accident and soon the IRS and other
federal agencies will get into the act.
To enhance his powers
domestically Trump has appointed his cronies in the Justice Department, the
F.B.I., the regulatory agencies and on the courts. Indeed, one of his private
attorneys, Todd Blanche is now a deputy attorney general, and another, Eric
Bove, was just confirmed to the Court of Appeals. Perhaps more serious is that
he has purged a host of officers in the military and the CIA who might be more
loyal to the constitution than to him. A defining feature of national socialism
is loyalty to the leader, not to the law.
In keeping with his
national socialist tendencies Trump is in the process of establishing a 150,000-member
national police force in the form of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. These officers could at the stoke of a pen be empowered to engage in
broader law enforcement activity and unlike the military they would not be
subject to the strictures of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Indeed, Trump
seems to be using the military in violation of that act anyway. Meantime many
U.S. citizens have been caught up in the roundup of illegal immigrants.
Internationally Trump
through his tariff policies is attempting to turn the open economy of the
United States into more of an autarky where domestic production would be
sheltered from international competition. In imposing his tariff regime Trump
ignored Congress which has near exclusive power over tariffs and taxation.
Trump has now lost twice the courts on his tariffs; and it will soon be up to
the Supreme Court to rule on them. Further Trump has imposed punitive tariffs
on our allies all while cozying up to dictators Putin and Xi. This all part of
the national socialist playbook. It might be stretch, but could there be a
Trump, Putin, Xi axis?
All the while the
moral eunuchs of the Republican Party have either cheered Trump on or silently
acquiesced. ( See from 2019: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-republican-moral-eunuchs-and.html ) Similarly, fearful
of retaliation, the business community has remained silent and bowed to his
wishes. Thus, in eight short months Trump has seized control of a good part of
the economy and the security apparatus of the state.
To be sure this not
the first time the U.S. experimented with national socialism in peacetime. In
1933 President Roosevelt used the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to take control of a good part of
the economy. Fortunately, the NIRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935 and
the RFC withered away. Let us hope the Supreme Court does the same thing to
Trump’s tariffs.
Later in 1971
President Nixon imposed a system of price, wage, rent and dividend controls on
the entire economy. Nixon also used the IRS against his enemies and spied on
his political opponents. The Nixon controls expired in early 1973 and he was
impeached in 1974. Say what you will about Nixon; he respected the process. I
doubt that can be said of Trump. In 2009 President Obama temporarily took
control of the banking and automobile industries.
To conclude Trump is
in the process of creating an American version of national socialism. I am not
going to use the polite words of state capitalism or American Capitalism with
Chinese Characteristics. Forewarned is forearmed!
*- The reference to
national socialism is derived from Germany’s Nazi Party. The official name of
the Nazi Party was Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP which in English is the National Socialist
German Workers Party. The Italian version of national socialism was called Partito Nazionale
Fascista, PNF which in English is the National Fascist Party.
