Trump Is the New Swamp

When Donald Trump campaigned on helping the many get out from under the thumb of the few, none of his supporters believed the goal was to get under the thumb of the even fewer. And yet, that's what we have. The new thumb belongs exclusively to the Trump family (and a select group of Goldman Sachs bankers and alums).

Trump's promise of a blind trust (an actual blind trust) never materialized. He is still the sole beneficiary of his businesses, so unless forgetting your own last name is easier than forgetting where the light switches are, he knows where the money is landing.

The month that Trump took office, membership in his Mar-a-Lago resort doubled to $200,000. For those curious, inflation for 2016 was 2.07%, which my significant mathematical ability tells me is 2.07% of the 100% inflation in Mar-a-Lago memberships. Investigative reporting on other shady aspects of Trump's Palm Beach business suggest it's been a while since the property's seen any major renovation. The only demonstrable improvement of the facility is the fact that its owner became the 45th President of the United States. In other words, that extra $100,000 is for access to the president.

It wasn't just Donald getting in on the action, as Melania Trump filed suit this week against the Daily Mail for alleging that she was once an escort. As the Daily Mail retracted the story, she certainly has a case, but she padded the figure she was seeking by claiming the potential for "unique, once-in-a-lifetime" deals. That's not an unprecedented tactic in the vast history of Trump family lawsuits, but when her husband is the top official in our government, citing this opportunity would mean she explicitly planned to seek financial benefit from Trump's campaign and ascension to the presidency. Her lawyers have said that she had no intention of doing so, and to be honest, I believe them. There's no evidence Melania was seeking or would have received any additional endorsements from her husband's campaign. Which means that, unless some other "unique, once-in-a-lifetime" event was occurring in the past year that I'm unaware of, she's using her husband's position in a lawsuit to extract money she was never actually seeking. So that swamp is nice and drained, right?

And finally, we had the whole Ivanka/Nordstrom debacle, wherein President Trump yesterday used the official Twitter account of the presidency to retweet (masturtweet?) his personal tweet of support for his daughter's clothing line. Nordstrom says it was dropping Ivanka's line because the product wasn't selling, but Trump insists it was political (and, to be fair, Trump's opponents celebrated it as political). Whatever reasons Nordstrom had, the president publicly supporting his family in a business dispute is uncharted territory (at least in the United States) and is likely to result in still more ethics lawsuits for Donald.

That Trump family had it too hard for too long, and they've finally found a leader who will stand up for what they need. The other 63 million people who voted for Donald? Let them find their own daddy to run.

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