Say hello to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Say hello to a blue wave in the 2026 midterms. Say hello in 2028 to President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
If President Trump and congressional Republicans keep this up, it will only be the start of the progressive takeover.
Left-wing populists are already winning over voters by raising hell about the rising price of clothes and groceries due to tariffs. The growing appetite for populist left voices damning the high cost of living made headlines earlier this year in the successful “Fighting Oligarchy,” tour featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ocasio-Cortez.
Poll numbers also make the case that voters are frustrated with Trump’s failed promise to deal with inflation. The same angst is evident in declining consumer confidence.
And now Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury secretary, is floating the idea of replacing Social Security with a thousand-dollar gift to American babies. Those “Trump Savings Accounts” are included in the Republicans’ newly passed tax-and-spending plan. Bessent is now suggesting that a one-time payment, far smaller than monthly outlays for current benefits, is all that is needed to replace Social Security.
Bessent openly said the “Trump Savings Accounts” for newborns is “a backdoor for privatizing Social Security” at an event sponsored by the conservative news outlet Breitbart.
Bessent excitedly asked his audience to imagine that the thousand-dollar gift to an infant will grow until “you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement — then that’s a game changer too.”
“A stunning admission,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor. “Bessent actually slipped and told the truth: Donald Trump and his government want to privatize Social Security.”
Schumer identified Bessent’s musings as a politically potent message for Democrats going into next year’s midterms. Have congressional Republicans forgotten the political pain they suffered when President George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security in 2005? The party lost its majority in the following year’s midterms, in part due to public outrage.
Bessent’s search for a way to end Social Security is a longstanding fixation among Republicans. They see the program as contrary to capitalism, a public welfare program sending the message that government has a role in preventing poverty.
Former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) became a conservative hero for daring to talk about privatizing Social Security. When he ran for vice president on the GOP ticket in 2012, liberal groups famously responded with dramatic depictions in advertising of Republicans “throwing grandma off a cliff.”
Now, with the passage of Trump’s budget reconciliation bill, which got congressional Republicans to buy into substantial cuts in Medicaid spending, the Treasury secretary feels free to again openly discuss an idea for eliminating Social Security.
This comes at a time when the richest 10 percent of Americans own 90 percent of stock market wealth.
“Calling this a five-alarm fire is an understatement,” stated Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Between Bessent’s comments and the harm DOGE has already done to the [Social Security Agency], it’s clear Trump was lying all along about protecting Social Security. Like every Republican administration going back multiple generations, Trump and his billionaire cabinet want to privatize Social Security to give their Wall Street buddies a payday.”
Let’s not forget: During the campaign, Trump pledged to bring down inflation and “make America wealthy again.” But a recent Fox poll found that 56 percent of Americans gave a negative rating to their family finances, and 67 percent rated Trump’s handling of the economy negatively.
In the Trump Cabinet, Bessent has company in floating ideas for undermining Social Security.
“What do you think [about] paying no taxes on Social Security … fantastic!” exclaimed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently, with a bright, wide, television grin on Fox News Sunday.
Just one problem, Mr. Secretary. The proposal for “no taxes on Social Security” didn’t make it into the final version of the Trump spending bill (it was turned into a temporary deduction for seniors). The truth revealed by his misleading comment is that the Commerce secretary — a billionaire, like the Treasury secretary — is preoccupied with ending Social Security.
Earlier this year, Lutnick implied that Americans who complain about missing a Social Security check are likely fraudsters. “If Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month, my 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain,” he said. “She’d think something got messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming and yelling. Anybody who knows payments knows you stop the checks, and whoever screams is the one stealing.”
That brutal disrespect for everyone who benefits from safety net protection against poverty is increasingly being heard in public.
Earlier this year, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) dismissed a constituent who expressed fear about the tax bill’s cuts to health care support provided by Medicaid with a flip comment, replying, “Well, we all are going to die.”
Ernst then doubled down on her callous indifference in a grotesque campaign video filmed in a cemetery, mocking the woman’s concern. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” Ernst said. “So, I apologize. And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”
Is it any wonder that figures like AOC and Zohran Mamdani are gaining traction?
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Comments