The Impunity of the Unscathed: Risk, Elite Security, and the Rage of MAGA Populism

Ulrich Beck's concept of "the risk society" explains the political logic of MAGA

In 1992 the German sociologist Ulrich Beck proposed the coming emergence of what he called the “risk society.” He prophesied a future where the traditional cleavages of class and ideology would recede, replaced by a new political fault line. This emerging division, he posited, would be drawn not by economic ownership or social status, but by the distribution and, crucially, the socialization or mutualization of risks. In a world grappling with environmental catastrophe, global economic precarity, and the unpredictable consequences of rapid technological advancement, Beck argued that societies would increasingly fracture between those who could insulate themselves from these burgeoning risks and those who were forced to bear their full, unmitigated brunt. The political battles of the 21st century, in this schema, would be fought over who pays the price when things go wrong – whether the burden is diffused across the collective, or concentrated on the precarious many.

Beck’s foresight, rendered in the late 20th century, finds chilling resonance in the contemporary political landscape, nowhere more starkly than in the rise of MAGA-style populism. This phenomenon, often simplistically dismissed as a reaction to economic inequality or cultural grievance, is in fact a visceral revolt against a deeper, more corrosive perceived injustice: the systemic impunity enjoyed by an elite class. In the MAGA lexicon, the “elites” are not merely the wealthy, but a specific stratum of society whose personal security, primarily achieved through educational attainment and access to certain professional spheres, appears to have effectively eliminated downside risk from their lives. In the eyes of MAGA, these are individuals who never have to pay any meaningful price for their failures or misdeeds, even as those lower down the socio-economic ladder face profound and ever-present precarity. What truly enrages is not inequality as such, but the stark contrast between the consequence-free existence of the perceived elite and the brutal, often unforgiving, realities faced by everyone else.

Beck’s “risk society” thesis pivots on the idea that modernization, while solving old problems, creates new, often invisible, and globally distributed risks. Industrialization, for example, brought unprecedented wealth but also pollution; technological advancement brings convenience but also job displacement and cyber insecurity. The defining characteristic of these new risks is their inherent uncontrollability and unpredictability. Unlike traditional class conflict, where the adversary is clear and tangible, the risks of the risk society — climate change, global pandemics, financial crises — are amorphous and often diffuse, demanding collective action but also exposing the vulnerabilities of individuals.

Within this framework, Beck anticipated that political discourse would inevitably shift towards debates about how these risks are managed. Will they be borne by individuals, forcing them into a brutal struggle for survival in a volatile world? Or will they be socialized, with collective mechanisms—from robust social safety nets to international climate agreements—designed to mitigate their impact on the most vulnerable? The political lines, Beck suggested, would be drawn between those who advocate for individual responsibility in the face of systemic risks and those who champion collective solidarity.

MAGA’s Rage Against Impunity

MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately offloaded onto them, while the beneficiaries of the modern system — the “elites” — remain largely untouched. Consider the climate change debate: for many in the MAGA base, the imposition of green policies is perceived as a direct attack on their livelihoods, a demand by scientific and intellectual elites that they make personal sacrifices for a problem they feel they did not create (and which may not even exist, according to many of them) and which are not a burden for those advocating for the changes. Similarly, globalization, while offering boundless opportunities for some, has gutted industries and communities, leaving a trail of economic insecurity and job precarity for millions. The “globalist elites” who tout the benefits of free trade and open borders are seen as enjoying the fruits of this globalized system while bearing none of its associated risks.

This perception of elite impunity is not merely anecdotal; it is deeply embedded in the American psyche and reflected in longitudinal data concerning public trust in institutions. For decades, Pew Research Center has tracked Americans’ confidence in various societal pillars, and the trends are stark. What emerges is a steep, almost unbroken decline in trust across nearly all major institutions: Congress, the presidency, the courts, major corporations, the media, universities, and even organized religion. The trajectory is a downward spiral, with public confidence consistently hitting historic lows.

However, amidst this widespread erosion of trust, two institutions stand out as remarkable exceptions: small businesses and the military. These, uniquely, are the institutions that still command significant public confidence. Why? The MAGA answer, informed by the Beckian lens of risk and accountability, is that these are the spheres where consequences are still direct and often unforgiving. In a small business, a bad decision by the owner can lead to bankruptcy and personal ruin. In the military, failure carries immediate and severe penalties, from disciplinary action to loss of life. In both cases, the top bosses, the leaders, are still perceived as being genuinely accountable for their actions and failures. There is no elaborate institutional buffer, no gilded parachute, to soften the landing.

This stands in stark contrast to the perceived operation of other institutions. In the corporate world, CEOs who preside over massive failures or ethical breaches often walk away with golden severance packages, their personal wealth untouched by the devastation they leave in their wake. In government, politicians who make disastrous policy decisions or engage in corruption often face little more than a slap on the wrist, retiring to lucrative consulting gigs or media appearances. In academia, as we will discuss, the perceived lack of accountability is particularly galling. As Noah Berlatsky has observed, the problem is that “a lot of our leading very serious people think that holding powerful people accountable is messy and ugly and not to be done.”

The rage of MAGA, then, is not simply a longing for a bygone era, nor is it purely an economic protest. It is a demand for accountability, a furious indictment of a system where risk is privatized and distributed downwards, while success is centralized and its architects are shielded from any adverse consequences. It is the cry of those who continually face the sharp edge of precarity, observing with simmering resentment a class of individuals seemingly exempt from the basic laws of cause and effect.

That the standard bearer of the MAGA movement, President Donald Trump, is himself a prototypical example of elite impunity might seem like a contradiction here. In fact it is not. Trump has positioned himself in the minds of MAGA as the man who knows the system is rigged to protect “elites” and therefore the only one who can possibly reverse this tendency of elite impunity. This is the direct point of Trump’s vow to exact “retribution.” The fact that Trump himself has gone bankrupt several times is to MAGA an indicator not that he is generally incompetent or that he welches his business partners, but rather that he is an everyman who has in fact faces consequences for failures. What MAGA wants is not a reduction of risk for all, but rather a privatization of all risk — ergo the ambition to abolish of all the caring and regulatory aspects of the state. If the modal Trump voter is a cryptobro or the owner of a used car dealership, what such people want is a society in which everyone faces the same risk as they do.

The War Against Risk-Mutualizing Institutions

The Gay Science: Harvard as Ground Zero

The recent saga surrounding Claudine Gay’s resignation from the Harvard Presidency offers a potent, almost textbook, illustration of this very dynamic in the MAGA mind. Gay’s tenure was brief and tumultuous, marred by controversy surrounding her testimony before Congress regarding antisemitism on campus and subsequent allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. After intense public scrutiny and calls for her removal, she ultimately resigned from the presidency.

For MAGA, however, the outrage was not just that she was initially defended by the Harvard Corporation, but that even when she was eventually forced to step down as President, she was able to seamlessly “retreat back” to her tenured faculty position — further solidifying the perception of elite impunity. Here was a figure who, in MAGA’s view, demonstrated significant failings in leadership and academic integrity, yet landed back in a prestigious, secure, and highly compensated role within the very institution she ostensibly failed to lead. The perceived lack of a meaningful penalty — no real professional downturn, no significant financial loss, no personal precarity — became a symbol of everything that enrages MAGA.

In the MAGA narrative, Gay’s ability to return to a secure professorship wasn’t seen as a function of academic tenure protecting scholarly freedom, but rather as a testament to the insular and cosseted nature of elite networks. It confirmed their suspicion that those at the top operate under a different set of rules, where professional missteps are merely temporary inconveniences rather than career-ending calamities. Furthermore, the MAGA interpretation often posits that the only reason Gay attained the Harvard presidency in the first place was due to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. This adds another layer of grievance: not only are the elites immune to consequences, but their positions are secured through what is perceived as unfair advantage, rather than merit, further insulating them from the risks that others must navigate.

This perception is a potent accelerant for MAGA anger, and explains Trump’s ongoing effort to destroy Harvard. Trump’s assault on Harvard represents far more than mere political theater or anti-intellectual posturing; it is a calculated strike against what MAGA views as the institutional heart of elite risk-mutualization. Harvard, in the MAGA imagination, is not merely an educational institution but the nexus of a vast network that ensures its members never truly face consequences for their failures.

Trump’s targeting of Harvard manifests in multiple vectors. His administration is attempting to revoke the university’s federal research funding, leveraged immigration policies to restrict international students, and pursued investigations into Harvard’s admissions practices and endowment management. Each of these attacks is designed to strip away the layers of institutional protection that Harvard provides to its community. By threatening research funding, Trump aims to expose Harvard faculty to the same financial precarity faced by small business owners whose livelihoods depend on immediate market success. By restricting international students, he seeks to eliminate Harvard’s global network of influence and mutual aid. By challenging admissions and endowment practices, he attempts to dismantle the very mechanisms that ensure Harvard graduates maintain their privileged positions regardless of individual merit or performance.

The logic behind Trump’s Harvard strategy rests on his understanding that the university functions as more than an educational institution — it operates as a comprehensive risk-mitigation system for the American elite. Harvard’s alumni network doesn’t just provide networking opportunities; it creates a safety net that ensures no Harvard graduate ever truly fails. A Harvard MBA who destroys a company doesn’t face homelessness or bankruptcy; they retreat to another prestigious position within the network. A Harvard Law graduate whose legal malpractice ruins clients doesn’t end up driving Uber; they transition to academia, consulting, or government service. Trump recognizes that attacking Harvard means attacking the institutional infrastructure that maintains “elite” impunity.

The Broader Academic Assault

Trump’s war against Harvard is merely the flagship campaign in a broader assault on higher education’s risk-mutualization functions. Universities, in the MAGA worldview, represent perhaps the most sophisticated and comprehensive system for insulating elites from the consequences of their actions. Academic tenure, sabbaticals, administrative leaves, and the revolving door between academia, government, and corporate consulting create a virtually impermeable bubble of security around university-educated professionals.

Consider the phenomenon of the “failing upward” academic administrator. University presidents who preside over financial scandals, campus unrest, or declining academic standards rarely face genuine professional consequences. Instead, they typically “step down” to lucrative positions at think tanks, return to tenured faculty roles, or secure consulting positions with other universities. This pattern of consequence-free failure is precisely what enrages MAGA, who believe their own lives are governed by much harsher rules of accountability.

Trump’s broader higher education policy reflects this understanding. His proposed cuts to federal student aid and research funding aren’t simply budget measures; they’re designed to force universities to operate under the same market pressures that govern small businesses. His attacks on accreditation bodies aim to strip universities of the institutional legitimacy that allows them to maintain their risk-mitigation functions. His promotion of alternative credentialing and vocational training represents an effort to bypass the university system entirely, creating pathways to success that don’t depend on academic risk-mutualization networks.

The Legal Profession: White-Shoe Immunity

Trump’s antagonism toward elite law firms represents another front in his war against risk-mutualization. The legal profession, particularly at its highest levels, embodies many of the same dynamics that fuel MAGA rage against universities. Partners at prestigious law firms enjoy remarkable insulation from the consequences of professional failure. Even when their legal strategies fail spectacularly, when their clients suffer devastating losses, or when their firms face ethical scandals, elite attorneys rarely experience genuine professional precarity.

The “white-shoe” law firm operates as a comprehensive risk-mitigation system. Partners who lose major cases don’t face bankruptcy; they’re cushioned by the firm’s collective resources and reputation. Associates who make serious errors don’t get fired and blacklisted; they’re quietly shuffled to different departments or encouraged to pursue “opportunities” at other prestigious firms. The profession’s elaborate disciplinary procedures, bar associations, and professional courtesy norms create multiple layers of protection against meaningful consequences.

Trump’s attacks on the legal establishment manifest in his systematic challenges to legal norms, his public criticism of judges and prosecutors, and his efforts to circumvent traditional legal processes. When Trump declares the justice system “rigged” or appoints an “egregiously unqualified political hack” as a federal prosecutor, he’s not simply defending himself; he’s articulating a critique of legal profession’s risk-mutualization functions. His supporters see a system where elite attorneys can destroy ordinary people’s lives through legal maneuvering while facing no personal consequences for their actions.

The Trump administration’s judicial appointments reflect this understanding. By appointing judges from non-elite backgrounds and explicitly challenging the legal establishment’s conventional wisdom, Trump seeks to inject genuine accountability into a system that MAGA perceives as consequence-free for its practitioners.

Labor’s Contradiction: Unions as Elite Risk-Mutualization

Perhaps the most complex element of Trump’s institutional warfare involves labor unions, which present a fascinating contradiction within the risk-mutualization framework. Traditional unions, particularly in blue-collar industries, represent genuine risk-mutualization for working-class Americans — exactly the kind of collective security that Beck identified as essential for managing modern risks. Yet MAGA displays a curiously ambivalent relationship with organized labor.

The key to understanding this contradiction lies in distinguishing between different types of unions and their relationship to elite impunity. Industrial unions that protect factory workers, construction crews, and other manual laborers are often viewed sympathetically by MAGA because they represent risk-mutualization for people who face genuine physical and economic dangers. These unions protect workers who operate heavy machinery, work in hazardous conditions, and whose mistakes can result in serious injury or death.

However, public sector unions — particularly those representing teachers, government employees, and other white-collar public servants — are viewed with deep suspicion by MAGA. These unions are perceived as protecting members of the “professional-managerial class” who already enjoy significant job security and whose failures rarely result in immediate, tangible consequences. When teachers’ unions protect educators whose students consistently fail, or when government employee unions shield bureaucrats whose incompetence harms the public, these unions are seen as extending elite impunity to another class of protected workers.

Trump’s labor policies reflect this distinction. His administration has been hostile to public sector unions while maintaining more complex relationships with industrial unions. His attacks on federal employee unions, his efforts to make it easier to fire government workers, and his challenges to teachers’ unions all represent attempts to strip away risk-mutualization mechanisms that protect white-collar public employees. Meanwhile, his rhetoric often appeals to industrial workers who feel abandoned by both corporate elites and public sector unions.

The De-Mutualization Agenda: Bringing Cancer Alley to Everyone

Understanding Trump’s policy agenda through Beck’s risk society framework reveals a coherent, if brutal, vision: the systematic dismantling of all mechanisms that allow anyone to escape the direct consequences of risk. If the modal MAGA voter is a small business owner in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” — facing immediate economic consequences for every business decision while living with the direct health effects of industrial pollution — then Trump’s policies aim to ensure that everyone faces similar levels of unmediated risk.

Environmental Deregulation: Democratizing Toxic Exposure

Trump’s environmental policies exemplify this de-mutualization strategy. By rolling back EPA regulations, withdrawing from climate agreements, and weakening pollution controls, Trump doesn’t simply benefit industrial interests; he forces everyone to live with the direct consequences of environmental degradation that were previously borne primarily by poor communities like Cancer Alley.

Climate change represents the ultimate risk-mutualization challenge. The wealthy can insulate themselves from rising sea levels by moving inland, from extreme weather through better housing and infrastructure, and from resource scarcity through higher prices and exclusive access. Climate policies that involve carbon pricing, emissions regulations, and green energy transitions are perceived by MAGA as forcing them to bear the costs of mitigation while allowing elites to maintain their insulated lifestyles.

Trump’s rejection of climate action isn’t simply anti-environmentalism; it’s a demand that everyone face the same direct exposure to environmental risks. If the residents of Cancer Alley must live with petrochemical pollution, then everyone should face unmediated environmental risks rather than allowing elites to mutualize these costs through regulatory frameworks that they can afford to navigate while others cannot.

Healthcare: Eliminating Medical Risk-Mutualization

Trump’s healthcare policies follow the same logic. The Affordable Care Act represents a massive risk-mutualization mechanism, pooling medical risks across large populations and ensuring that individual health crises don’t result in complete financial ruin. For MAGA, particularly those who saw their premiums rise, this system represents another form of elite protection that excludes them.

Trump’s efforts to repeal the ACA, reduce Medicaid expansion, and promote health savings accounts all aim to privatize medical risk. The underlying philosophy is that if small business owners must choose between paying for health insurance and investing in their businesses — and live with the consequences of that choice — then everyone should face similar medical and financial risks. Rather than mutualizing healthcare costs through insurance pools and government programs, each individual should bear the direct consequences of their health circumstances and financial choices.

This policy framework extends to pharmaceutical regulation, where Trump’s efforts to reduce FDA oversight reflect a belief that individuals should directly assess the risks and benefits of medications rather than relying on regulatory agencies that mutualize the costs of drug safety across society.

Financial Deregulation: Exposing Everyone to Market Risk

Trump’s financial policies embody perhaps the purest expression of de-mutualization philosophy. The post-2008 financial regulations — Dodd-Frank, increased capital requirements, consumer protection measures — represent massive risk-mutualization mechanisms designed to prevent individual financial crises from cascading into systemic collapse.

From the MAGA perspective, these regulations primarily benefit financial elites who can navigate complex compliance requirements while small banks and individual investors bear the costs. Trump’s deregulation efforts aim to strip away these protective mechanisms, forcing everyone — from major banks to individual savers — to face direct market risks without institutional buffers.

The Trump administration’s elimination of fiduciary requirements for financial advisors, reduction of banking regulations, and promotion of cryptocurrency markets all reflect this philosophy. Rather than mutualizing financial risks through regulatory frameworks, each participant in financial markets should bear the direct consequences of their decisions and the decisions of their counterparties.

The Brutal Logic of MAGA Accountability

For MAGA, Harvard is both a symbol and an enabler of a system they see as rigged not just economically, but morally. It confirms the belief that the “elites” — those with high educational attainment, prestigious titles, and seemingly limitless personal security — are a self-perpetuating class, insulated by their privilege and unaccountable for their actions. The chasm between those who face the direct consequences of a volatile world and those who appear to float above it, unscathed by their own failings, is precisely the new political fault line Beck predicted.

The feral political genius of Trump’s political strategy lies in his recognition that MAGA’s rage isn’t ultimately about inequality per se, but about the unequal distribution of consequences. His policies don’t aim to reduce risk for everyone, but to ensure that everyone faces the same brutal level of direct accountability that characterizes life in Cancer Alley. It’s a vision of savage equality: if some must live with the immediate consequences of every decision and every systemic failure, then all should face the same unmediated exposure to risk.

This is why Trump’s own history of elite privilege and risk-avoidance doesn’t disqualify him in MAGA eyes — he’s positioned himself as the man who understands the system well enough to destroy it. His promise isn’t to protect his supporters from risk, but to ensure that no one else escapes it either. The rage of MAGA is not just about what those at the top have, but what they don’t have to lose. It is the fury of the precarious confronting the impunity of the unscathed, demanding not collective security, but universal exposure to the harsh realities that Beck predicted would define our risk society.