Domesticky

Capitalism didn’t glitch when Trump got elected. It played a winning hand.

Trump was the ace up capitalism’s tailored sleeve: the distraction play, the bluff, the showman in a red tie while the real money moved behind the scenes. A Vegas act for the dying middle class. A dealer with no soul.

You thought this was politics?

No. This is a card game. And unless you were born holding stock options and a family trust fund, you’re not playing. You’re the pot. The prize. The disposable chips.

The System Doesn’t Want Order. It Wants a Winner.

Trump wasn’t a mistake. He was the inevitable final hand of a system that’s been stacking the deck for centuries.

Capitalism needs inequality to work. It needs losers to make winners rich. But it also needs distractions to keep the losers playing.

So it gives them a jester who talks like them, fights like them, and hates all the people they’re told to hate.

Enter: Trump.

The bankrupt billionaire. The steak-selling snake oil salesman. The punchline who became President.

Because in capitalism’s casino, the loudest gambler with the gaudiest suit always gets a seat at the table.

Capitalism, Meet Fascism: It’s a Marriage Made in Mar-a-Lago

When capitalism starts to wobble – when people start to realise the house always wins – it doesn’t reform.

It doubles down.

It finds new villains to blame. Immigrants. Minorities. Women who want too much. Journalists who ask the wrong questions.

This isn’t new.

Mussolini rose promising national pride and family values, while smashing unions and handing the economy to the elite.

Hitler was voted in by people who were cold, hungry, and desperate for a reason – and he gave them an entire race to hate.

Pinochet dropped poets out of helicopters while the markets clapped from Wall Street.

Trump just modernised the trick. Swapped the uniform for a red cap. Swapped speeches for tweets. Swapped the tanks for tear gas.

And now, capitalism doesn’t even bother hiding the fascism. It just rebrands it as “law and order.”

History’s not just repeating. It’s livestreaming.

The Real Trump Card: Getting the Poor to Play for the Rich

How does a billionaire convince people living pay-check to pay-check that he’s their guy?

By playing the oldest con in the capitalist deck: “You could be me.”

He doesn’t ask them to hate the rich. He asks them to aspire to it. To defend it. To believe that if they just worked harder, played smarter and bet bigger, they too could sit at the table.

That’s the great capitalist seduction.

It tells the poor they’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. And it tells them that the reason they’re losing isn’t the game – it’s the others at the table.

That’s how you get a man who shits in gold toilets being called “a man of the people.”

That’s how you get votes from folks who’ll never see a tax break in their lives but still defend billionaires from paying any.

Because they’ve bought the lie: “One day, that’ll be me.”

For the Rich, Trump Isn’t a Problem. He’s a Diversion.

While the world watches the clown show, the billionaires are clearing the table.

Tax cuts. Deregulation. Judges who’ll protect profit over people for the next forty years.

The chaos wasn’t the problem. It was the cover.

While Trump threw tantrums, they threw parties. The stock market soared. Corporate profits surged. Billionaires multiplied like rats on a superyacht.

He wasn’t draining the swamp. He was dredging it for oil.

The House Always Wins: Democrats, Republicans – Same Casino

In America, they call it a two-party system.

But really, it’s a two-headed dealer running the same game.
Every four years, they just switch ends of the table.

One side offers tax cuts with a Bible. The other offers bailouts with a rainbow flag.
One wears a red tie and promises jobs. The other wears a blue suit and promises hope.

But both parties serve the same master: capital.

You don’t get to be president unless Wall Street’s already placed their bet.
You don’t get media airtime unless your policies won’t scare the sponsors.

The Democrats will cry on TV while deporting immigrants.
The Republicans will cheer while banning books.

And both will defend billionaires, defund the poor, and funnel public money into private hands. Because that’s the job.

The real difference? One tells you it’s for your own good. The other doesn’t bother pretending.

What Comes Next? More Cards. Worse Hands.

Trump is the prototype. A tester deck.

The next version will be sleeker. Smarter. More polished.

Maybe it’s a tech bro with a mindfulness app and a private police force. Maybe it’s a centrist in pearls who sells you austerity as “fiscal feminism.”

Maybe it’s a robot with a LinkedIn.

Because once the system realises the con still works, it doesn’t retire it. It upgrades.

And if we don’t call it what it is – capitalism in crisis dressing up as salvation – we’ll fall for it again.

History isn’t whispering. It’s wailing. And we’re still lighting matches.

And Ireland? Don’t Think the Game Stops at the Atlantic.

We like to think we’re immune. That we’re too smart, too small, too sound to fall for it.

But we’ve already got Taoisigh who collect rent for a side hustle.

We’ve got homelessness soaring and housing hoarded like gold.

We’ve got tech giants writing our laws and vulture funds swallowing our towns.

And we’ve got our own would-be Trumps. Less orange, more beige. Less charisma, more contempt. Populists peddling patriotism while selling off the country bit by bit.

We watched the Free State smother working-class uprisings with rosary beads and British bullets. And still we think Ireland can’t go backwards?

So What Now?

Can we stop playing their game?

Can we call the con?

Can we say what nobody on RTÉ will say?

Capitalism doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be ended.

You build solidarity, not status.

You make the home political again. Because it always was.

You look around your kitchen table and realise: this is where the resistance begins.

Because while they hoard power like poker chips, you can be nurturing the things that money can’t buy:

Community. Compassion. The confidence to choose a life that isn’t a fucking gamble.