According to David French of the conservative National Review, supporters of president-elect Donald Trump are starting to realize that he’s not a man for the people, he’s a man out for himself.
French, who once said he’d vote for Trump if he was the GOP nominee but later walked back that pledge, declared in his December 21 column for NR that Trump’s “revolution is already almost over,” leaving in its place a “globalist establishment led by a rogue tweeter.” French says that the abandoned platforms that motivated Trump’s fans were nothing more than a prop to cater to the most gullible of his base.
French says that Trump has not “drained the swamp” as he promised during the 2016 campaign. Instead, he’s stocked it deep by putting “the establishment in charge.”
“Beyond Capitol Hill, Trump has stocked his staff and his cabinet with establishment fixtures and billionaires,” French writes. “His chief of staff is Reince Priebus, the former head of the RNC. His cabinet nominees include long-serving generals, the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas, the CEO of ExxonMobil, and a former Goldman Sachs partner.”
French notes that early on, Trump dangled “insiders in outsider’s clothing” in front of his fans as proof of his insurgent campaign, but dumped them when the reality of the nomination inched closer.
“If Trump didn’t ‘burn it down,’ he sure didn’t ‘drain the swamp.'” he continued. “In fact, just today Gingrich, interviewed by NPR, said, ‘I’m told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.’ Well, how could he? Government by Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil is government by the swamp, of the swamp, and for the swamp. This isn’t a revolution, it’s a thoroughly conventional changing of the guard.”
He goes on to argue that Trump’s demonization of Hillary Clinton was so severe, his lack of followup on his charges of her alleged criminality exposes his motives.
“The list goes on,” French said. “‘Lock her up?’ Nope. Trump already announced that he wouldn’t pursue charges against Hillary Clinton, and two weeks ago at one of his ‘thank you’ rallies in Michigan, he interrupted the crowd’s chant with, ‘That plays great before the election — now we don’t care, right?’ I guarantee the people who put ‘Hillary for prison’ signs in their yard cared. But Trump never did.”
French then turned to Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, saying it was hypocritical in light of of the anti-interventionalist rhetoric that emanated from his campaign.
“But in nominating the CEO of one of the world’s largest multinational corporations, Trump has nominated the very definition of a globalist. And just as Rex Tillerson has come under fire for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, the people who’ve rallied most strongly to his side are members of the Bush foreign-policy team — foremost among them Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld — and Bush himself, who in a private phone call last week lobbied Bob Corker on Tillerson’s behalf. Where are the sneering anti-globalists now?”
French concludes that although Trump may keep a promise here and there, “you can also count on him to blur the lines between his business and his administration, because money is in his self-interest. And he’ll likely keep tweeting like a Breitbart blogger, because that has served his political interests beautifully, at least so far.”
Read David French’s entire piece here.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore
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