Why is Trump's Swamp Bubbling, Instead of Draining?

When Donald Trump campaigned over the last year, the phrase he used ad nauseum to portray himself as an outsider looking to buck the system was that he was going to "drain the swamp." And when asked what that meant, he always pointed to the influence of lobbyists and special interests.He was going to do away with lobbyists and special interests, and make the government work the way it was supposed to - the government protecting the interests of the governed, who put them there. It sounds good, and clearly a lot of his supporters believed him, because he was worth billions, so he didn't have to bow down to anyone's wallet. He told them so himself. Of course he refused to show tax returns, and said his net worth was whatever he felt it was (if he felt like $10 billion on a Tuesday, then he was worth $10 billion), but his followers kept stomping on the ground, chanting for the messiah he presented himself to be:

• "Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.
• "Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years. I’m the only one.”
• "We have 41 days to make possible every dream you’ve ever dreamed."
• “The forgotten men and women of our country, people who work hard but no longer have a voice - I am your voice."
• I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country. Believe me. Believe me.”
• “I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves."
• “Let me tell you something. China will behave and China will be our friend. We’ll do better under China with me and we’re also going to do better economically with me. They are going to respect our country again."

We are supposed to be a country built on the principles of checks and balances. Trump basically said the country's only chance is to put their faith in him, that he will fix everything, and "drain the swamp" of everything that has ruined the country, and make everyone else behave - he's the world's dad, who will put them in a corner until they learn how to operate under his authority, apparently, so that he can make America great again. Never mind that, if he turns America inward and eliminates our interests in the global sphere - pulling companies back to the US, instituting tariffs on the world that will only make things more expensive for the tired and broke US workers he claims to be protecting, rather than adversely affecting the companies remaining overseas - it hardly matters if anyone respects us, yes? But this didn't matter. People wanted their strongman, not a three branch system of government, so Trump got his votes. And won. And he came into the Oval Office like a White Knight, protecting the virtuous while grabbing them by the crotch. Let the draining of the swamp commence!

Well, not so much, really. Or at all. Nay, we got a full view of Trump's swamp and here's what it looked like:

• Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
  

  Tillerson was not only the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, he was the head of Exxon Neftgas, a joint venture between Exxon Mobil and Russia's Rosneft - Russia's largest and government owned oil company. For putting America first, it would seem hypocritical to have a guy who's relationship with Vladimir Putin is based on energy revenues. We are supposedly looking to Russia to help defeat ISIS. What position does it put us in if our Secretary of State can possibly be manipulated by a Russian leader who could affect our energy interests if we don't do what he wants?

• Secretary of Energy: Rick Perry
  

  Perry not only is a lapdog for America's oil and natural gas companies, he wants to get rid of the Department of Energy. He has for years, and has said so. This is also because Rick doesn't know what the department does. He was shocked to learn that his department oversees America's nuclear arsenal and is responsible for the oversight of nuclear proliferation. He just thought he would be able to use the position to undermine alternative energy companies to push an oil and gas first agenda, and then get rid of the department. Turns out it's an actual job, in a department he thinks shouldn't exist. Something about a "fox in the henhouse?" Yikes.

• Secretary of Labor: Andy Pudzer
  

  Pudzer was the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent corporation Hardees and Carl's Jr. fast food chains. The labor department deals with wage and occupational safety violations, things Pudzer was against in his former job, primarily becasue his companies were often a target of such violation investigations. He was an outspoken critic of worker protections in general - wages, paid leave, overtime. He thinks minimum wage increases and expanded overtime hurt workers, not help - a position only a wealthy man could possibly have. He also is a heavy proponent of automation - not a position workers would expect the guy running the department designed to protect them would have. He also opposes the joint employer doctrine, which holds parent companies responsible for employment violations by contractors and franchisees. To say the least, Pudzer has left little doubt that he has any interest in protecting workers. So this is a natural appointment, yes?

• Secretary of Commerce: Wilbur Ross
  

  Trump's "champion of manufacturing" in fact made most of his billions buying and selling distressed manufacturing companies as the head of Rothschild, Inc., outsourcing jobs and slashing benefits in the companies he restructured. Great for his bottom line, but not really in line with the America first economic position that Trump is claiming to champion.

• Secretary of Treasury: Steve Mnuchin
  

  Mnuchin is basically everything you likely hate. He was a senior executive at Goldman Sachs when the long game of derivatives and credit default swaps were creating the housing bubble. Between 1994 and 1999, he was the head of the Mortgage Security Department (ding ding ding!) and the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities division. Which means he headed the very divisions that created the crisis in it's infancy. When the crisis finally happened, Mnuchin tried to buy Merill Lynch's mortgage-backed CDOs, but was outbid by Lone Star Funds. When the recession hit after the crisis, Mnuchin bought IndyMac and renamed it OneWest. OneWest then launched a mass foreclosure practice, likely supported by a loss sharing agreement with the FDIC, which reimbursed OneWest for losses. So OneWest got the money and the homes. They were also accused of "robo-signing," whereby documents are signed without review, essentially running the foreclosure process like a paper mill, without regard to whether the foreclosures were proper. Mnuchin denies this, of course, despite one of his vice presidents describing exactly how the process worked, and despite Mnuchin himself signing public documents, like a consent agreement in 2011, that attest to that very thing. So when Trump says he's looking out for the little guy, the working class, then picks a Treasury Secretary who helped create the very crisis he later profited off of, and did it off the backs of workers losing their homes while the FDIC bolstered his ability to take their homes and get his losses covered, it's hard to imagine he'll have the backs of working Americans, as opposed to the Wall Street companies who made his Treasury secretary rich.

• Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
  

  Sessions would be responsible for upholding civil rights laws, possibly a conflict of interest for a man quoted as calling the NAACP & ALCU "un-American" & "Communist-Inspired" for "trying to force civil rights down the throats of people." He was also quoted by Justice Department prosecutor J. Gerald Hebert, who told Sessions in 1981 that a federal prosecutor had called a prominent white attorney "a disgrace to his race" for representing black clients, as responding, "Well, maybe he is." Hebert recounted this exchange at Sessions' 1986 Senate confirmation hearing, which ultimately rejected him for the federal bench. The question is whether his alleged racist leanings, if true, would have softened in the last 30 years, or tempered his resolve with age.

And while these are the most conflicted of his cabinet picks (Betsy DeVos for Education wasn't worth detailing), this empowerment of like-minded wealthy elites is only bolstered by the decisions Trump has made since the election and, later, taking office:

• He hired a litany of consultants and lobbyists to head his transitions teams:
  

  J. Steven Hart, a labor lobbyist, to head his labor team
  Michael McKenna, an energy lobbyist, to lead his Energy Department team
  Ray Washburn, a Dallas fundraiser, to lead his Commerce Department team
  Michael Catanzaro, an oil, gas, and coal lobbyist to plan for energy independence, in one of the greatest ironies
  Michael Torrey, a food industry lobbyist to lead the Department of Agriculture team
  Jeffrey Eisenach, a telecommunications consultant who has fought for deregulation and reforming the FCC, to lead the team choosing the members for the FCC
  

• He pulled us out of the TPP, effectively removing the only true obstacle to China taking over the domination of Asia-Pacific trading. Hard to see the advantage for anyone but Trump in bolstering the economic aspirations of a country he does massive business with, and has been hoping to expand - a goal surely to be resumed when he leaves office.
• He restructured the National Security Council to elevate Steve Bannon to a permanent member of the principals committee, and removing the director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who will now only attend when pertinent issues are being discussed. Yes, don't want the people who know things to be in the room, they might point out that the agenda doesn't mesh with reality, and who needs reality interjected into the bubble?
• He signs an executive order that says for every regulation the executive branch proposes, two others must be repealed. Really? Blindly repealing regulations without concern for the effects of doing so, so long as there is "less regulation?"
• He pledges at the National Prayer Breakfast to repeal the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt religious groups from wading into politics. Straddling the Separation of Church and State fence like an Adonis...
• Wanting to join the deregulation party, Congress follows Trump's lead and repeals the Stream Protection Rule, which prevented coal mining companies from dumping toxic waste debris into streams. Their presumption is that Trump will agree and sign the repeal, despite the fact that the damage to coal has been inflicted by the advent and market increase in natural gas. But what the hey, Trump is demanding blind deregulation at a 2-for-1 clip.
• He signs two Executive orders to review and roll back Dodd-Frank financial regulations after meeting with JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, chief of the nation’s biggest bank, Blackstone billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, the richest private equity chief on Wall Street, and BlackRock's Larry Fink, CEO of the nation's biggest asset manager - basically some of the biggest power brokers on Wall Street.
• He signs the second Executive Order involving Dodd-Frank, to halt the Fiduciary Rule that mandates financial advisers to act in the best interest of their clients, rather than set their clients up to fail and then bet against them failing. This was a rule directly resulted from the actions of the banks during the financial crisis. But this is about profits. We can't be worried about screwing the clients. Shocked and dismayed that a president who regularly gets sued for screwing clients and contractors out of money he owes them would demand that such a rule protecting clients be done away with. Shocked.And.Dismayed.

So what we have seen so far is the president hire the very lobbyists he claims to want to get rid of to run his transition teams, pull out of a trade deal that favors a country he has strong business ties to and hopes of expansion in the future, deregulate in favor of wealthy industries for profit motives at the expense of the environment they destroy, and whittle away regulations that hold Wall Street in check. So basically Trump's swamp is bubbling freely, rather than draining. How could his voters have been so duped? I mean, Trump is nothing, if not the epitome of honesty and integrity. He would never lie through his teeth, virtually every single day, for the entirety of his campaign, and then screw over those voters he championed and act to support the wealthy as soon as he gets into office.

Wait a minute...