Richard Sterling Surrey is a retired lawyer. He is a former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency (1990-92) and currently divides his time between Long Island, Maine, Washington, D.C., and Sevenoaks, England.

Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Trump rushed to impose new 10% tariffs on all imported goods. In announcing these new taxes, Trump denounced the U.S. Supreme Court, saying it was unpatriotic, disloyal and corrupt.

Of course, no Supreme Court Justice has a duty of loyalty to the person who appoints them or to any other person. But it is easy to see why Trump was so upset. The Court’s 6-3 majority included Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, two of Trump’s handpicked justices. Trump’s tariffs were so blatantly unconstitutional that even these handpicked justices could not find a way to vote in favor of them.

The cost of these additional tariffs will be paid by U.S. consumers, driving up everybody’s cost of living. Trump knows that he will suffer some political backlash for burdening U.S. consumers with these additional costs. However, he desperately needs the revenue that these new taxes will generate.

Trump needs to find a way to pay for the massive tax breaks that he gave to his buddies in the Trumpstein billionaire class. These tax breaks, contained in the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” gouged a massive hole in the federal budget. Trump’s tariffs are his way to get middle class and working people to pay for these billionaire tax breaks.

The effort to transfer wealth from middle class and working people to the rich is nothing new and not unique to Trump. Since 1975, nearly $80 trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% of American families to the top 1%. 1 How much is $80 trillion? If your house cost $200,000, you could buy 400 million such houses to give to your family and friends. That’s three houses for every single household in America.

For years, Trump has railed that the system is rigged — and he is right. The system is rigged against middle class and working families in favor of the top 1%. But the people doing the rigging are not steel workers or truck drivers, lobstermen or nurses or even undocumented workers. The people doing the rigging are the Trumpstein billionaire class.

And this rigging has been going on in front of our eyes for decades. Over the decades, the billionaire class has warped the tax system so that it now fosters the transfer of wealth from middle class and working families to the top 1%.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, the top individual tax rate was near or over 90%. In 1965, the top rate was reduced from 91% to 70%, where it remained for nearly 20 years. Then, in the 1980s, Republican Ronald Reagan reduced the top rate from 70% to 28%. Democrat Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress were able to increase the top rate to 39%. The top rate has remained between 39% and 35% ever since.

This rigging of the system shows itself in all aspects of American lives. People in the top 1% live 10 to 20 years longer than people in the bottom 50%. Children of the billionaire class are 15 times more likely to be admitted to an Ivy League school than would be normally expected. Ivy League grads typically earn three times as much as non-college grads and twice what graduates of non-Ivy colleges earn.

The top 1% possess 30% of all the wealth in America while the bottom 50% possess less than 3% of the wealth. Somehow, each of Elon Musk ($479 billion), Jeff Bezos ($256 billion) and Mark Zuckerberg ($221 billion) have 3 to 5 times more wealth than the bottom 165 million Americans have altogether.

Our judicial system is also rigged in favor of the Trumpstein billionaire class. For instance, Purdue Pharma, owned and managed by the Sackler family, was a leading force in creating the opioid epidemic that has killed 500,000 Americans.

While Purdue twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, no criminal charges were brought against any member of the Sackler family involved in the management of the company. And while the Sacklers did pay limited damages in connection with these deaths, the family still remains worth roughly $10 billion.

Of course, there is the shocking Epstein tragedy. We see that there was a nationwide ultra-rich elite who thought it was OK to rape underage girls. They operated so brazenly that it is clear that they thought the law could not touch them — it just didn’t apply to people of their wealth and power.

Now we see Trump working hard to protect the identities of the Trumpstein Bros while his Justice Department freely discloses the names, addresses and humiliating photos of the victims. Clearly, to the Trumpsteins, billionaires deserve protecting but ordinary people count for nothing.

So, when we see Trump rushing to impose new taxes on American families, we should understand that this is just another small piece of the effort by the Trumpstein Billionaires to Make America Theirs Again. They seek a world in which 90% of Americans work to make the top 1% happy — a world where the Trumpstein Bros can do as they like.

The question for the rest of us is, are we going to stand up and say enough is enough? Are we going to stand up and take our country back from the Trumpstein Bros and the billionaire class?