From Brownshirts to Billionaires: The Second Trump Inauguration

Mother Jones illustration; David Zalubowski/AP, Patrick Semansky/AP, Alex Brandon/AP, Mihoko Owada/AP

On Monday, the three wealthiest men in the world—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—are scheduled to be at the Capitol as honored guests for Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, seated where four years ago Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, militia members, and other extremists, incited by his brazen lies about the 2020 election, violently attacked Congress to overturn American democracy and keep Trump in power. This transition—from brownshirts to billionaires—encapsulates what has gone wrong. It is a clear signal that the United States is broken.

All organisms and entities require defense systems to survive. The same is true for a democracy. Yet the US political system has elevated to its highest position the most potent threat to its existence since the traitorous rebels of the Confederacy. On January 20, 2025, the convicted felon who takes the presidential oath of office to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” will be a demagogic autocrat-wannabe who violated that oath during his first presidential term. Trump defied that vow by falsely declaring victory in 2020 before the votes were tallied, by concocting secret schemes to thwart the popular will and remain in the White House, and by initially doing nothing when his marauders assaulted the Capitol, hoping he could exploit this horrifying act of domestic terrorism as part of his plot to extend his reign.

The recently released final report of special counsel Jack Smith depicts a harrowing scene from that day:

After his speech [in the Ellipse], Mr. Trump returned to the White House and, at around 1:30 p.m., settled in the dining room off of the Oval Office. There, he watched television news coverage of events at the Capitol and reviewed Twitter on his phone. When the angry crowd advanced on the Capitol building and breached it at around 2:13 p.m., forcing the Senate to recess, several of Mr. Trump's advisors rushed to the dining room and told him that a riot had started at the Capitol and that rioters were in the building. Over the course of the afternoon, they forcefully urged Mr. Trump to issue calming messages to his supporters. Mr. Trump resisted, repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen.

Put aside all the skullduggery and deceit Trump engaged in to illegitimately retain the presidency: His decision to take no action as a mob stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of the election was an unconscionable abandonment of his constitutional duties and a profound betrayal of the nation. When informed that his vice president, Mike Pence, who had refused Trump’s entreaties to thwart the certification, was in danger from the rioters, Trump replied, “So what?”

This may be old news. But it defines the gravity of this moment. The authoritarian-minded Trump who nearly blew up the most powerful democracy in modern history is again being handed the keys to the republic. It’s as if the American political system has a death wish. It could not neutralize this threat from within.

That’s due to several reasons, most notably, the cowardice of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who dared not confront him, and the lack of concern among tens of millions of voters (and many non-voters) regarding Trump’s previous actions and the danger he now presents. In our intensely divided nation, in which grievances and tribalism are bolstered by disinformation and the discourse distorted by social media and agenda-driven partisan media, millions of voters did not view Trump as a risk and accepted or excused his many false and absurd claims. (“They’re eating the dogs…They’re eating the cats.”)

Trump’s 2024 election effort was more a disinformation crusade than a conventional political campaign—a natural outgrowth of his peddling of the Big Lie about the prior presidential election. The falsehoods served him well and protected him from the accurate charge that he imperiled democracy. The Democrats failed to make that fundamental aspect of this election a salient issue for enough voters. The price of eggs—which was dropping—mattered more. As did, for some voters, the fearmongering about migrants and crime, as well as the race and gender of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Biden-Harris accomplishments—bipartisan legislation to boost manufacturing and infrastructure revitalization, the management of the Covid vaccination program, the lowering of inflation, a rise in employment—were no match for a politics of hatred and anger. And the warnings about Trump and democracy did not sway a majority.

So the authoritarian virus that Trump represents has reinfected the political body. This time it’s worse. He has made clear his autocratic intent, with much of it spelled out in Project 2025. There can be no mistaking that he harbors tyrannical impulses and that he desires to consolidate power so he can visit revenge upon his foes and detractors (real and imagined) and provide safe space for his robber-baron allies and grifting cronies. Despite this—or due to this—he is being legitimized by the richest and the most influential Americans.

The symbolism is thunderously loud. Instead of QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley—the spear-carrying, face-painted, bare-chested Trumpster who wore a horned fur hat when he led January 6 rioters into the Capitol and who was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his participation in the assault—Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg will this time be the iconic figures at the Capitol. Their presence will shower nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of legitimacy upon Trump—a demonstration that he has triumphed over decency and the rule of law and is now fully accepted and feared by the well-heeled and the powerful, by corporate America, by the establishment. We are witnessing a melding of oligarchy and Trumpism. (In the days before the ceremony, there was a host of parties throughout Washington, DC, mounted by tech aristocrats to celebrate Trump’s inauguration.)

Trump has indeed triggered fright among business leaders. His passion for retribution—his willingness to abuse government to reward pals and injure those who cross him—has caused many a knee to bend. (Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has never contributed to a presidential inauguration, joined other tech titans in cutting Trump’s inauguration committee a $1 million check.) None of these bigshots want to end up on the wrong side of a tariff, a regulation, or a prosecution. They can see the obvious: With Congress controlled by Republicans who either fear or worship Trump, there will be few guardrails, if any. Trump aims to have the entire executive branch serve his needs and interests. And there is not much to stop him. Especially after the Supreme Court, buttressed by three appointees from his first stint as president, expanded presidential immunity to cover what otherwise would be criminal behavior.

With most Republican senators—maybe all—currently bowing before Trump regarding his appointment of unqualified loyalists and inexperienced MAGA extremists to the most important positions in government, a message has been conveyed: Trump is unfettered, federal agencies will do his bidding without a harrumph from the GOP-led Congress, and do not irk him. Moreover, as one might do with a mob boss, make sure to pay him protection money. Do not draw the ire of an emperor who demands tribute or who keeps a list of those who are naughty and those who are nice. 

Accommodation—that’s what an authoritarian craves and needs. From business leaders, from the media, from influentials, and from voters. Trump’s army at the Capitol four years ago were radicals and fringe right-wingers. Now his squad comprises moguls and the Big Tech barons he and his followers once excoriated. A white flag of surrender should be flapping next to Old Glory. They are broadcasting a dangerous signal—resistance is futile—when a healthy democracy demands the opposite.

The American political system could not rid itself of Trump, and now the powerful, scared magnates who seek to protect and advance their own interests flock to his side and bolster his status and position. In doing so, they intensify the threat at hand. They make a dark day for America even darker.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

With Trump’s inauguration falling on Martin Luther King Jr. Day—a cruel joke—some of us at Our Land World Headquarters will be busy, some taking the day off, and some drinking. So we’ll see you again later next week.

And here’s a repeat of a repeat announcement: Our next Zoom get-together will be on Tuesday, January 21, at 8 p.m. ET. By now, most of you know the score. These soirees are only open to premium subscribers. On the day of the event, they will receive a Zoom link. Click on that and one of the highly-trained Our Land bouncers will let you in.

Of course, if you are not yet a premium subscriber, you can sign up here. Once more, let me note my heartfelt appreciation for those of you who have joined this noble band. Because you part with a few of your hard-earned bucks each month, this newsletter can continue. I’m grateful for your support and look forward to seeing you online soon.

With Donald Trump’s inauguration just a few days away, I’ve been thinking about fascism, naturally. Often people ask, what is fascism? Certainly, we know it when we see it. And I’d argue that attempting to falsely claim victory in an election and then deploying disinformation and violence to try to retain power illegitimately is fascistic—especially when all that is fueled by an angry politics of fear and paranoia that dehumanizes opponents, critics, and marginalized communities. But this past week, I did stumble across two definitions of fascism. The first comes from historian and political scientist Robert Owen Paxton. He wrote,

What Is Fascism? The moment has come to give fascism a usable short handle, even though we know that it encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses a person. Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

The other definition comes from Eric Braeden, the German American actor who has played business magnate Victor Newman on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless since 1980:

I come from a nation that believed in fascist ideology for a while. Okay. And we certainly will not want to go into that again. We are close to it because people want to simplify complex problems. The essence of fascism is to simplify complex problems and feed people who don't have time to read some bullshit.

These two definitions jibe well with each other—and apply, to some degree, to our current circumstances.

A few days ago, I published a story about a curious episode in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent past. From 2013 through 2020, he sent $67 million to the Bahamas through a nonprofit group he ran. An investigation I conducted with Russ Choma and Dan Friedman for Mother Jones found that when Kennedy, the anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist tapped by Donald Trump to head the Department of Health and Human Services, was in charge of Waterkeeper Alliance (WKA), an environmental organization dedicated to protecting waterways around the world, he funneled tens of millions of dollars to a small environmental group he and hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon helped set up on the island nation. Bacon was a pal of Kennedy and a major funder of WKA.

The funds Kennedy forwarded to this Bahamian outfit originated with charities tied to Bacon—and WKA retained a percentage of the passed-through money. Staff and associates of WKA were puzzled by this arrangement and did not understand how the tiny group in Bahamas could use all this financing. WKA’s own budget at this time was about $4 million a year, yet in many years it was sending more than twice that to this tiny operation in the Caribbean. And the WKA insiders wondered about an odd connection: While this funding was underway, the Bahamian group and its lawyer were waging a public campaign against a Canadian fashion mogul named Peter Nygård, with whom Bacon was feuding.

This years-long feud between Bacon and Nygård—which began as a property dispute over a shared driveway between their respective estates in a posh community in the Bahamas—had turned into a titanic clash costing tens of millions of dollars and involving lawsuits in varying jurisdictions, private investigators, gang members, phony websites, an allegation of a murder plot targeting Bacon, charges of harassment, political intrigue, secret recordings, and accusations of sexual assault against Nygård (who was eventually found guilty in Canada of sex crimes). Was the money RFK Jr. sent to the Bahamas used for this battle? The tax returns that WKA, as a nonprofit, was compelled to release publicly did not specify who received these funds.

After a WKA board member in 2020 inquired about the pass-through and failed to get an explanation from Kennedy, he resigned. Kennedy also refused to explain this curious transfer of tens of millions of dollars when Mother Jones contacted him. You can read all about it here. 

Whether a headline counts as a comment or not, the judges this week wanted to highlight the New York Times for placing a rather silly headline atop a perfectly fine story about special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his derailed prosecution of Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election: “Report Refuses To Give Trump Pass for Jan. 6.”

This was a journalistic crime. The report maintained that Smith had the evidence to convict Trump of attempting to retain power illegally. It stated that he “also had strong evidence that the violence that occurred on January 6 was foreseeable to Mr. Trump, that he caused it, and that he and his co-conspirators leveraged it to carry out their conspiracies."

The offending headline—vague, weak, and cutesy—appeared on the front page of the hard copy of the newspaper. The online version of the story had a different topper: “Special Counsel Report Says Trump Would Have Been Convicted in Election Case.” That was much better.

This past week, Senate confirmation hearings began for Trump’s nominees. These sessions yielded much absurdity. Notable was Pete Hegseth’s confirmation of his promise to give up drinking if he becomes secretary of defense. That’s some sobriety program. If he isn’t confirmed, his consolation prize will be...continued drinking. But one exchange captured the craziness of the moment. This occurred when Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Pam Bondi, Trump’s (second) choice to serve as attorney general, who in the 2020 post-election period was a foot soldier in Trump’s crusade to deny and toss out the election results:

Durbin: Are you prepared to say today under oath without reservation that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020?

Bondi: President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in...There was a peaceful transition of power. President Trump left office.

Bondi, who’s likely to become the top law enforcement official of the land, could not bring herself to acknowledge the reality of the 2020 election. And it’s disingenuous and ridiculous to say there was a “peaceful transition of power.” How does she think 140 law enforcement officers came to be injured on January 6?

But the trophy this week goes to SiriusXM and CNN host Michael Smerconish. I’ve been on television in the past with Smerconish. He’s a decent fellow with a centrist bent. But he lost his bearings this week. In a promotional social media post, he tweeted, “Michael talks to seasoned political operative and author @RogerJStoneJr about his 16th annual Best and Worst Dressed List. Michael holds a spot in Stone's ‘Hall of Fame’ as one of the best dressed!”

A longtime Trump adviser and political dirty trickster, Stone was charged during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation with witness tampering, lying to Congress, and other crimes and was convicted by a jury in 2019 and sentenced to 40 months in prison. Trump commuted his sentence and later pardoned him. Stone was also a major player in the MAGA campaign to subvert the 2020 election, helping to spread the lies that led to the January 6 riot. He was a key player in Trump’s campaign to end American democracy. Yet now Smerconish is treating him as a lifestyle celebrity. This is what accommodation looks like. No matter how well he dresses, this was a bad look for Smerconish and landed him in the winner’s circle.

Responding to the most recent issue on the return of Trump’s firehose of falsehoods, Larry Roth wrote:

Regarding your latest on Trump’s firehose of excrement, you mentioned the New York Times tried to fact check his recent press conference but was swamped by the flood. But that’s not the only problem. Today, the Times had a long opinion piece on reforms that would make Congress functional again and better represent the political spectrum of views in America. There are some good ideas in it—and one fatal flaw. The whole piece frames it as a both-sides problem. The willful blindness needed to create false equivalence is one more reason why the media is a big part of the problem and not the solution. We can’t expect the media to cope with the shitstorm flooding the zone when they’ve normalized turds as part of a “fair-and-balanced” diet.

Linda Jack also had something to say about that issue:

I believe that is why Trump won the election. He kept the firehose of BS flowing, drowning out Kamala Harris. Normalcy, common sense and decency were too dull to compete with his outrageous lies.

Others have long pointed out Trump’s entertainment-style of politics. It seems to be a version of professional wrestling: loud, gaudy, bombastic, and completely false. Yet it juices up an audience.

Sandy Bassett sent in a recommendation:

Hoping you saw the piece on no snitching from the Guardian. It was pretty brilliant.

I had not. In this piece, labor journalist Hamilton Nolan suggests a unique New Year’s resolution:

Are you, like millions of Americans, feeling hopeless and fearful about the dawning of a new age of fascism? And are you, like millions of Americans, in search of a New Year’s resolution that won’t require you to lose weight or go to therapy? Happily, both of these problems can be solved with one action: resolve to make 2025 the year of no snitching. Choose as your New Year’s mantra that great civic-minded slogan: “If you saw something, no you didn’t.”

Nolan was saying that if you have a chance, don’t cooperate with the authorities who try to enforce Trump’s demagogic dictates. For instance, if ICE comes knocking and enquires about the immigration status of someone you know, say nothing. There is nothing wrong with recommending this. But my guess is that most people will not be put in such situations and will be only onlookers. The challenge is to find ways for them to engage as well in an effort to prevent the rise of authoritarianism.

Arnold Meagher was moved by the recent issue on Jimmy Carter’s passing to share an idea he cooked up:

Ever since the November 5 election, I have been struggling with finding some way of contributing to the well-being of our nation on an ongoing basis. Seeing all five living Presidents at Jimmy Carter’s funeral services at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, triggered the idea of having all living presidents meet on a quarterly basis at Camp David to discuss affairs of state with the agenda decided by the majority of the participants. This would give the nation the benefit of the wisdom and counsel of past presidents on a structured basis and promote a national dialogue on issues discussed at these meetings.

In theory, perhaps, but I don’t know how much we should look for guidance to George W. Bush, whose blunder in Iraq led to the deaths of several thousand American servicemembers and 200,000 or so Iraqi civilians. He also doesn’t seem to be interested in being engaged since leaving the White House. (There are all those people and dogs to paint!) And can you imagine Trump in a meeting like this? But we sure do need a way to bolster a sense of national civics and discourse, and I salute Arnold for thinking about that.

Amy Farland emailed:

Seniors read. Seniors vote. Seniors remember their history. They were taught civics. They are engaged. And many of them, including me, rely on the pittance of Social Security to survive. The current setup access knowledge, read divergent opinions, and stay informed stovepipes all internet activity worth pursuing for the elites. And it leaves the vast majority of Americans behind. The first thing any progressive voice should address is who should pay for posts. Because this isn’t working.

It is certainly true that many voters are not absorbing accurate and relevant information about important public matters. Is this because of the cost? Many elite publications have subscription fees that can be high. The New Yorker costs $169 a year, though you can get the first year for half of that. The New York Times can be quite expensive. (But if you call and say you’d like to cancel a subscription, it will give you a deep discount not to do so.) Yet there are many news organizations that produce much material online that is free. This includes Mother Jones, CNN, NBC News, ProPublica, HuffPost, and others. This very newsletter publishes a limited edition that you can enjoy without paying for it, though I highly encourage readers to join as premium subscribers to get the full version and to help us keep the lights on. Cost may be one factor that impedes the flow of good information to voters. But I believe there’s a lot else involved, including a lack of desire on the part of many Americans to stay informed and engaged. How to address that?

“It sure looks cold out there.”
“Yes, it does, Moxie. But you have a thick coat now. In fact, it’s getting a bit shaggy, perhaps we should take you to—”
“Don’t you even think about it!”
“Okay, okay, don’t bark at me.”