“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Maya Angelou

I know three days after the election I said we should hang tough and hope for the best for our president-elect.  Less than two weeks later so many negative developments have occurred that at this point I have serious doubts that Mr. Trump’s administration will be anything close to principled.  His choice for Treasury Secretary is exactly the type of candidate Mr. Trump said he was going to purge from our governing payroll while he was campaigning.  Same goes for his Commerce Secretary,  As a matter of fact Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with such a vast array of Wall Streeters his administration is being labeled the richest in modern political history.  What we have is more alligators in the swamp.   His Secretary of Education is another elitist with no public school background who’s agenda is likely to provide the best education only to the wealthy.  Worst of all, having Steve Bannon roaming the White House at all, let alone in a capacity of counsel, is appalling.  So much for uniting the country.  Mr. Trump’s words of promise during his acceptance speech that he is going to be president for all Americans could not possibly ring any more hollow.

Mr. Trump knows full well the mountain of conflict of interest issues that surround him are jarring,  yet he has the gall to state that because he was elected he is entitled to do whatever he wants.  Recently he  made the comment that he is going to take care of his conflicting connections, but I personally don’t believe he will ever  totally divest himself from his business interests as the government ethics office has strongly suggested.  It’s the right thing to do, but ethics and Donald Trump do not often travel on the same path.

All of these transition affairs are starting to converge into a political shit storm.  Still there might be a dim ray of hope on the horizon.  Mr. Trump and Mike Pence should be praised for negotiating with Carrier and saving 800 jobs.  At least it shows big business is paying attention to Trump’s threats, and if threatening works, so be it. But look what happened here.  First of all, Carrier still intends to send 1,300 jobs to Mexico. Second of all, instead of following through on all the blusterous rhetoric of his campaign and punishing Carrier, he rewarded the company with tax incentives and subsidies.  Guess who gets to pay for the lost revenue?  The Indiana taxpayers.  What has thus been established is a very bad precedent.  Now any CEO worth his/her salt will threaten to leave the country in order to reap the type of benefits awarded to Carrier.  At this point this was a well publicized PR coup, but little else.  Just  a mile down the road from this particular Carrier plant is the ball bearing manufacturer Rexnord.  Manitowoc Foodservices is situated In southern Indiana.  They are both relocating in Mexico next year.  Neither business has been contacted by Trump or Pence.

What the Trump transition develops into in the way of his official administration is, of course, conjecture.  But these political appointments are telling, and Mr. Trump’s present lack of attention that has been on display these past few weeks is alarming.  According to his own staff he has declined to attend many intelligence briefings.  With less than two months remaining before he officially assumes the office you would think he would start taking the job seriously.  He does not seem to know what he doesn’t know, and shows little interest in learning anything, something that should be apparent to his closest advisors.  He is unfamiliar with diplomatic protocol and even lacks important historical knowledge of politically volatile parts of the world. Trump’s bizarre conversation Kellyanne!  Reince!  Where in the hell are you? Stay out of this Steve!! The guy needs help!  And what in the hell is with all the tweeting?  Now he is taking his “Thank you tour” when he should be boning up on current events.  He is in constant need of admiration and ego stroking.  He appears to watch television with every free moment and reacts to whatever he sees with a new tweet.  These are disturbing patterns of behavior.

NERO                                                             TRUMPO

Checklist of Trump campaign promises to date:  Drain the swamp- forget about it.  Punish  corporate outsourcing-  guess we’ll try the complete opposite.  Unite the country-  never really cared in the first place.

One small moment in time of this past, gut wrenching campaign process gnaws at me daily- the words “I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about all your damn e-mails.”  Had Bernie Sanders never uttered those words, there is a good possibility I would be blogging about the upcoming Sanders administration.  As it is, please keep in mind we elected a president, not a king.  The man is supposed to work for us, not line his own pockets by stretching conventional ethics and constitutional law.