Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:36 pm
After more than a year of hearing Donald Trump voters argue that a tax-dodging billionaire would be a working class savior, the president-elect is proving that he never intended to “drain the swamp” of special interests – instead, he wants to fill it up even more.
According to the New York Times, Trump will choose Steven Mnuchin – ex-Goldman Sachs banker and hedge fund manager – to be his treasury secretary. Mnuchin raked in millions after his bank foreclosed on homeowners. He has financial connections to Hollywood and no political experience.
The swamp-filling doesn’t stop there.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
As early as Wednesday, Trump is expected to announce billionaire Wilbur Ross as his choice for secretary of commerce, NBC News reported. Ross specialized in selling off steel companies and has been referred to as the “King of Bankruptcy.”
To put the icing on the cake, the president-elect chose Georgia Rep. Tom Price to be the health and human services secretary in his administration. Price is a proponent of privatizing Medicare and abolishing Medicaid for millions of low-income Americans.
That’s right, Trump supporters: You’ve been duped.
Despite his campaign rhetoric, Trump is not an outsider with plans to distance himself from the moneyed interests and stand up for the people. If anything, the decisions Trump has made since the election show that he is embracing these powerful influences, first by letting them run his transition team and now by asking them to run his government.
It’s important to note that many of us knew this would happen. After all, the idea that Trump would assume office and stand up to special interests was always a silly one. If anything, the president-elect’s lack of policy knowledge and political experience makes him more susceptible to outside influences, not less.
The idea that a man who spent a lifetime stiffing small businesses and workers is suddenly going to stand up for them is nonsense.
Like President Obama said repeatedly on the campaign trail, “If a guy’s spent 70 years on this earth showing no regard for working people, there’s no record that he’s supported the minimum wage or supported collective bargaining, invested in poor communities, and then suddenly he’s going to be the champion of working people? Come on.”
The swamp Trump promised to drain is only getting deeper.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
