A funny (funny?) fact about this new presidency is that despite running on an outsider platform, Trump’s transition team is full of lobbyists and the 17 people he’s appointed so far make more money than fully one-third of American households combined. That seems right.
Quartz reported today that Trump’s picks so far are eye-crossingly wealthy:
The 17 people who US president-elect Donald Trump has selected for his cabinet or for posts with cabinet rank have well over $9.5 billion in combined wealth, with several positions still unfilled. This collection of wealth is greater than that of the 43 million least wealthy American households combined—over one third of the 126 million households total in the US.
That is, as the Guardian and Politico pointed out, a situation that’s never been seen before, even in a country where wealth counts for quite a lot when trying to make it in politics. From the Guardian:
Trump, a former host of reality TV show The Apprentice, is surrounding himself with the 1%: billionaires and millionaires, investment bankers and venture capitalists, Wall Street insiders and family fortune heirs, many educated at elite schools. It is the most brazen embrace of big money since the 1980s era of Ronald Reagan, Tom Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe and Oliver Stone’s Gordon Gekko.
“It is a throwback to the ‘greed is good’ mentality,” said Marge Baker, executive vice-president of the liberal pressure group People For the American Way. “It’s also alarming that the president-elect said he believes what’s good for his business is good for America. That’s not how you want the leader of your country to be making decisions.”
I get it. I get it now. The plan is to drain the swamp by first pumping it full of money.