Conservative talk radio host and political blogger Erick Erickson, a small-government fiscal and social conservative based in the South, has a history of criticizing Donald Trump even though he has endorsed the president in the 2020 and 2024 elections.
Note: In May, Erickson slammed Trump for agreeing to accept a $400 million luxury airplane from Qatar. Erickson said at the time: “My problem with taking this plane from Qatar is I do not think the President of the United States of America should sit and fly on a plane purchased with the same money used to murder American citizens.”
This week, Erickson blasted the Trump administration for its proposal to have the federal government intervene in the nation’s last leading-edge chipmaker, Intel, and secure a 10 percent stake in the company. That would make the U.S. government the largest shareholder of Intel. The New York Times reported Monday that a discussion “included converting $10.86 billion in recent federal grants into equity in Intel, which is worth about $100 billion.”
Erickson said: “The US government would become the largest shareholder of Intel. This is actual socialism happening by a Republican administration. This is a horrible precedent. This is socialism.
Erick Erickson: “The US government would become the largest shareholder of Intel. This is actual socialism happening by a Republican administration. This is a horrible precedent. This is socialism. All of you people were freaked out about Mamdani in New York City… That’s what… pic.twitter.com/FA8qOR01t7
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) August 21, 2025
“All of you people were freaked out about Mamdani in New York City wanting government-run grocery stores and saying the people need to seize the means of production. That is what Howard Lutnick is doing right now, saying the government must seize the controlling interest in Intel, the means of production in order to get government money.” He added, yelling, “You can’t just be against socialism when the left does it!”
More than one X user replied to Erickson with a suggested correction: “No, this is fascism.”
According to The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right, “Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state, and for a dirigiste economy (a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through market interventions), with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency).”
Note: During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the Italian economy. Nazi Germany also operated a dirigiste economy, “which is characterized by extensive state intervention and control over economic activity, rather than a free market.”
Traditionally the U.S. government has not acquired stakes in companies except in emergency circumstances — e.g., the financial crisis of 2008 included a wide-ranging government bailout of multiple business that saw the federal government acquire temporary ownership stakes in automakers General Motors and Chrysler. The mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were placed under government conservatorship during that crisis, retain a complex financial structuring that includes public shares and government oversight.]