What does the GOP MAGA ex-president bring to the table that makes US elected officials in the republican party succumb to all his demands while enabling him in all his outlandish shenanigans as he vies to become the next US president despite his very flawed character?

What Trump brings to the table, is his grievance affinity with working blue collar class folks that has added lots of new voters to the GOP MAGA coalition and allows the GOP party to be more competitive. These folks have every right to be outraged at their economic stagnation for over 50 years because of business CEOs’ decisions and for governmental blindness/ failure to act to correct for corporate decisions with negative consequences. What Trump does to court their favor by blaming minority (take your pick) for US workers’ lower economic standards declining for over 4 decades, is what’s wrong.

VP Harris gets this. POTUS Biden got this. That’s why their policies are so Lazer focused on lifting up the middle class and the essential working folks who simply want a fair share of the pie as US business production levels experience record breaking improvements.

In 1970’s, major corporations offered a secure pension plan that an employee could count on to cushion them from financial hardships in their old age. Now employer funded pension plans have gone the way of the dodo bird. Before 1980s, when US business productivity numbers improved, the workers accrued corresponding pay raises that reflected their value and contribution. But post 1980s, blue collar manufacturing jobs suffered permanent closures and laborers’ wages have remained stagnant for over 4 decades, no matter how much corporate productivity/ profits increased. After 1978, CEO / top level executive earnings increased by over 1,460% (as per the Economic Policy Institute).

One major change that happened in 1982 is when it became legal for companies to repurchase their shares on the open market pretty much whenever they wanted. The wellbeing of employees and consumers became a far lesser concern than corporate executives wanting to cater to their shareholders. There needs to be some restrictions on companies being permitted to repurchase (buy-backs) stocks.

I contend that the catalyst for some major big business executives taking a hard line against wage increases for laborers, the promotion of anti-union laws, the lobbying of legislators for more pro-business laws began with the 1971 Powell memo. Lewis Powell, an attorney for tobacco companies like Philip Morris, and who later became a Supreme Court justice could have written the GOP MAGA Project 2025 manifesto of today, and the negative consequences of his influence are reflected in the ultra-right wing pro-business leaders who’re in favor of the USA government becoming an autocracy in 2025.

As per the August 20, 2021 Slate article by Nitish Pahwa, “Lewis Powell memo: notes to the Chamber of Commerce:” …

“In the early 1970s, American corporate executives were in a state of panic. From the Great Depression through the social movements of the 1960s, mass popular and institutional outrage had arisen against their companies’ sins, including discrimination and toxic pollution. Even conservative, business-friendly Richard Nixon was signing legislation that added more regulation of corporate practices.”

The education director for the national Chamber of Commerce, Eugene B. Sydnor Jr., wanted a plan of action to counter these forces, and he reached out to a good friend to draw that up: Lewis Powell, then the head of the American Bar Association, an attorney for tobacco companies like Philip Morris, and a rumored Supreme Court nominee. Powell himself had faced down movements that were hostile to his clients, including anti-tobacco initiatives that flourished after scientists began linking smoking and cancer.”

In 1971, Powell wrote a lengthy, confidential memo to Sydnor and the Chamber, titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” outlining ways that corporations could band together not only to fight off regulations but also to infiltrate American institutions—universities, publishers, magazines, ad agencies, TV networks, and even courts—to make them more broadly sympathetic to business. The tone of the prose indicates that this was a personal venture for Powell: “The time has come—indeed, it is long overdue—for the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshalled against those who would destroy it.”

Fifty years later, that vision has come to pass. A right-wing dark money network, financed over the decades by magnates from Bryce Harlow to Richard Mellon Scaife to Joseph Coors, has funded think tanks, media outlets and writers, college programs, legal organizations, and politicians dedicated to advancing pro-business causes. As journalists like Jane Mayer have documented, the strategy has worked all too well: Megacorporations now enjoy fewer regulations, lower taxes, more lobbyists, more businesspeople in power, and the ability to impede policy perceived as hurting their bottom line, whether that be related to climate protections or health care reform.”

Many of the leaders of this counterinsurgency were directly inspired by Powell’s memo, as it was circulated among Chamber of Commerce members and other CEOs. It went public in 1972 after its author had been appointed to the Supreme Court, and inspired the establishment of various pro-business organizations and institutions that still hold major influence today, from the (ALEC) American Legislative Exchange Council to the Manhattan Institute. It’s clear, reading the hectoring language in the memo and the detailed steps it requires for Big Business to take the power back, that Powell—who would go on to serve as a Supreme Court justice for 16 years—helped lay the ideological groundwork for our current politics.”

Read: POTUS Biden Is Working to Lift Up All Including GOP MAGAs/ ALEC Explained

As per July 25, 2017 Business Insider article by Linette Lopez, “What Happened to American Jobs in the 80s:

Back to the Reagan era.

“It started in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan — a hero of the Trump administration — was president, and neoliberal economics were first making their mark on policy. Reagan and his ilk distrusted government and believed that the private sector could make the best decisions when left on its own. You’ve heard about this — it’s called laissez faire economics.”

“This ideology ultimately led to the financialization of the US corporation — the process of putting shareholders first, often at the expense of workers and consumers — and its emergence as an actor that takes resources from the economy rather than creating them. This, combined with a government zeal for lowering taxes rather than spending, means no one — not the government, and not the private sector — is investing enough in America to keep the economy strong across social classes.”

“In short: Government cuts and changes in how corporations operate mean American workers are getting screwed by their own government and their own employers.”

“The shareholder became the main thing for a company to worry about. Employees lost their status. Companies feared getting attacked, so they bent over backward to mollify the former at the expense of the latter. (In 1982 it became legal for companies to repurchase their shares on the open market pretty much whenever they wanted. Previously, the SEC had considered this a form of stock price manipulation.) These new stock repurchasing rules, for one thing, allowed them to shore up their defenses by buying back stock. But, of course, that meant spending money that could’ve gone to innovate, invest in new technology and equipment, or reward workers.”

“That’s when Lazonick says the financialization of the American corporation began in earnest, and blue-collar workers were left behind by corporate America and the government alike:”