The New Oligarchs

On the dangerous breed of ideologically-motivated billionaires who believe that democratic institutions have no purpose--and who are ready to use their wealth to advance their alternative visions

Donald Trump’s return to power presents a threat to democratic institutions far graver than any he posed in his first term as president. Unlike in 2017, he has a team that knows how to use the levers of power to advance his agenda. He no longer needs the support or advice of so-called “traditional” Republicans, experts, or any other members of the establishment. In today’s White House, loyalty is the name of the game (with explicit questions measuring fealty to the president now part of the official application process to join the administration). Trump doesn’t need outside expertise; he knows what he wants to do and is willing to achieve it at any cost. He just needs others to carry out his bidding.

For those of us who care about preserving democracy for future generations—the key is not to get swept away by panic and outrage at the situation. It is important to stay calm and assess the key threats to democracy, not to get distracted by the around-the-clock news items the administration is constantly serving up. Trump creates cause for outrage on a daily, if not hourly, basis. But these issues are secondary to the main areas of concern, which is what we must keep our eyes on if we want to be effective at preventing the outright triumph of Trumpism.

For one, most of the issues around which Trump creates chaos are issues that the American public agrees with him on. He returned to office with a mandate, and many of the executive orders he issued in his first week in office are, in some shape or form, carrying out these campaign promises. Many of these orders are unconstitutional, but it is up to courts to deal with this (as we saw last week with the rejection of the birthright citizenship executive order). It is not a winning strategy for those resisting authoritarianism to attack them. Instead, the focus should be on issues that can win broad public support. Trump knows he is popular on social issues like immigration and combating DEI and wokeness. Standing up to him on executive actions, however absurd, on these issues won’t help; activism won’t win this fight. Let him sow chaos here and win some shallow public relations victories. What will ultimately make a bigger difference is pointing out the hypocrisy and corruption of Trump world, and working through democratic institutions to eradicate it.

At the eleventh hour of his presidency, Biden talked about the threat of oligarchy. But he wasn’t precise about the nature of the threat, and why Trump is a uniquely dangerous example of it. It’s not a question of how many billionaires are members of Trump’s cabinet. After all, most billionaire political donors in the U.S. supported Harris in the 2024 election. The more accurate definition of oligarchy has less to do with the amount of money involved in influencing the political process, and more with the distinction between money and power.

Trump and Musk are bona fide oligarchs in the sense that they have obliterated this distinction. Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan—take your pick from American history textbooks—all exerted tremendous influence on politics, using their wealth to steer the direction of policymaking. Big money has historically played a major role in American politics. But, crucially, Rockefeller didn’t care whether the policymakers he used to advance his cause were Democrats or Republicans. He was ideologically neutral in the sense that he had a narrower objective, related to his own business interests, that he was trying to advance. He would spend money to get those in power to advance these interests, regardless of their affiliation. This ideological indifference was doubly protective because it left him one step removed from the political process; he (and other tycoons like him) always had to take the intermediate step of finding someone in Washington to help. There was, in other words, a layer of insulation between his personal agenda and his sway in government.

Trump and Musk have trampled over this layer of defense. They comprise a new ideological oligarchy that has erased the line between capital and decision-making. Zuckerberg and Bezos, for all the eyebrows their moves are raising, belong to the old vanguard of oligarchs—they are defending their own interests, and, as evidenced by their previous support of liberal politicians, are ready to move in either direction to do so. The danger we face is of a new breed of ideologically-motivated billionaires, ones who believe that democratic institutions have lost purpose in our world, and are ready to use their wealth and connections to advance their own alternative vision.

The greatest threat to democracy, regardless of what Trump and his vanguard do in these coming months and years in power, is that these new oligarchs will decide that loss of power is unacceptable to them. Trump and those in his inner orbit only care about strength, as measured by money and influence. Races are all about money; diplomacy is all about who offers the best terms. In a paradigm where strength is everything, and values don’t count, returning power becomes unacceptable. We already came close to this with Trump in 2020, and that was before he had assembled a coalition of new and dangerous allies. But at that point, democratic institutions weren’t yet fragile enough, and traditional conservatives like Mike Pence were willing to play a role to uphold them.

The test of American democracy will come in 2026, which, incidentally, will mark the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. If Democrats succeed in winning the House, the new oligarchy will have to cede the power of the purse. I am not so much concerned about events after the elections as what comes before. Musk and Trump will have Twitter and TikTok at their disposal; many races will be extremely close. What resources will they marshal to ensure that the elections go their way? 2026 will be a dress rehearsal for 2028. We will see if America’s elections continue to be a model for the rest of the world—of a free and fair voicing of the public’s approval, or disapproval, of government.

The pendulum of democracy is always swinging, from more liberal to more conservative approaches to governance and back. That is a normal part of the nation’s political functioning. If we succeed in calling attention to these grave new dangers to democracy, and preserve this increasingly fragile pendulum, it will swing back in the opposite direction after Trump. At the moment, however, it stands a very real chance of being irreparably broken. Just days ago, a MAGA House representative proposed changing the 22^nd Amendment to allow Trump to run for another term in office, putting American political discourse on par with that of completely non-democratic nations. We cannot allow this kind of language to seep into our political conversation, nor can we normalize what is a completely abnormal and authoritarian turn to politics. The wealthiest, most well-connected, or militarily powerful are not those who get to decide the future of this country.

That always must be up to the American people.

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov is the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and the Human Rights Foundation, the vice president of the World Liberty Congress, and a cofounder of the Russian Action Committee.