Authoritarianism Has A Cost: How Trump’s Abuses Of Power Are Harming The Economy
Trump's tariffs are raising prices. His federal purges are surging Black unemployment. And his immigration raids are damaging local economies. Trump's authoritarianism is a kitchen table issue.
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There’s been an ongoing debate within the Democratic Party about the best message to oppose President Trump and the Republican Party with.
Should Democrats laser focus on affordability, or should they highlight his authoritarianism?
I think that Democrats can and should do both. Not only because it’s vital that Democrats make the case against Trump’s abuses of power, but because those abuses are having quantifiable impacts on the economic well-being of everyday Americans.
During the government shutdown so far, Democrats have focused on healthcare, which was a concise and smart way to open the argument. Nearly 80% of Americans and even 57% of MAGA voters support the renewal of Obamacare subsidies. Increasing percentages of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown, not Democrats. Tying the shutdown message to an imminent healthcare cliff, with premiums set to double for millions of Americans by the end of the year, has created a sense of urgency surrounding the debate and unified the party.
This Democratic strategy has also highlighted some real schisms in the GOP, with even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) forcefully coming out in favor of renewing the subsidies and blaming Republicans for the shutdown.
The conversations around how Democrats have approached the shutdown debate are a microcosm of the broader debate of what messages Democrats should focus on ahead of the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election. Affordability or democracy?
MSNBC Host Ayman Mohyeldin wrote a great article arguing that in the shutdown fight, Democrats should seize on their shutdown messaging momentum and broaden their argument to critiques of President Trump’s authoritarianism:
“And now that Democrats have gained some traction, they can’t afford to miss the opportunity to bring into sharp focus the true challenge of this moment. This government shutdown cannot be just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It must be framed about refusing to fund authoritarianism.”
In my appearance on MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime on Sunday, I told Ayman that I agreed with his piece. I do think it’s time to expand the message. But I also think warnings about Trump’s authoritarianism don’t have to diverge from impacts on America’s pocketbooks. Trump’s abuses of power are having a direct impact on the economic well-being of the American people.
Authoritarianism has a cost. And not just a human one. A literal cost. Let me explain.
President Trump’s tariffs are based on a fake economic emergency declaration, an overt abuse of power. Trump and Russell Vought’s federal worker purges are surging Black unemployment, another abuse of power, violating civil service protections. Trump’s cruel ICE raids aren’t just violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of the people they’re targeting, they’re also damaging local economies. Those are just some of the examples.
President Trump’s authoritarianism is directly hitting the wallets of American families, all while he’s corruptly enriching himself and his family.
Hillary Clinton also made this point in a recent appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Unaccountable power is not good for anybody. There is no safe haven from authoritarians… Your economic standing, your well-being, is directly connected to the abuse of power,” Clinton said. “How do you hold a president who’s abusing power, raising costs, imposing tariffs, raising healthcare costs… How do you hold that president accountable in a midterm? You vote against his party.”
Clinton is right.
Let’s get into the data specifics of how Trump’s tariffs, federal workers purges, and immigration raids are negatively impacting the economy.
The negative impact of President Trump’s tariffs is widely known. Trump just oversaw the weakest 3-month period of job growth since the COVID pandemic, and before that, the Great Recession. Then, we got a jobs report that was even worse than expected. June was revised down to a loss of 13,000 jobs, the first negative month of job growth since December 2020—a month where 77k+ Americans died of COVID. Trump’s tariffs are forcing the economy into a totally unnecessary slowdown.
That is the prime example of how Trump’s abuse of power, in the form of an economic emergency declaration that empowers the tariffs, is harming everyday Americans.
When it comes to Trump’s purges of federal workers, they’re having a direct impact on the overall unemployment rate, and Black Americans specifically. Black unemployment just rose to 7.5%, the highest level since 2021.
Economists told USA TODAY that Trump’s gutting of the federal workforce could be adding to this surge in Black job losses, given that they made up about 18% of federal jobs before Trump took office.
The New York Times more assertively made the connection between federal purges and Black unemployment in a recent piece:
“Job losses are concentrated among Black women working in professional services such as human resources, according to Ms. Wilson’s analysis of federal data. A hiring freeze and mass layoffs in the federal work force, which have continued during the government shutdown and now exceed 200,000, have also fallen disproportionately on Black workers.”
As I also noted in my recent MSNBC appearance, Trump and Vought are exploiting the government shutdown to execute even more layoffs and accelerate Project 2025. So this problem could worsen.
The Trump Administration is bypassing civil servant protections and continuing to fire federal workers, in moves that worsen unemployment, especially among Black Americans. Yet another example of Trump’s authoritarianism impacting Americans directly.
On immigration, the economic impact is also clear. The American Immigration Council published an article highlighting exactly how Trump’s immigration policies are impacting local economies. Here is some of the data they spotlighted:
“Rather than focus on the ‘worst of the worst,’ the Trump administration has increasingly targeted worksites for immigration raids, picking up delivery drivers, street vendors, farmworkers, meatpackers, and others working in industries across the country. While it is too early to tell the full impact of the expanding mass deportation operations on the American economy and way of life, the warning signs are flashing red…
In California, analysis of the state’s workforce data reveals a substantial drop in workforce participation across all demographic groups, with the largest drop occurring among noncitizens…
A new report from Economic Insights and Research Consulting found that deportations are already having an impact on the agricultural supply and on the construction industry. The 10 states with the highest concentration of undocumented immigrants in the construction industry saw a 0.1% drop in construction employment at a time when other states saw a 1.9% increase.”
Not only are families being ripped apart and fundamental rights being eroded, but the economies of local communities are being damaged by Trump’s immigration policy.
The bottom line is this: Democrats do not have to make a choice between highlighting Trump’s authoritarianism or kitchen table issues because right now, Donald Trump’s authoritarianism is landing on Americans’ kitchen tables.
