On his way out the door former President Joe Biden warned that his successor Donald Trump was building an oligarchy in the United States.

Although Biden got a lot of things wrong over the past few years, especially political strategy, he was right about oligarchy. We’re in one. It was born years ago, grew recently, and for at least the next couple years we’re going to see what it’s like to live in one.

An oligarchy is government by the few. Not government by the best; that’s a meritocracy. Not government by experts; that’s a technocracy. Just a few, with membership determined by money, power and the blessing of a leader.

Like many of you, I was raised to believe I lived in a democracy; broadly defined as a representative government elected by all eligible voters. And yes, I know the original Greek version was more chaotic, that ours is a democratic republic. 

Greek or not, democracy now seems to be slipping away. We vote, sure. But someone else decides whether an election is legitimate, whether laws should be enforced, and to whom officials owe allegiance. Who decides? Well, not me. And, unless this article was handed to you by an aide who has their own assistant, probably not you, either. 

Increasingly, the people who make these decisions are the new robber barons of this second Gilded Age we are living in. 

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, spent a quarter billion dollars on behalf of President Trump’s last election while turning his social media platform “X” into a pro-Trump megaphone and is poised to be among the president’s closest advisers, even as he does billions of dollars in business with the United States government.

Then, other tech CEOs rushed to donate to the inauguration — $1 million apiece from Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and leaders of Google and OpenAI. TikTok, the oft-banned Chinese social media app, also lines up genuflect, despite the obvious conflict of interest with current policy debates. Trump and his allies may rail against China, but they’ll do business with an app handing over data to the Chinese government because it helped them win the election.

They didn’t do this four years ago for Biden, or even eight years ago when Trump came in the first time. Something has changed.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the performance given by a steel industry CEO last week.

‘Make American Steel Great Again’ 

The American steel industry groans under the weight of uncertainty. Biden recently blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel. Though the matter now heads to court, this outcome creates opportunity for America’s other major steel firms, Nucor and Cleveland-Cliffs, to pick the bones of the venerable Steel Corporation.

Last week, Cliffs and Nucor signaled plans to buy U.S. Steel, with Nucor taking the advanced electric arc furnace Big River Steel Works in Arkansas and Cliffs taking the rest. This arrangement would place Cliffs in possession of virtually all American iron ore production, most of which takes place in Minnesota. Critics say antitrust laws won’t allow this, but the company seems to think otherwise.

Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves is known for his performative bluster. A Cliffs official once told me that the outspoken Goncalves bristled at early comparisons between him and Trump because he felt he did it better, and I’d agree that he does. In 11 years, this experienced metallurgical engineer and steel executive built Cliffs from a relatively small mining company into America’s largest integrated steel firm.

Along the way, Goncalves bashed rivals, analysts and journalists (present company included) at press events, despite Wall Street uneasiness whenever he did. No matter. It’s working for him, or so it would seem.

But a recent press conference was among the edgiest. Goncalves insulted Nippon Steel and its executives, threatening to take the CEOs money, house and dog in court. 

He may have been half-kidding about the dog, but he wasn’t kidding when he said that “China is bad, China is evil, but Japan is worse,” referring to foreign trade, but you’d be forgiven for detecting a racial subtext. 

Separately, in a Fox Business interview, Goncalves said his goal is to “Make American steel great again,” giving away the real purpose of these theatrics. His audience isn’t America or even the steel industry; it’s Trump, whom he clearly feels has the power to make him one of the most powerful steel titans in American history.

Antitrust issues won’t be a problem if the Department of Justice and courts won’t challenge Trump’s support for mega-mergers. Cliffs also plans to ship iron ore to its Stelco subsidiary in Canada, returning steel to the U.S. Goncalves will need help getting around Trump’s proposed new tariffs, a request more likely granted to someone Trump regards as on the team.

The problem is that Goncalves is now more focused on pleasing Trump than leading his company and industry at a crucial moment. 

This creates a ripple effect, a hierarchy of people and organizations falling in line. Case in point, the United Steelworkers of America. Goncalves wouldn’t be in this position had he not lined up their support.

In fairness, there’s a reason the Steelworkers prefer working with Goncalves. He’s signed generous recent labor contracts and maintained warm, open communication with union leadership. The union has certainly reciprocated, offering historic resistance to the Nippon/U.S. Steel merger and vocal preference for Cliffs ownership. 

The union gave no wiggle room to U.S. Steel and Nippon, rejecting all concessions and pot-sweeteners like poison to the tongue. They wouldn’t do this unless they were convinced Goncalves would take care of them. 

Or at least most of them. 

Cliffs ownership of all Mesabi Range mines, for instance, will lead to job cuts sooner or later. Salaried workers would take the first hit, but eventually entire facilities would become redundant. 

In Minnesota, about 4,000 mine employees anchor an industry that has steadily lost jobs over the past 40 years. But that same industry produces about as much iron ore and corporate profit as the venerated good old days, keeping today’s workers in clover. 

At least, so long as the mines are running. And so long as those workers stick with the program — which now requires the blessing of a transactional federal administration.

This is perhaps the best illustration of an oligarchy in action. Some will do well. Some will do poorly. The difference is decided by loyalty to increasingly authoritarian leadership. Sure, there were hints of this in party politics before, but the veneer is off. Get with the program, or you are out. Once inside, you no longer decide what you’re for or against. You’re for staying in, or else (see above) you’re out.

So long as current demand for steel holds out, we might hope that new investment creates diversified iron production and greener steelmaking on the Range. That’s what the industry, the region and our changing climate need. But, under Trump, this kind of innovation would sink down the to-do list. Maybe, if they get to it. In the short run, a Cliffs-run U.S. Steel would squeeze margins to fill a fat stack of orders while the getting is good. What choice would the company have, what with all the debt they’ll have to take on to buy U.S. Steel. 

In the end, we must be wary of what Bruce Springsteen warned us about some time ago: American flags flying over shuttered mills. The billionaires with their big talk and fat checks will be long gone by then, safely protected behind walls we built because we needed the jobs.