Follow-up: Class Fractures Within the Right

Trump’s 2026 budget plan deepens the contradictions at the heart of the U.S. Right. By proposing $163 billion in cuts to non-defence departments—gutting housing, health, education, public health, and climate programs—while raising military and Homeland Security spending by over $150 billion, it lays bare the priorities of capital in crisis: repression over welfare, coercion over care.

These cuts directly undermine the material conditions of the very working-class constituencies who have been courted by the populist wing of the GOP. While culture war rhetoric still mobilizes loyalty, there is a widening gap between this rhetorical appeal and the economic realities produced by elite-driven policy. Ending low-income energy assistance, slashing student aid, and stripping CDC and NIH budgets all threaten rural and suburban voters who have been the bedrock of MAGA support.

This creates a potential split within the Right. One faction—still aligned with libertarian billionaires and military contractors—seeks to consolidate power through executive overreach and permanent austerity. The other, more volatile faction includes working-class voters whose economic grievances were once absorbed through symbolic conservatism. As the economic squeeze tightens, these voters may not break left immediately—but they could turn against the Republican establishment if no material gains are delivered.

The unity forged by the New Right’s ideological sleight of hand—combining billionaire economics with blue-collar rage—may be approaching its limit. In this moment, the risk is not just reaction from above, but an opening for reaction from below: a turn toward more openly fascist tendencies if no emancipatory alternative is built.