Now That The Election Is Over, Trump Doesn’t Look Anything Like The Man Who Campaigned

Remember Donald Trump when he was just a candidate? You might not, seeing as how he has completely abandoned so many of the campaign themes that helped him garner the support of millions of middle and lower class Americans. It's hard to look at President Trump as being that same person who was championing populist ideals; bashing K Street lobbyists, Wall Street executives, hedge fund managers, and career politicians. He repeatedly accused his campaign opponent of being in bed with Wall Street. Now, he has purposely surrounded himself with those same Wall Street power players, blatantly betraying the people that voted for him.

His campaign victory came with promises of a transformed government that represented the blue-collar workers that catapulted him into the White House. Yet, his nominees reflect the opposite, a government that represents corporations, lobbyists, and large Wall Street firms, and Washington's revolving door.

There is Rex Tillerson, the extremely wealthy former CEO of Exxon; Terry Branstad, life-long politician; David Freidman, a bankruptcy lawyer which is an obvious payback for his work on one of Trump's many bankruptcies; Wilbur Ross, a private equity billionaire investment banker; Todd Ricketts, billionaire TD Ameritrade board member; Tom Price, another 20 plus year political veteran; Betsy Devos, a billionaire who married into the wealthy family that founded Amway; Steve Mnuchin, another billionaire Wall Street executive; Elaine Chao, wife of politician Mitch McConnell and board member to four different corporations, including Wells Fargo (nothing swampy there); James Mattis, who sat on the board of the disgraced blood-testing company, Theronas, and was director of General Dynamics, an aerospace and defense multinational corporation; Rick Perry, a former governor who was tapped to be Secretary of Energy and has 20 percent of his wealth invested in energy stocks; Linda McMahon, a billionaire entertainment magnate; Jay Clayton, an attorney who has worked with Wall Street specializing in corporate mergers and acquisitions; and last, but not least, Steve Bannon, who is perhaps Trump's closest advisor and is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs.

It is a lengthy list of politicians, corporate board members, CEOs, and Wall Street investors. I don't bring them all up to suggest that none of them are qualified, though, on paper, many of their resumes seem pretty thin for the posts to which they have been nominated. I bring it up only to demonstrate that Trump's assertions on the campaign trail that he would ride in to Washington and drain the swamp were nothing short of an elaborate scam played on the blue-collar workers across America, like you and me, and that his populist appeal was only an illusion. As soon as his victory was sealed, President Trump surrounded himself with Washington and Wall Street insiders, the exact opposite of one of his campaign's most resounding themes. He did not drain the swamp. He made it bigger and swampier.

This should concern all of Americans, but in particular his supporters, for a couple of reasons. This was a major theme of his campaign, if not the biggest theme and the whole reason for his populist appeal. If he is so quick to walk back on his promise to drain the swamp, what other promises will he ignore? Moreover, how will these newly appointed members of the swamp direct policies that do further damage to the middle-class?

The answer to the latter came quickly. "There's nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie (Dimon)," claimed Trump before signing an executive order that will begin rolling back the already watered down Dodd-Frank bill that set regulations on the size and functions of banks that was a response to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Dimon is CEO of Wall Street firm, JP Morgan, and an outspoken critic of Dodd-Frank. On the campaign trail, Trump claimed Dimon was "the worst banker in America." Alas, President Trump now feels the "worst banker in America" is the best person to advise him on destroying a bill that protects average Americans against the risky bank strategies that caused the "Great Recession" we are still recovering from. The same people now advising President Trump are the same people he spent his entire campaign railing against. Welcome to Trump's America. Sadly, it is just getting started and the middle-class should not expect any help from the Trump administration. The career politicians and CEOs he has chosen don't have much respect for America's middle-class and its blue-collar workers. Their careers have proven that.

James Bliss is a Jamestown native who studied philosophy at Florida State University.