It is ironic to think about Trump’s campaign slogan, “Drain the Swamp”, which gained notoriety during his bid for presidency four years ago. After cleaning house of Obama appointees (or those who didn’t quit in anticipation of his arrival), Trump has created the most dank, foul-smelling, and pestilential swamp of unqualified workers in a presidential administration ever imaginable. Trump has arguably run the most corrupt administration in American history, with eight Trump associates having been criminally charged since he took office including Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, and Michael Cohen, and George Nader. In the investigation by special counsel, Robert Mueller, into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia’s election interference, 34 people and three companies were charged on more than 100 criminal counts.
Meanwhile, Trump’s caustic management style has led to the biggest turnover rate of any administration in recent memory. According to the Brookings Institution, a whopping 34% of Trump’s senior staffers had quit, changed jobs, or were fired by the end of the first year, more than double every other administration since 1981. As of October 2020, that number had risen to 91%. Unable to attract and retain good talent, Trump has increasingly turn to extreme loyalists who are either unable or unwilling to contradict the President. He has assigned a litany of ethically-challenged misfits whose backgrounds, attitudes vis-à-vis contested issues in their domains, and behavioral actions of the past appear antithetical to the qualifications normally required for their new roles. In fact, Trump has made a habit of assigning corporate cronies with conflicts of interest to almost every government agency, where they work to undermine protections for ordinary people in favor of kickbacks for big business. For example, a shipping heiress, Elaine Chao, runs the Department of Transportation. An oil lobbyist, David Bernhardt, runs the Interior Department. A coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, runs the Environmental Protection Agency. A pharmaceutical executive, Alex Azar, runs the Department of Health and Human Services. And an investment banker, Steven Mnuchin, runs the Treasury Department.
No appointee exemplifies the extent of Trump’s cynicism than Secretary of Education, billionaire Betsy DeVos, whose family happens to be among the nation’s largest donors to the Republican party. DeVos owns 17 yachts and is heiress to an auto parts manufacturing company; her husband is heir to Amway, the largest legal ponzi scheme in the country. She has no education degree, absolutely no teaching experience, never attended a public school, never sent her children to one, and supports funding for-profit Christian schools over public ones. She has publicly demonstrated her ignorance over matters such as growth vs proficiency, claimed black students didn’t have the capacity to understand her agenda, used made-up numbers when speaking to Congress, proved unable to address basic questions about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act during her confirmation hearing — including whether states and localities had to comply, and was ridiculed in front of the House Appropriations subcommittee when she forcefully asserted that the claim of 40% of charter schools never opening, which resulted in $1B of wasted federal funds, had been debunked when she had no idea on the real percentage.
DeVos proposed federal grant money intended for academics and student enrichment be used to purchase firearms for teachers, and she dazzled interviewers with her intellect by saying “Any perceived offense can become a full-blown Title IX investigation. But if everything is harassment, then nothing is”, in defense of her decision to rescind guidelines and weaken protections against sexual harassment and assault. During the pandemic this summer, she proclaimed that there is “no danger in any way” if kids are in school, despite factual data from CDC and NIH showing otherwise.
Overall, Trump has managed to dumb down his administration to embarrassing levels, almost to spite his critics, or perhaps to realize the proclamation that most of us thought was ridiculous and arrogant when we first heard it — that he alone could fix our problems. But by assigning corrupt individuals ill-fitted for their jobs, Trump has created a climate where his cabinet appointees are overly reliant on their leader. Not only does this leave the country dangerously ill-prepared to manage and make progress in these critical areas, but it sets the stage for an autocracy and all the issues associated with it in direct defiance of the founders of our nation as documented clearly in the US Constitution.
