Trump 2.0: the rise to power of an "anti-elite" elite
Donald Trump brings in his wake a new cohort of political personalities. While one of his campaign promises was to topple the "corrupt elites" he accuses of flooding the American political arena, his second term has propelled to the country's helm elites chosen, above all, for their loyalty to him.
William Genieys, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, University of Montpellier

Does Donald Trump's new presidency herald the coming to power of "the people and the end of corrupt elites", as he claimed during his election campaign? Contrary to what this populist rhetoric claims, the president-elect is actually bringing an "anti-elite" elite to power .
While Trump's extravagant stances on Canada and Greenland, and Elon Musk's support for Europe's far-right parties, take center stage in the media, they overshadow the ambitious program to transform the federal government that the new political elite that will come to power after Trump's inauguration hopes to implement.
Indeed, after the January 20, 2025 ceremony, the fraction of Republican elites most loyal to the MAGA ("Make America Great Again") leader, who share a common and strong detestation of the Democratic elites and their policies, will monopolize the executive (the administration), judicial (the Supreme Court among others) and legislative powers (at least until the next midterms, the mid-term Congressional elections, which will take place in 2026).
Yet the political project of the Trumpist camp consists less in questioning elitism in general than a specific vision of the elite proper to liberal democracies.
Rhetoric castigating "democratic elitism
Typical anti-elite political propaganda ("I speak for you, the people, against the elites who betray and deceive you, etc.") claims that the populist leader would be able to exercise power for and on behalf of the people without the mediation of an elite disconnected from the needs of the people.
Neo-elitist theorist John Higley sees behind this form of anti-elite discourse an association between so-called "forceful leaders" and "leonine elites" (who take advantage of the former and their political success). A phenomenon that threatens the future of Western democracies.

Since the Second World War, a consensus has prevailed in American politics on the idea of democratic elitism. According to this principle, elitist mediation is inevitable in mass democracies, and must be based on two criteria: respect for the results of elections (which must be free and competitive), on the one hand; and the relative autonomy of political institutions, on the other.
The challenge to this consensus has been growing since the 1990s, with the increasing bipolarization of American political life, and has gained new momentum since the 2016 presidential campaign, marked by anti-elite rhetoric used by populist Republican and Democratic leaders alike (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren). At the heart of their diatribes is an aversion to theestablishment (the established powers) on the East Coast of the United States, where many prestigious financial, political and academic institutions are located, or the conspiracy notion of the deep state.

The re-election of Trump, who has never acknowledged his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, growing political hostility, as well as the direct involvement of high-tech tycoons in political communication - especially on the Republican side - further reinforces the denial of democratic elitism.
Trump's "top-down" populism: a revolt of the elites
The idea that democracy could be betrayed by "the revolt of the elites", put forward by the American historian Christopher Lasch (1932-1994), is not new. For anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, it is a particular feature of contemporary populism, which comes "from above". Indeed, if the 20th century was the era of the "revolt of the masses", the 21st century will be that of the "revolt of the elites". This would explain the development of populist autocracies (Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, etc.), but also the victory of populist leaders in consolidated democracies (Trump in the USA, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, for example).
As Appadurai explains, the success of Trumpian populism as the standard-bearer of a revolt by ordinary Americans against the elites, casts a veil over the fact that, following his victory in the last presidential election, "it is a new elite that has ousted from power the despised Democratic elite that had occupied the White House for nearly four years".
The aim of this "other elite" is to replace the "regular" Democratic elites, but also the moderate Republicans, by profoundly discrediting their values (liberalism, "wokism", etc.) and their supposedly corrupt political practices. From then on, this populism "from above" carried by the president-elect's supporters constitutes an alternative elite configuration, whose consequences on the transformation of American democratic life could be more significant than those observed during Trump's first term.
Paraphrasing American political commentator James Carville's cult phrase " It's the economy, stupid!", today we might say " It's the elite, stupid!".
Overcoming the idea of a "Muskoligarchy
The idea that we are witnessing the formation of a "Muskoligarchy" - i.e. an economic elite (including Tech barons such as Jeff Bezos, Mark Zukenberg, Marc Andreessen, etc.) rallying around the figurehead of Elon Musk, invested since November 2024 as the czar of government efficiency - is seductive.
It perfectly combines the vision of an alliance between a "conspiratorial, coherent, conscious" ruling class and an oligarchy made up of the"ultra-rich". For the renowned Financial Times editorialist Martin Wolf, it is even a sign of the development of "pluto-populism". https://www.youtube.com/embed/BN_82NLmqm4?wmode=transparent&start=0
Other observers, however, are cautious about the advent of this "Muskoligarchy". They point to the sociological eclecticism of the new Trumpian elite, whose facade of unity is held together above all by a political loyalty to the "MAGA" leader that is, for the time being, unwavering.
Nonetheless, the various factions of this new "anti-elite" elite are converging around a common agenda: ridding the federal state of the supposed stranglehold of Democratic "insiders ".
The desire to get rid of the "Deep State
In his 1981 inaugural address, Ronald Reagan said:
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
The anti-elitism of the Trumpian elite is inspired by this diagnosis, and defends a simple political program: rid democracy of the "deep state".
Although the idea that the American Republic is besieged by a government of insiders that subverts the general interest is well known to be unfounded, it is nonetheless prevalent in the new Trump administration.

This conspiracy theory is taken to the extreme by Kash Patel, a candidate being considered to head the FBI. In his book, a veritable manifesto against the federal administration, which he describes as a "government of gangsters", the former lawyer evokes the need to resort to "purges" in order to prosecute Democratic elites. He lists some sixty personalities, including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris...
The appointment of Russell Vought to head theOffice of Management and Budget (a key part of the President's cabinet), who is known for having sought to obstruct the Biden administration's accession to power in 2021, also highlights the authoritarian turn the Trump administration is likely to take.
Reshaping the state by asserting political loyalty to the executive branch
In order to implement their project to "deconstruct" the American state, the "anti-elite" elites rely on the Project 2025a 900-page program co-authored by over 400 experts. According to Paul Dans, director of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, which published the text, never before has a collective of such magnitude drawn up a program of such political ambition. Its objective: to impose loyalty to Project 2025 on the administrative executives of each of Washington's ministerial departments.
Yet the idea is not new. At the end of his first term, Trump decreed the Schedule F appointment which facilitates the dismissal of statutory federal employees inpolicy-related positions deemed to be "disloyal". This decree was rescinded by President Biden, but Trump's return could once again reverse the trend, thanks in particular to the discretionary power he will be able to use once president to allocate senior positions within the federal administration to his supporters (the famous spoils system).
The stated aim of this anti-elite elite "populism" is no longer to reduce the size of the State, as was the case during Reagan's "neo-liberalism", but to deconstruct the State in favor of a potentially arbitrary presidential power. On January 20, 2025, Trump's swearing-in will pave the way for an openly biased democracy in which the ruling elites will be able to act according to their sole perception of the interests and desires of the head of state, with no concern for justice or truth.
William Genieys, CNRS Research Director at CEE, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, Senior Lecturer, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.