Swamp Gas

   During the run-up to the presidential election, Donald J. Trump claimed that he was free from outside political or financial influence because he used his own money to fund his campaign. The claim resonated with working- and middle-class voters disgusted by perceived corruption in politics, and Trump's supporters hailed him as an outsider--if not one of them, a fantasy version of them.
   Trump further promised an administration primed to "drain the swamp"--to rid Washington of lobbyist and dark-money corruption. His supporters voted for him because they believed him to be perfectly positioned to clean up governmental fiscal misconduct.
   Ah, how quickly die the dreams of the dispossessed. Recent reports reveal that Trump's transition team is staffed with lobbyists, and his future administration is likely to be peopled with Wall Street-street friendly types, prompting Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to excoriate him Tuesday.
   "What we are now beginning to see is what I feared," Sanders said on a call with reporters, "and that is that what Mr. Trump was saying to get votes turns out not what he intends to do as president of the United States."
   Massachussets Senator Elizabeth Warren echoed Sanders' sentiments in a speech the same day, at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council conference, in Washington, D. C.: "[Voters] do not want corporate executives to be the ones who are calling the shots in Washington. What Donald Trump is doing is that he's putting together a team that is full of lobbyists--the kind of people he actually ran against.
   The Washington Post noted yesterday, of Trump's transition team, that "the prominence of established Washington figures and wealthy donors comes as a jarring contrast to Trump's unequivocal rhetoric on the campaign trail when he decried inside-the-Beltway denizens as 'corrupt.'"
   Today, Politico reports that the Trump administration likely will restore Wall Street power in a way not seen in generations. Candidates for Treasury Secretary include Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimond. The odious Stephen K. Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, is as former Goldman Sachs man. Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross may wind up in Trump's Commerce Department.
   Politico reporter Ben White's piece quotes Manhattan College Wall Street historian Charles Geisst as saying, "You would have to go back to the 1920 to see so much Wall Street influence coming to Washington. Geisst calls it "the most dramatic turnaround one could imagine."
   Although Trump crowed on the trail about funding his campaign, he eventually received donations from several conservative figures, the Post reported. They included Las Vegas billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson ($11.2M); former World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. president and CEO Linda McMahon ($6M); billionaire hedge fund co-CEO Robert Mercer ($3.4M); and Arkansas poultry executive Ronald Cameron ($2.9M). At least three hundred and thirty other supporters contributed a hundred thousand dollars or more to Trump's campaign, to the Republican National Committee, and/or to pro-Trump super-PACs.
   Key staffers on Trump's transition team, according to the Post, include hedge fund co-CEO Rebekah Mercer, daughter of Robert; Mnuchin; former Goldman Sachs banker and current co-manager of an investment firm Anthony Scaramucci; and Peter Thiel, billionaire venture capitalist and founder of PayPal. Oklahoma oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm, a policy advisor to Trump's campaign, is being considered for a Cabinet position.

   The Post also noted that "[t]he transition team, which is scrambling to make 4,000 political appointments in less than three months, has welcomed lobbyists' involvement and expertise, according to people familiar with the operation." Those offering advice include J. Steven Hart, Chairman and CEO of William and Jensen, a prominent lobbying firm; energy lobbyist Michael McKenna, who is overseeing Energy Department planning; and, Ray Washburne, a Dallas financier overseeing Commerce Department planning .

   During the campaign, Trump brilliantly flattered his disenfranchised supporters into believing he understood their anger, even as he stoked their fears. He simultaneously pit them against the press and the media, aka the Fourth Estate, watchdog of the people in a democracy, and against the government that, at its best, is meant to take care of them and the infrastructure around them. These Machiavellian divide-and-conquer actions created in Trump's supporters an absolute reliance on him (Quoth Trump: "I alone can fix it").
   The early signals emerging from the transition seem a huge middle finger up to those same supporters. It'll be interesting to see the length of the leash they give him. They're a raucous bunch. Then again, they're a powerless bunch, too. They may be just another subset of Americans in history who have voted against their own financial self-interest in the hopes of finally catching a break under the broken umbrella of the so-called American Dream.