I have three brothers and three sisters. Mom was a homemaker, as they called it in those days, and Dad worked a blue-collar union job for 43 years. All of my friends came from working-class families.
I went to work for a builder after high school. For most of my adult life I worked as a carpenter/builder/contractor. I spent four-plus years in the US Army – enlisted, not officer. I’ve had a bit of college, and I’ve done a lot of reading.
Still, I can’t begin to understand how so many working-class Americans can accept and embrace the mere concept of a populist billionaire. I can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s practically a contradiction in terms – an oxymoron.
In California, billionaire businessman Tom Steyer has announced he is running for governor as a Democrat. According to NewsNation, “Tom Steyer is running for California governor as a populist billionaire,” (11/19/2025) by Bill Barrow, “The 68-year-old’s tremendous wealth immediately makes him a notable contender ...
“Steyer announced his candidacy with a pledge to improve economic conditions and by framing his political record as friendly to consumers, working-class voters, and the environment.
“Steyer said he would ‘make corporations pay their fair share again,’ and his campaign cited his previous work on ballot initiatives with similar aims.”
That all sounds pretty good on the face of it, right? Still I have to wonder about his motives. Why would someone with a couple billion dollars seek a job, any job, that pays about $250,000/year? His annual salary would be .0125% of his estimated worth.
Perhaps he is a true humanitarian who really and truly wants to improve the lives of everyday consumers and working-class people. In 2010, Steyer and his wife signed an official pledge to donate half of their vast fortune to charity. Yet I remain skeptical.
The Oxford dictionary defines populist as: “a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.”
Indeed, a somewhat less than affluent Trump supporter once told me quite fervently that “he’s the only person who’s helped people like us.”
“How exactly has he [Trump] helped you?” I asked politely and sincerely.
The Trump devotee was at a total loss for words. Instead I got a baleful look that suggested their devotion was mostly emotional, and not rational. Somehow they feel that this geriatric billionaire playboy from New York City, Donald J. Trump, is protecting lower-middle-class Americans like them from insidious elitist groups.
In Forbes, “Presidency boosts Trump’s net worth by $3 billion in a year,” Dan Alexander writes, “Donald Trump lost money during his first term. Out of office, he found a formula for profiting off politics – now he’s piling up billions.
“Donald Trump just had the most lucrative year of his life. The president is now worth a record $7.3 billion, up from $4.3 billion in 2024, when he was still running for office. The $3 billion gain vaulted him 118 spots on The Forbes 400, where he lands at No. 201 this year.
“No president in U.S. history has used his position of power to profit as immensely as Trump. His primary vehicle for enrichment: cryptocurrency, an asset class full of hype and vulnerable to regulators. Teaming up with his three sons, Trump announced a crypto venture in September 2024 named World Liberty Financial, which initially struggled to gain traction. Then he won the White House.”
In short, President Trump’s wealth almost doubled during the first nine months of his second presidency. Meanwhile the annual inflation rate in the US rose to 3% in September 2025, the highest since January when Trump took office. It’s difficult to determine exactly how much Trump’s tariffs are driving inflation. Still it should be noted that inflation in Europe and South America is just about 2%.
Perhaps that doesn’t sound like much, but most economists consider 2% to be a healthy and acceptable inflation rate, while more than 2% is undesirable. How would you like to have 1% cash back on all the money that you’ve spent this year?
On September 4, 2025, President Trump hosted 33 Silicon Valley power players — 13 of them billionaires — at a White House dinner. Do you think they discussed how they can improve the lives of ordinary working-class Americans? Or were they focused on furthering their own fortunes?
The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, was conspicuously absent from the dinner. Lest we forget, when Trump was trailing Kamala Harris in the polls, Musk jumped in and spent $300 million of his own money on Trump’s campaign, while vowing that he would spend whatever it took to get Trump reelected. Musk later declared, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election.”
To reward Musk’s enormous help and generosity, Trump appointed him to head the new and hastily created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The image of the richest man in the world wielding a chainsaw and slashing the jobs of everyday working-class Americans was certainly off-putting, if not downright repellent and disturbing. So, Trump began to distance himself from Musk, and their cozy relationship crumbled.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) also known as the Trump Tax Cuts, lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and generally benefitted the wealthy much more than the working class. Just hours after signing the bill into law, Trump told his wealthy guests at an extravagant Mar-a-Lago dinner, “You all just got a lot richer.”
Studies indicate a genetic component for greed, suggesting it’s a moderately heritable personality trait. One’s greediness, however, isn’t determined entirely by genetics. Other factors, such as upbringing and societal influences, also influence one’s propensity for greed.
The Trumps are a textbook example. Frederick Trump, a German immigrant, made a fortune during the Klondike Gold Rush running a restaurant and brothel for miners. His son Fred Trump built a huge real estate business in New York City. Fred’s son Donald Trump became president of his father’s real estate business in 1971.
Now Donald Trump’s children are riding their father’s coattails to enormous riches. Eric Trump is worth an estimated $750 million. Donald Trump Jr. is worth $500 million. Barron Trump, just 19 years old, is worth $150 million. Ivanka Trump is worth $100 million; her husband Jared Kushner is worth $1 billion.
I can honestly say I’m not jealous. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head, food in my pantry and fridge, and two cars and a boat in my driveway.
However, as we count our blessings this holiday season, perhaps we should be mindful that wealth inequality in the US is growing. The rich are getting richer, while the rest of us are not. According to Goldman Sachs, about 31% of American workers lived paycheck to paycheck in 1997. That figure is now estimated to be as high as 67%.
I don’t believe for one second that populist billionaires like President Trump are really and truly interested in the wealth and well-being of ordinary working-class Americans.
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