Republican Party's Bully Capitalism

 Popular Economics Weekly

“Twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, according to an exclusive new poll conducted for the Guardian, and they are increasingly blaming the White House.” The Guardian

Graph: Last Tech Age

President Trump gave himself “A plus plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” grade on the U.S. economy in a recent interview with Politico cited by The Guardian. That Trump can perpetuate such an obvious lie that contradicts what most Americans feel is an example of bully capitalism at large, my term for what economists have termed is ‘late-stage’ capitalism that has been adopted by the Republican Party, a phase of capitalism marked by extreme wealth inequality and corporate dominance in nearly all aspects of life.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson in her Substack blog Letters From an American states that such corporate dominance is the result of at least $50 trillion in income and assets that has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1% of Americans between 1975 and 2020.

It was done via a succession of Republican administration tax cuts and recessions that grew U.S. federal debt to its current record $39 trillion.

Americans now have the worst income inequality in the developed world as measured by various sources, especially the CIA’s World Factbook. In fact, our income inequality is at the level of developing countries like Mozambique.

The recent Guardian/Harris poll makes clear Trump’s big lie attempts to deny what has really happened since the 1970s that most Americans are seeing with their own eyes.

Democrats are almost twice as likely as Republicans to say their financial security is getting worse – 52% versus 27%. Add in 54 percent of Independents believe the same, who are usually the swing voters that determine elections, said the poll.

And 69 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Independents believe we are already in a recession.

Why when the stock indexes are at record highs? One hint is that bully capitalism has hit women particularly hard. Nearly two-thirds of women (62%) believe the U.S. is in a recession, +12% from February, says the Harris poll, and women, the primary caretakers of children, are the first to see their suffering from the cuts in social welfare benefits such as SNAP and childcare programs by Republicans.

Trump and Republicans have boosted bully capitalism to a new high by showing their blatant lawlessness and cruelty, such as the ICE agents shooting citizens and non-citizens alike. The good news is that Americans can now see with their own eyes the blatant disregard for human suffering, and it has begun to sway the American public in recent elections.

The biggest lie of all perpetuated by Republicans is that “Government is the problem”, that bully capitalism made things better for everyone. No, the American government was formed to protect all Americans, not just the privileged few.

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Donald Trump's Bully Mentality

 ANSWERING KENNEDY’S CALL

President Trump's first days in office were alarming for several reasons. He immediately began attacking the press, while intentionally stating falsehoods such as he would have won the popular vote, but for "3 to 5 million" fraudulent votes…Since most of those falsehoods are easily debunked, such as the size of the crowds at Friday's Inauguration and Saturday women's march.

Simon & Schuster

This occurred in 2017. Will we see a repeat of Donald Trump’s last term? It might be instructive to those 6 million Democratic voters that stayed home this election cycle to remind them why the rampant corruption of his first term and chaos at the border in 2017 when he attempted to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, separating babies from their mothers, was why he wasn’t reelected for a second term.

It looks like a repeat performance as he is again nominating those most loyal and most incompetent for some of his cabinet picks, such as Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, Tulsi Gabbard for Department of National Intelligence, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services.

And he will again use the same bullying tactics to attempt to get them through the Senate without background checks or security clearances. How easily Americans have forgotten that a man who has used bullying tactics his whole life to get what he wants, has highlighted his own incompetence to be POTUS again.

I have written about the bully mentality in our culture before. In times of uncertainty as we have today, it has led to increased bullying in schools, and even gun violence. It is a mentality that attempts to impose a bully's version of reality on the real world for the sole purpose of domination. President Trump has always acted the bully, which is the reason for his history of lawsuits and bankruptcies, so that facts are only useful in so much as they support his needs.

Evidence of Trump's bullying tactics also comes from his words on social media. Groff Beattle, a professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University has reported Trump uses the body language and mannerisms of a bully, such as the exaggerated use of his hands.

Comments such as "mentally sick", "dummy", "looser" or "looked disgusting" are all examples of bullying language Trump uses to attempt to normalize such behavior. Trump's bullying tactics include calling President Obama the founder of a terrorist organization and insinuating that Clinton took drugs prior to a debate. He also mocked the disability of reporter Serge Kovaleski, portrayed immigrants and foreigners as dangerous people, rapists or "criminal aliens", and demonstrated a significant lack of respect for women or military veterans, calling wounded veterans “losers”.

How does one oppose such destructive behavior? First, we should know that bullies prey on those they can intimidate, and avoid confrontation with those stronger because of their own insecurities. Trump preyed on naïve students and the elderly in his Trump University scam. And he stiffed workers and employees when building his Trump Casinos either by paying them less than was contractually agreed to, or not at all.

Combine it with his narcissism that requires he be constantly in the limelight. So, the news media should ignore his tantrums, rather than always commenting on them. Remember that he makes such outrageous lies to gain even more attention.

Psychology Today posted a list of bullying behavior, a list that fits President Trump like a glove:

- Uncontrolled anger and unpredictable irritability, frequently directed at the weakest people ('safe targets') or those perceived as a future threat
- A sociopathic ability to control their own image - the selective ability to look like a different person to different audiences - for example, being aggressive to 'subordinates', while being charming and helpful to others
- Having little status outside of work, bullies wield the power that their job gives them with vicious zeal
- Running 'witch-hunts'
- Gratuitous domineering behaviour - sometimes physical
- The ability to make the unreasonable seem reasonable, even to the victims
--Projecting their own inadequacies onto others
- Making irrational accusations
- Publicly putting people down
- Sadistic enjoyment in humiliating others

The list of Trump's bullying tactics is endless, and how to counter them are well known. There is even a government website, https://www.stopbullying.gov/ to help understand what the bully mentality is all about. How sad it is that this U.S President-Elect, about to become the most powerful person on earth once again, is setting such an example of his own weakness and insecurity.

How easily Americans have forgotten his most recent past and what it could mean as he again seeks to limit freedoms and turn our Democracy into an Autocracy.

Harlan Green © 2024

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen