I’ve seen some posts today pointing some interesting things. While Trump is terribly racist and fascist, there are white supremacists and Nazis for whom he does not go far enough. There are far-right kooks who think Trump is not far enough right. Some pointed out he is too much of a capitalist to go that far, that in looking out for his bottom line, he avoids too much extremism because he’d start losing money.
On the other hand, he seems to have no financial goal for the country. Constantly flipping tariffs on and off, switching “buckets.” Making propositions that any businessman would know is completely unrealistic. He has no idea how to be a capitalist either, it seems! So is he completely directionless? He just kinda goes wherever feels good to him at the moment? Is he possibly in some kind of cognitive decline, unable to make reasonable decisions, but since his base worships him no one can take the reins from him?
I’ve also read and discussed the two capitalist factions as the internationalist and the localists. International capitalists are financial and tech industries, generally favor the Democrats, and have been the larger influence on the government/economy since the fall of the USSR. The localists comprise heavy and light industry and extraction enterprises, like coal or logging. They generally favor the Republicans and have been losing power since the 70s and even worse since NAFTA. Agriculture, oil, and military industries would also count as “local”, but their unique relationship with US diplomacy and hegemony means they’ll side with whatever political is in control.
The internationalists are in decline and I wouldn’t be surprised is Musk and Thiel represent the tech part of that class abandoning “reasonable Democrats” for the Trump camp.
Tech industries pivoted hard to republicans during the bush era, I feel like institutional tech being against trump 1.0 was an anomaly. After 9/11 they lobbied hard for the creation of the modern surveillance state
He likely hadn’t been fully tested by military intelligence at during his first presidency, so tech being against him then makes sense. After 4 years in office and 4 years out of office he’s had enough time and access for intelligence to test him, get their hooks in him, and give him the approval.