President Trump: The Elite’s Phony Populist

Fernando Fernández/ Contributing Writer

The election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States of America was a result of many things — a deeply flawed opponent, a unified Republican base of support, etc. 

However, as I’ve discussed numerous times in the past, the biggest factor that contributed to one of the most shocking political upsets in the history of the United States was then-candidate Donald Trump’s masterful use of populist rhetoric. 

By tapping into the anger of a forgotten working class that had been betrayed by the corporate & financial establishment, and the very politicians that had promised to fight for them, then-candidate Donald Trump was able to tear down the long-standing Democratic ‘blue wall’ (Michigan, Wisconsin & Pennsylvania) and catapult himself to the presidency. 

However, candidate Donald Trump and President Trump are very different.

You see; while the former campaigned as a ferocious populist who was heading to Washington D.C. to “drain the swamp” and be the voice of the forgotten man & woman, the latter is actually an elitist tool of the political, corporate & financial establishment that his supporters detest so much. 

From the very beginning of his tenure in office, President Trump packed his administration with numerous Goldman Sachs lackeys; two of the most consequential appointments & nominations being the one’s of Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn as Secretary of the Treasury and chief economic advisor to the President respectively.

Keep in mind that then-candidate Donald Trump hammered then-candidate Hillary Clinton over her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, to her detriment and his advantage. 

To make matters worse, those two gentlemen were instrumental in the crafting and passage of the infamous ‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’ of 2017 — a gargantuan corporate tax cut where, according to recent analysis conducted by the Tax Policy Center, 83% of the benefits will end up, quite literally, going to the top 1% of Americans by cash income metrics. 

In other words, a mere 17% of the benefits would go to lower & middle classes, many of whom make up candidate Donald Trump’s coalition of voters. 

However, perhaps the most crucial component of then-candidate Donald Trump’s populist rhetoric were his protectionist attacks on free-trade agreements, which decimated American manufacturing. 

Having said that though, the truth negates everything then-candidate Donald Trump stood for. 

Despite his grandstanding alter ego — ’Tariff-Man’, President Trump has been, largely, more of the same.

For instance, the signature trade agreement negotiated by the Trump administration with Mexico and Canada — U.S.M.C.A. borrows heavily from another one of those free-trade agreements that then-candidate Donald Trump hammered on the campaign trail — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.P.P.).

In fact, the T.P.P. provision most pounded on by then-candidate Donald Trump — the establishment of an international panel of arbiters to settle disputes between nations, which would bypass U.S. courts, was inserted into the U.S.M.C.A. 

Additionally, under the Trump administration, the United States’s trade deficit has hit a record-high $891 billion and 142,000 manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas, three times after than under the Obama Administration.

This is due in large part to the fact that according Congressional Budget Office, the aforementioned tax cut championed by President Trump incentivizes outsourcing, something which the fiscal and corporate establishment, which then-candidate Donald Trump fervently railed against, appreciates very much.

And let’s not forget about then-candidate Donald Trump’s foreign policy stances.

While the then-candidate railed against the infamous military industrial complex and standard Republican interventionist foreign policy, President Trump has packed his administration with well known neoconservatives such as John Bolton and Michael ‘Mike’ Pompeo; both of whom have influenced President Trump to make decisions and enact policy that sets forth their neoconservative agenda, such as exiting the ‘Iran nuclear deal’. 

In short, then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign pulled one of, if not the the biggest, con-artistry in the history of American politics.  

President Donald J. Trump is nothing more than a phony who campaigns as a populist and governs as an elitist.

DISCLAIMER:

The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

Photo retrieved from FIU Flickr