No, Donald Trump is not a socialist.
Capitalist writers are showing they have no clue what socialism actually is
In a buzzy new piece for The Atlantic, building on Trump’s plan to take a 10% stake in Intel, David A. Graham argues that Donald Trump has embraced a “right-wing” version of socialism. It follows another viral piece from May in The Dispatch, which alleged the same thing.
But what these capitalist writers fail to grasp is that there’s no such thing as right-wing socialism. The term itself is a contradiction that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism actually means.
The confusion stems from conflating any form of state intervention in the economy with socialism — a mistake that obscures the radical differences between genuine socialist transformation and reactionary statism.
State intervention in an economy does not necessarily mean socialism any more than the presence of any kind of market equals capitalism.
Right-wing ideology centers hierarchy, nationalism, and property rights, while socialism seeks equality, democracy, and collective ownership. Trying to merge these opposites doesn’t produce socialism; it produces authoritarian capitalism with a heavy state footprint.
True socialism, as articulated in documents like the Frankfurt Declaration and by scholars like Erik Olin Wright, involves democratizing economic power, expanding public ownership, and putting the means of production in the hands of the people.
It’s not simply about government doing things — it’s about fundamentally restructuring who controls economic decisions and who benefits from economic activity.
Trump’s interventions, despite occasional state involvement like buying stakes in Intel, consistently serve the national capitalist class rather than challenging capitalist property relations.
His protectionist maneuvers and forced reshoring policies don’t redistribute power to workers; they redirect capital flows to benefit American corporations at the expense of foreign competitors. This is nationalism wrapped in industrial policy, not worker control.
As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, state intervention often happens on behalf of capital, not against it. Fascist and neoliberal regimes alike have used government power to prop up private accumulation while maintaining existing class structures.
Trump’s approach fits this pattern perfectly — his tax cuts, deregulations, and union-busting efforts have consistently benefited the capitalist elite while leaving workers with fewer protections and less power.
The Atlantic and Dispatch pieces fundamentally misunderstand what makes policy socialist. It’s not the presence of government intervention, but the direction and purpose of that intervention.
Consider the Intel example: giving billions to a corporation in exchange for equity isn’t socialism — it’s corporate welfare disguised as industrial policy.
As Noam Chomsky points out, neoliberal capitalism frequently masks state subsidies to the rich as “free market policy.” When the government socializes losses while privatizing gains, that’s not socialist redistribution; it’s capitalist risk management.
The danger of the “right-wing socialism” narrative isn’t just analytical sloppiness — it’s ideological obfuscation. By calling Trump’s corporate statism “socialism,” these writers muddy the waters around what genuine economic transformation would look like.
They make it easier for actual reactionaries to co-opt left-wing language while pursuing policies that entrench existing power structures.
Real socialism would challenge corporate power, not subsidize it. It would expand worker control, not executive authority. Until we stop confusing state intervention with socialist transformation, we’ll continue to mistake the symptoms of capitalism’s crisis for the cure.
This article first appeared in NOTICE News—the morning newspaper for progressives. Subscribe for free here.
