The world’s billionaires don’t understand why you’re so worried about Donald Trump.
That’s the message out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where global business leaders, diplomats and journalists gather, mostly to compliment each other. “Several business executives have noted a theme in their private discussions during the summit,” CNBC reported this week. “U.S. industry leaders seem overwhelmingly nonplussed with a second Trump term.”
The attendee whose comments drew the most notice was JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who went on the record with his. “I wish the Democrats would think a little more carefully when they talk about MAGA,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” as he praised the many things he said Trump got “kind of right.”
As Trump likely locks up the Republican nomination for a third time, we’re hearing the same denials we heard eight years ago.
“He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration,” Dimon argued (though he didn’t say whether Trump’s claim that immigrants “are poisoning the blood of our country” is “kind of right”). “He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China."
“I don’t like how Trump said things about Mexico,” Dimon continued, “but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues. That’s why they’re voting for him. People should be more respectful of our fellow citizens.”
Other business leaders were more emphatic in their dismissals. “We have a justice system,” one “prominent U.S. business executive” told CNBC. “Congress will probably be divided. It’s right to be cautious, but it won’t be the end of the world.” A U.S. bank CEO claimed Trump was “all bark and no bite.”
We heard similar assurances during the 2016 campaign and before Trump assumed office. “Calm down. We’ll be fine no matter who wins,” pundits told us. We were told that we shouldn’t take Trump literally and that denouncing him as fascist or racist or sexist was condescension to a silent majority of Americans. (Never mind that Trump has never won the popular vote and both times received a lower vote share than presidential losers Mitt Romney, John Kerry and Al Gore.)
The folly of these attitudes was clear even then. “We can hope for the best for a Trump presidency,” I wrote after the 2016 election, “though that hope looks increasingly foolish by the hour. We must plan for the worst.” If the country narrowly avoided the worst, particularly on Jan. 6, 2021, it certainly wasn’t for Trump’s lack of trying. Not only has his rhetoric only grown more authoritarian since he was voted out of the White House, but also, his allies have promised to sweep away what few guardrails existed in his previous term.
Yet, as Trump likely locks up the Republican nomination for a third time, we’re hearing the same denials we heard eight years ago. Even though the evidence of Trump’s unfitness for office is as clear as day, maybe Dimon’s remarks were made in ignorance. JPMorgan Chase has had a remarkable track record during Dimon’s tenure, for example, of not noticing developments under its corporate nose: from allegedly fraudulent mortgage-backed securities and the subsequent housing market crash to Bernie Madoff running a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme out of his Chase bank account. Maybe he’s somehow missed Trump’s awfulness, too.
But there’s a more straightforward explanation: Trump is the billionaires’ candidate. Sure, they don’t care for “how he said things.” But he would deliver these millionaires and billionaires more massive tax cuts. He would reverse the Biden administration’s moves for stronger bank regulations. And he’d end President Joe Biden’s efforts to rein in monopolies, help organized labor and safeguard workers’ rights. None of these things the billionaire class wants from Trump would help the average American, but they would help the wealthiest.
When elites say Trump won’t be a danger to the country, what they mean is he won’t be a danger to them. As Trump himself has demonstrated time and again, nothing insulates you from the world like gobs and gobs of money. It’s easy to be blasé about a country’s future when, at a moment’s notice, you can take your private jet somewhere else.
As Trump himself has demonstrated time and again, nothing insulates you from the world like gobs and gobs of money.
One of the few Davos attendees who understands the danger of Trump had a direct experience of his presidency: Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital founder and infamously short-lived White House communications director. “The business leaders were generally okay with Mussolini. They were generally okay with Hitler. Until it goes crazy,” he told Politico. “Then five years into it the cronyism kicks in, the unpredictability of the law kicks in, the expansion of autocratic powers kicks in. ... [Trump] has told you he wants to be a dictator. He has told you that he wants to expand the executive powers. He has told you he’s going to go after his enemies.”
If anything, Scaramucci is too optimistic, and not just because Trump won’t wait “five years.” Many German business leaders profited immensely even after Hitler dispensed with any pretense of democracy. As journalist David de Jong documents in his 2022 book “Nazi Billionaires,” the owners of BMW, Siemens, Porsche and other major German firms not only benefited from Hitler’s policies, but were able to maintain that wealth through the regime’s fall. Many of their descendants are among Germany’s wealthiest today.
The business elites in Davos will never admit it, but they and Trump are products of the same economic system. Decades of deregulation, privatization and financialization of the economy have accelerated inequality, tightened the wealthy’s hold over our political system and destabilized most Americans’ lives. This increased uncertainty has eased the way for Trump to steam to power by demagoguing, feigning populism, and demonizing foreigners and “other” Americans. Whoever wins in the fall, Dimon said, “I will be prepared for both. We will deal with both. My company will survive and thrive in both.”
The rest of us, though, won’t be so lucky.