Hey, MAGA voters: You've been had. Trump's plans for the economy may ruin you. | Opinion
President-elect Donald Trump cares deeply about the forgotten men and women of the MAGA movement, the regular folks who believe wealthy elites have made America decidedly NOT GREAT.
So I’m sure those forgotten men and women are thrilled to know Trump has stocked his upcoming administration with enough billionaires and multimillionaires to, as The Guardian put it recently, “form a soccer team.”
That’s right. Axios reported last week that, including Trump himself, the administration-to-be is already staffed with 14 billionaires. The list includes Linda McMahon as Education secretary, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as government efficiency overseers, Howard Lutnick as Commerce secretary and billionaire hedge-fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary.
I’m sure these down-to-earth billionaires care deeply about the forgotten men and women who put Trump in office. Surely they are in no way “elite,” aside from perhaps owning an island, or maybe occasionally hunting poor people for sport on said island.
Trump is surrounding himself with non-elite billionaires who care
Forbes reported in 2021 that President Joe Biden’s Cabinet had a net worth of about $188 million.
The Guardian puts the net worth of Trump’s gang thus far at more than $300 billion. If you believe in math, it's a staggering sum, about 2,000 times the wealth of those in the Biden administration.
So, you know … regular folks, the kind who undoubtedly can relate to the day-to-day needs of Americans. The sort who regularly go to grocery stores, which they refer to as “commoner slop-distribution centers.” The kind who would never want to harvest the blood of young people in a narcissistic quest for eternal life.
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There’s no way billionaire businessmen like Musk and Ramaswamy would do anything that helps the rich at the expense of hardworking Americans. They wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal that they will be “taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress.”
And yes, that could include things like the Department of Veterans Affairs medical services, billions of dollars in funding for education and housing, and the Head Start program.
But I’m 100% sure we can trust these billionaires because they’re with Trump, and Trump is clearly anti-elite. As the conservative Heritage Foundation trumpeted after the election: “With Trump’s Win, ‘Ordinary’ Americans Declared Independence from the Elites.”
And Fox Business host Stuart Varney said after Trump won: “The elites have been living in a bubble. Trump just burst it.”
Huzzah! Take that, elites! Now please stand back while regular-guy-billionaire Donald Trump installs a phalanx of other billionaires who will, in a totally non-elite way, lower their own taxes while taking away government services that many forgotten men and women rely on for little things like continuing to live.
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Trump can't guarantee tariffs won't lead to higher prices. Cool!
Consider this: Trump has repeatedly talked about how much he likes tariffs and how, as soon as he takes office, he’s going to tariff the daylights out of other countries like China and Mexico.
Economists ? probably elites ? say the cost of tariffs will get passed along to American consumers. They say that because it’s exactly what will happen. But Trump, the everyman, has long denied that reality, convincing the forgotten men and women of the middle class he’s an economic wizard and this will all work out great for them.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Trump was asked if he can “guarantee American families won't pay more” under his tariff plan.
Trump, the billionaire, said: “I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow.”
Put your future in the hands of Trump's caring billionaires
You see? Trump cares about American families to not guarantee anything.
So don’t worry, forgotten men and women. Be confident that Trump and Musk and Ramaswamy and McMahon and Lutnick and all the other totally trustworthy and altruistic non-elite billionaires know what’s good for you.
Because you’re about to get it, regardless.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's tariffs will cost the Americans he pretends to help | Opinion