Attention, Trump voters. Please, pay attention, Trump voters. You have spoken once, and your anger has come through loud and clear. But it doesn’t end there. Now it’s time to hold the people you elected accountable, to insist that all of your candidate’s talk about ending the Wall Street stranglehold on the economy and political system is put into action. If they don’t, we are headed straight for another great recession. That’s why we made this video highlighting the Wall Street pedigrees of Trump’s hand-picked economic team.
It may surprise those of you familiar with Brave New Films to learn that I have made a video that I hope will inspire Trump voters. But the truth is, progressives actually agree with Donald Trump’s assertion that it is long past time to drain the swamp, to get the moneymen out of the temple, to return democracy to the masses.
Progressives know all too well that, in Trump’s own words, “Wall Street has caused tremendous problems, tremendous problems.” That’s why we fought for Dodd-Frank. The Wall Street reform bill isn’t as strong as we need it to be, but it went a long way toward reining in the recklessness of big banks and financial interests. That’s why progressives fought for and won the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new agency conceived of by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that is designed to keep rip off artists from peddling exploding mortgages and similar products that devastate individuals and also managed to tank the economy.
The difference is, we never believed that Trump believed a word he was saying. Turns out we were right.
Now the reforms we have fought for are in jeopardy as the laws that govern our financial system will be in the hands of Treasury Secretary–elect Steve Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs alumnus once known as the “King of Foreclosures.” Our children’s education will be subject to the whims of Betsy DeVos, a woman whose net worth is an estimated $5.1 billion and whose passion is privatizing education. That’s just to name a few. Of course, there is also ex–investment banker Steve Bannon, who left Wall Street after making millions in order to spend his days spewing hate-filled vitriol.
If these are who we are counting on to drain the swamp, I would put my money on the mosquitoes.
Sadly, the problem with democracy is that it’s a little like football season. People start to tune in near the end, get excited, pick a team. They get together on the day of, cheer, maybe wear a lucky shirt. And then it’s over and they move on to hockey, or college basketball in the case of sports, or back to their lives, in the case of democracy. And that’s exactly what Donald Trump is counting on—that none of the people who thought he was on their side will ever really learn the truth.
