Trump: Less Toys for Christmas,
More Money for the Rich
“2 dolls instead of 30.” Trump
This is our “Let them eat cake” moment !
On April 30, Trump predicted that higher prices caused by tariffs will mean “children will have 2 dolls instead of 30 dolls.”1 Trump and his thugs continue to warn us that bleak times are ahead, while, at the same time, they continue to amass more wealth.
“Trump and Musk do not have a clue about what it means for a working-class family trying to buy presents for the kids, or to take care of the basic necessities of life,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday night. “I think it’s an incredible arrogance and ignorance on the part of these people who have so much wealth and so much money.”1
“Let them eat cake” fueled the French Revolution. In 1789, the poor and working people of France were starving while King Louis XI, his wife Marie-Antoinette and the country’s ruling aristocracy lived in luxury. It was reported that when Marie-Antoinette learned that the peasants had no bread, her response was “let them eat cake.” Whether she actually said this is immaterial, what the sentiment reflected was an utter disregard for the welfare of working and poor people. Sound familiar?
July 14, 1789, the French people got rid of Louis XI, Marie-Antoinette and the French aristocracy. The goals of the French Revolution were declared in the Declaration of the Rights of Man: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!2 Liberty represented freedom from oppressive rule, equality aimed to eliminate social distinctions and ensure equal rights for all, and fraternity symbolized unity and brotherhood among the people.
“2 dolls instead of 30” is our “Let them eat cake” moment. But this is a different time with a different goal.
The French Revolution was a “bourgeois revolution,” in which capitalism overthrew feudalism, creating the legal conditions under which capitalism could flourish.3 Starting with the First Industrial Revolution in Britain in the 1760’s, capitalism spread all over the world creating wealth but also the seeds of its own destruction.
Capitalism creates class struggle between the working class, the majority of us who must sell our ability to work in order to live, and the capitalist class, the less than 1% of us who own the means of production, the electronic media, factories, banks, mines, etc., and who use the labor of the working class to make money. This is a war between those of us who supply the collective labor that produces wealth versus the private owners of who seize that wealth. This is a war between the few who can afford to buy 30 dolls and the many who cannot afford to feed, clothe and house their families.
AI has changed the world and the next revolution will be a socialist revolution. The Trump government along with the Republican and Democratic parties are implementing the ruling class’s plan for the new AI-run world. They know that new technology is “disrupting” capitalism by eliminating the role for mass industrial labor. By firing half of the federal workforce and by attacking all of our hard-won rights, they are sending the working class a message, “this is our house, we will do what is necessary to keep it that way.”
The fight is over who will own and control AI. Technologies such as AI are too powerful to function in a competitive, capitalist economy. They were created with public money but are used to create private wealth. These technologies demand a cooperative framework. The only way to achieve that is by seizing state power, eliminating private property and making economic and social cooperation the law of the land.4
“Our task is to build for political power; the power to direct and coordinate human and material resources to the tasks of survival and dignity for all people and the planet.”5
Our task is to make Liberty, Equality, Fraternity a reality
Let’s talk.
References
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/02/trump-dolls-tariffs/
3. https://revolution.chnm.org/d/580
4. https://rally-theleague.org/getting-to-the-cooperative-society-we-need/
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