In the past few weeks, President Trump has moved the U.S. closer to socialism than any president in history. By forcing three companies to yield partial ownership or profit sharing, Trump has started down a dangerous path. As I write this column, he and his cabinet secretaries are promising to do more of the same with technology and defense firms.

Socialism is a political movement that advocates for government ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods and services. For as long as I remember, Republican candidates have loudly criticized any Democrat advocating even a hint of government ownership of private firms.

I, too, have pushed back against democratic socialists and frequently criticized policies where government controls, owns or over-regulates private sector activity (see https://commentaries.cberdata.org/1002/ and https://commentaries.cberdata.org/1167/ ). That shouldn’t be very hard to do. But, so far, only one GOP senator and member of Congress has mustered the trivial amount of courage necessary to repudiate Trump’s step towards socialism.

By contrast, every last one of them has maligned Democrats as socialists.

Socialism is rightfully a dirty epithet for a political campaign. Most of the violent death and destruction of the 20th century came under the banner of some flavor of socialism. This movement in its various forms extinguished the lives of some 150 million to 200 million souls in the last century.

Trump’s moves toward socialism seem clownish and petty. They are, just like every other tyrant before him. First, Trump demanded NVIDIA and AMD pay the government 15% of their revenue from sales to China. Then he coerced Intel to give the U.S. Treasury a 10% ownership stake.

These companies are subject to coercion because Congress has ceded tariff authority, along with virtually all other power, to Trump. He can personally make or break almost any large company. Worse still, Trump has threatened the ability of firms to export at will, a clear violation of the Constitution. No company can afford to push back against this administration. This is a classic move of petty dictators everywhere.

To be sure, the U.S. has bailed out auto companies in crises, prevented runs on banks and forced carmakers to make tanks in times of war. Many of these decisions were clumsily executed or ill considered, but all were temporary acts done in crisis.

The U.S. entered 2025 with robust economic growth, low unemployment and a booming stock market. All of that could come to a halt. Trump isn’t reacting to a crisis, he is the crisis. It is only going to worsen.

Just as Trump forces companies to hand over ownership to the Treasury—giving him untold power to choose clients, partners, set prices and swing federal contracts—he is gutting oversight where it matters most.

Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that measures jobs, joblessness and inflation. It may be that no future economic data can be trusted. Trump hates bad news, and his tariff obsession will lead to job losses and higher prices.

This might seem like inside baseball. Who, after all, worries much about government statistics other than pointy-headed economists? Anyone hoping for a Social Security cost-of-living increase this October should care. Do you think Trump will fake inflation data to mask the ill effects of tariffs? The answer is obvious—yes, if he can get away with it.

He hasn’t stopped there. Just this week, Trump attempted to fire a member of the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook. It is a silly effort, just like those of tyrants before him. To be clear, Trump is doing so based on unproven allegations of mortgage fraud. Alleged financial and moral misconduct is hardly a disqualification for high office in his administration.

Trump wants to fire and replace the entire Federal Reserve board for one reason only. He wants a Federal Reserve that will slash interest rates to mask the damage of tariffs. With approval ratings at the lowest point of his second term, Trump is rightfully afraid of voters in the 2026 election. Trump is happy to spike inflation to limit midterm losses. That’s all there is to it.

This moment in history offers an important moral lesson of the highest order. Every GOP candidate, from township trustee to the White House, called former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris socialists, or worse. Today, faced with a textbook definition of actual socialism from a GOP president, the silence is overwhelming. Many I know are wrestling hard with what this all leads to.

Normally, we’d want some courage from elected officials, and it would be good to offer words of encouragement to speak up. We’re past that. As Cormac McCarthy wrote in “All the Pretty Horses,” “It was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.”