Is Trump a socialist? |
President Donald Trump holds a chart on household income in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 7, 2025. | Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images
For decades, a core part of the Republican Party’s identity was the whole-hearted embrace of free-market capitalism. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market was understood to be infinitely preferable to government meddling.
Lately, though, President Donald Trump has been having second thoughts. Forget the invisible hand — what about, uh, Trump’s hand?
The second Trump administration has cut a revenue-sharing agreement with Nvidia, it’s taken partial control of US Steel, it’s considering taking a stake in Intel, and it’s created a loyalty ranking system for US companies. And did we mention that Trump has taken to brow-beating companies into not raising their prices in response to tariffs?
All this adds up to unprecedented intervention into the market, and pushes America toward a “state capitalism” model practiced by countries like Russia, India, and China. The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, Greg Ip, calls it “state capitalism with American characteristics,” a nod to the Chinese Communist Party’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Free-market fans aren’t happy. Neither are most Democrats. There is one small but vocal faction in US politics that has historically been more open to this kind of intervention, so Today, Explained gave a prominent member of that group a call to get his thoughts.
“Obviously, as a socialist, I start from the principle that private industry should be subject to more democratic control and oversight,” Bhaskar........