Comprehensive Impacts of Trump’s First Year: Cabinet Appointments
It has been a surreal year. Just when we think things can’t get any worse, lo and behold, a new tweet comes out. Or a new policy is introduced. Or a new world leader is so offended that we get closer to doomsday. Trump’s election has normalized and publicized the proverbial anonymous yahoo comments, and it’s hard to imagine that he still has a small but loud base of support and that people chose this narcissistic, sexist, racist sociopath consciously. He has exemplified our slow, subtle transformation from intelligent citizens to mindless consumers to salivating spectators who have a constant need for entertainment and outrage.
I always said that when voting for president, what we’re really voting for was the Supreme Court. I am going on record to say that I was wrong. Dead wrong. Trump has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are so many ways a president can be harmful other than by Supreme Court appointments. To be sure, judicial appointments are one major way that Trump is detrimental to the country, and it will take at least a generation to recover from those appointments alone. But this document shows that a president can do deep and lasting damage in many ways.
Although I vacillate between disgust and defeat and anger, I am trying very hard to channel all of those feelings into fighting against our spiral toward Idiocracy. The only way to do this is for everyone who is eligible to actually get out and vote in every single election. This November’s midterm elections will tell us if Americans are really ready for progress or if they’re apathetic enough to continue our moral, ethical, and constitutional decline.
There have been several year-end round-ups about Trump’s first year. Many of them are laughably revisionist. But there were some informative ones. Axios created a great chart of search trends for some of the biggest news events of the first year, showing how we’ve all jumped from one four-alarm news fire to another. Rolling Stone summarized the damage of Trump’s first year. And Roger Cohen with the New York Times editorialized our frightening reality in If This is America.
This piece is meant to be a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of Trump’s first year as President of the United States of America (let that sink in). There are many things that happened during the campaign that are not included. Included are impacts from January 20, 2017, to January 31, 2018 (in some cases, February 1). There are sure to be things missing, but I have done my best to record these impacts. The impacts are listed under 19 different categories:
1. Cabinet Appointments;
3. Women & Families;
4. LBGT;
5. Judicial/Constitutional;
6. Ethics;
7. Targeting free press/free speech/Privacy;
8. Health & Safety;
9. Consumer Protections;
10. Education;
11. Transportation/Infrastructure/Housing;
12. Immigration;
13. Social Contract;
14. Business/Economy/Budget;
15. Military/Defense/Police;
16. World;
17. General Governance;
18. Character; and
19. Some good news. Because there is always some good news.
Of course, some of the impacts may fit under multiple categories. For example, does Trump’s encouragement of police to treat suspects violently fall under Health and Safety or Law Enforcement? Or maybe Ethics or Character? There are many such conundrums, and I have tried to categorize each example appropriately. Some may disagree on the categorization. And that’s OK. As a researcher, I’m still pondering good ways to visualize all of this data, but in the meantime, it’s listed here. Fair warning: This is long. The items may not necessarily be in chronological order.
Since this will take me months to write, I will publish each section as I complete it. This article is on Trump’s initial cabinet appointments.
I want to acknowledge Amy Siskind’s weekly list of subtle changes that experts in authoritarianism say to watch out for. Amy’s in-depth listings were invaluable, and a must-read itself.
Buckle your seat belts.
Cabinet Appointments
The administration started with making terrifying cabinet appointments, which, coincidentally, is the most white and most male cabinet since Reagan. One person resigned and another person withdrew his name. There also has been quite a bit of turnover and even some criminal charges. The cabinet picks give a clear picture into Trump’s character and ethics, or lack thereof.
· National Security Advisor Michael Flynn: Flynn was a retired lieutenant colonel who was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He had argued that “Islam is a political ideology.” Flynn ultimately pled guilty to charges that he lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia. He was eventually replaced with Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who changed the policy so that the Pentagon, not the White House, has authorization to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use airstrikes to target Taliban militants.
· Department of Labor nominee Andrew Puzder: Puzder was not only an unethical business person as CEO of Carl’s, Jr., who had a history of suppressing wages, he was also a domestic violence perpetrator. The good news is that Democrats were able to block this nomination. Alexander Acosta eventually became Secretary of the Department of Labor. Acosta is probably the most conventional appointment that Trump made, as he is a standard conservative who served under George W. Bush.
· Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: Tillerson is the first Secretary of State with no experience in public office. He was the CEO of ExxonMobile, who spent much of his time expanding the company into — wait for it — Russia. The Atlantic has called Tillerson “The Worst Secretary of State in Living Memory,” and the NYT has written extensively about the “unravelling of the State Department.”
· Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin: Mnuchin was probably best known for running a bank that hastily foreclosed on homeowners, particularly the elderly. This pick was akin to letting Wall Street run the whole show.
· Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Mattis was confirmed due to Trump signing a waiver making Mattis exempt from a law that blocks senior officers from taking the defense secretary job within seven years of retirement. This pick wasn’t surprising since Mattis, like Trump, has a history of blunt, aggressive talk and tough stances on Middle East issues.
· Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Sessions is likely best known for his overt racism that rightfully cost him a judgeship in 1989. His racism also created archaic and “get-tough” stances on immigration and drug enforcement. He is also staunchly opposed to gay marriage. Sessions also likely lied under oathwhen saying that he knew of no one who had contact with Russians during the campaign.
· Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke: Zinke was a Trump loyalist who has a history of a conservationist, although his voting record makes that history questionable. Zinke has revived an obsolete tradition of making staff raise a special secretarial flag whenever he enters or leaves the building. But he may be best known now for being investigated for using taxpayer dollars — about 12,000 of them — to charter a plane for personal benefit.
· Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue: Perdue is the former governor of Georgia, where he relied on mass prayer to relieve the state from a drought. He is also a former fertilizer salesman. He also received a lot of money in federal farm subsidies that help chemical companies and agriculture conglomerates at the expense of small farmers and the environment and has many ethical violations.
· Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross: Ross is a billionaire investor who is ardently anti-NAFTA. He sent jobs to Mexico and has benefited from the NAFTA provisions that he wants to undo. He also maintains a minority stake in a company backed by the Chinese government.
· Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price: Price is a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, and particularly the contraception mandate, claiming inaccurately and inordinately out of touch with reality that “not one woman has ever struggled to afford birth control.” Unsurprisingly, he is also staunchly anti-women and anti-reproductive rights, voting against federal funding for abortion, funding for groups like Planned Parenthood, a law that now requires the FDA to regulate tobacco as a drug, and a bill that would have provided four weeks of parental leave for federal employees. He voted for a bill that would have granted the so-called preborn equal protection under the 14th Amendment. He is also staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage and voted against legislation meant to prevent job discrimination based on sexual orientation. He has also traded medical stocks and financially benefited from those trades while in the White House, and had the US Attorney who was investigating him for those trades fired. He also belongs to a group with unorthodox views on health care and government, which opposes Medicare, mandatory vaccinations, government rules, medical quality standards, insurance coverage limits, and legal penalties when doctors make mistakes, among other things. The good news is that Price ultimately resigned after he racked up over $1 million of taxpayer dollars for travel on private and military jets. Trump then named Eric Hargan as Acting Secretary. Hargan worked for the Department of Health and Human Services before under W. He is also opposed to the ACA, especially its mandate, and has led draconian moves within the HHS, detailed in this article under the “Health and Safety” and other sections of this [treatise] article.
· Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson: In one of the more laughable, if not dangerous, appointments of pure incompetence, Ben Carson was appointed to lead HUD. As one writer describes this appointment, Carson got the job “because Trump has normalized incompetence.” Another writer described the appointment as an “offense to America.” Carson is a retired neurosurgeon. Although I’m sure he’s great at, say, removing brain tumors, he has zero experience in housing, government, or running an agency. He is likely the least qualified of Trump’s appointments, even though he has lived in a city (and not in public housing), which, apparently, makes him qualified. He has opposed governmental programs aimed at helping people overcome poverty, or really any government social programs, and has called poverty a choice and “state of mind.” He sees fair housing protections and housing integration as “social engineering.” The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, Inc., described Carson’s opposition to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended) handicap and family status concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing, in its opposition to his appointment. Carson has suggested that low-income housing, including that for veterans, seniors, and the disabled, not be “too cozy” and should perhaps only have stacked bunk beds and not allow pets. Perhaps less relevant to housing (or perhaps not), Carson has fundamentalist religious views and is anti-abortion under any circumstances and against same-sex marriage. In fact, he holds extreme anti-LGBT views, calling transgender people “abnormal,” and has a long record of opposing life-saving safety net programs and fair housing laws for LGBT people and many others. He also doesn’t believe in evolution (!!!). He has suggested that gun control led to The Holocaust and compared the ACA to slavery. Soon after his appointment, Carson fired a top aid for criticizing Trump.
· Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao: Chao, who is married to Mitch McConnell, is the first Asian American female Cabinet member in U.S. history. One writer wondered whether her appointment was a sign of diversity or a sign of nepotism. She is one of few appointments who has experience in government. She also serves on the board of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which includes Fox News, and served on the board of Wells Fargo, which, you may remember, fraudulently opened accounts without people’s consent. Chao is a pretty standard Conservative Republican.
· Secretary of Energy Rick Perry: Perry is the former governor of Texas. While governor, Texas was one of America’s top drillers for oil and gas, and has favored less environmental regulations. He once suggested that the Department of Energy be eliminated, and has called climate change “a contrived, phony mess.” He later tried to backpedal that statement, saying that combatting climate change shouldn’t come at the expense of economic growth. He didn’t understand the job when he accepted the appointment, thinking that he was going to be the “global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry.” As one writer noted, “the two men who preceded Perry as Energy Secretary were Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist on the faculty at Stanford University, followed by Ernest Moniz, who earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Stanford and chairs the physics department at MIT. Perry struggled to obtain an undergraduate degree in animal science at Texas A&M, a struggle evident in a college transcript riddled with C’s and D’s, and one F (in organic chemistry).” Another writer noted that a big problem with Perry holding America’s top physics post is that “he doesn’t have a clue how to oversee nuclear weapon development and maintenance — worrisome, given that Trump’s plan seems to suggest that the former Dancing With the Stars contestant will have a heavy hand in expanding nuclear arms.”
· Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos: DeVos is one of the most inappropriate appointments in the Trump administration, along with Ben Carson. She was only confirmed because Mike Pence broke the Senate’s tie. She is a wealthy Republican donor — an heir to the Amway fortune — with zero experience or knowledge about public education, not understanding basic education terms or federal laws related to education or the difference between growth and proficiency. In her hearing, she showed that she was either unaware or unsupportive of longstanding education policies and functions. She also questioned the basic premise that the federal government even has a role in education or receiving funding, and whether the federal government should have any requirements for students with special needs. Her experience in education is limited to her financial and political involvement in for-profit charter schools at the expense of Detriot’s education system as a whole and her extensive financial ties to a student loan debt collection agency. DeVos lobbied for a Michigan law that established charter schools, and fought for an unusually large number of them in Michigan with little oversight. When the state introduced a bill requiring oversight that would have stopped failing charter school operators from opening additional schools and would have developed a bipartisan commission to examine charters, DeVos threatened Michigan Republicans until they agreed to kill it. When they did kill the bill, she donated $1.45 million to them. She is a staunch advocate of vouchers, which the right has tried to frame as “school choice” (I guess choice is good when it comes to schools, but bad when it comes to women’s health and reproduction). DeVos is also for allowing guns in schools, presumably to protect students from grizzly bears.
· Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin: Shulkin is a unique appointment in that he’s the only appointee who is a holdover from President Obama’s administration and he is well-respected by most.
· Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly (who has since moved to Chief of Staff): Kelly was a Marine Corps general. He may be most known for being strongly opposed to President Obama, as well as the closing Guantanamo and the opening of combat roles to women, suggesting that the Marines would have to lower standards to allow women. After six months, he moved to become Chief of Staff. He was replaced by Kirstjen Nielsen, who was special assistant to the president and as senior director for prevention, preparedness and response at the White House Homeland Security Council under W and worked at a private consulting firm.
· Head of CIA Mike Pompeo: Pompeo was a Koch-backed Kansas Congressman, Tea Partier (AKA far-right extremist), and Trump loyalist who was a graduate of West Point. He is a staunch opponent of the nuclear accord with Iran and has defended waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” as being “within the law.” He is also opposed to closing Guantanamo. In addition, he has advocated for reviving the NSA’s mass surveillance program, throwing civil liberties to the wind. In the past, he has called Muslims potentially complicit in terrorism if they fail to condemn it. (One has to wonder if he’s overtly condemned every act of violence committed by White Christian men.) Pompeo has continuously played down findings by the CIA that the Russians attempted to influence last year’s US election (which, of course, we now know, and knew even then, was true and factual). He also was part of the Select Committee on Benghazi (AKA Hillary Clinton witch hunt, AKA waste of taxpayer money boondoggle). Pompeo has been investigated for his political impartiality on at least one occasion.
· UN Representative Nikki Haley: Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has no foreign policy or foreign affairs experience and, in fact, has little experience outside of South Carolina. She also leans dangerously closely to the climate change skeptics (AKA flat earth society), which is in direct opposition to part of the UN’s goals and work. Many have argued that she got the job so that Trump could tout some diversity in his cabinet. She has also been vehemently anti-women and anti-abortion, which, again, is antithetical to one of the UN’s goals of achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls. She has gone so far as to say that the government and doctors should withhold information from women so they don’t know what their options or choices are when it comes to reproductive health. One writer notedthat Haley’s appointment was meant precisely to undermine progressive treaties and resolutions that protect women both in the US and around the world.
· Head of EPA Scott Pruitt: Pruitt is best know for — wait for it — suing the EPA(14 times!) and using all of his (taxpayer) resources to fight EPA regulationsthat keep our air clean and our water safe to drink. One Senator noted that Pruitt as head of the EPA would change the acronym to stand for “Every Polluter’s Ally.” As all anti-science Trump appointees, he is a climate change skeptic and defended ExxonMobile when the company was investigated. Unsurprisingly, he is affiliated with groups that rely heavily on funds from ultraconservative groups and the oil industry. He is anti-immigration and against the ACA. His appointment was decried by many, including those who work in the EPA.
· Head of Small Business Linda McMahon: In what might be the closest thing to Idiocracy as we can get, McMahon is a former professional wrestling executive, having co-founded the WWE with her husband and having little to no experience with small business (she got her start the old-fashioned way: Marrying an heir to an existing business. Interestingly, she has highlighted some of Trump’s disparaging comments about women as particularly offensive, yet remains part of the Republican party that formally embraces misogyny and sexism. She ran unsuccessfully for a state Senate seat twice, using a lot of the same rhetoric and propaganda that gave rise to Trump. And Hitler. It shouldn’t be surprising that Trump would like someone who profits off of reality TV-style sensationalism.
· Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney: Mulvany was a tea partier Congressman from South Carolina. He had previously called the OMB a joke and suggested that it shouldn’t exist. Mulvany was appointed as acting director when there was an acting director already in place (from the Obama administration). According to one writer, this appointment was meant to circumvent the order of succession laid out in the law creating the CFPB and undermine the explicit intention of Congress for the CFPB to be an independent bureau. Another writer stated that Mulvany’s appointment was an illegal attempt to destroy the bureau. However, a federal judge ruled that Mulvany could indeed have the appointment. Mulvany has a history of preferring the government shut down rather than increase any spending or raise the debt limit. This includes his desires to cut social programs, including social security.
· Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats: Coats is a former senator from Indiana and one-time ambassador to Germany during the George W. Bush administration. He actually supported President Obama’s sanctions against Russia for the Crimean region invasion, and was in fact banned from entering Russia because of his outspoken criticism of Putin. However, Coats is indeed an old fashioned conservative who should be viewed with caution. He was an early supporter of banning gay people in the military and helped write the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, openly criticizing its repeal, and fought against a federal bill intended to tackle job discrimination against members of the LGBT community. He’s also opposed to gay marriage and, like all backward republicans, is against women’s reproductive rights, as well stem cell research. He also lobbied for Bush’s Supreme Court appointments of Harriet Miers (remember her?) and Samuel Alito. Coats also called Guantánamo “a valuable tool in our counter-terrorism efforts” and was critical of an investigation into the US’s use of torture. He is also a proponent of mass surveillance.
· US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer: Adding to the circle of mostly old, white men, Lighthizer is a trade lawyer and former US deputy trade representative under Reagan. He’s an unsurprising pick for Trump because he has a history of using filthy humor and vulgar language to “throw people off their stride,” and, like a Trump-light egomaniac, has a life-sized portrait of himself in his home. He is also an advocate of the “America first” doctrine. He’s been a long opponent of NAFTA and free trade, although he is a supporter of what he deems fair trade, and has roiled the World Trade Organization by blocking the appointment of appellate judges, weakening the body’s ability to resolve international trade clashes.
· Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Kevin Hassett: Hassett is a PhD-level economist. Unlike most of Trump’s appointees, he is actually qualified and experienced for the job. He also enjoys bipartisan support. He is a relatively mainstream free market conservative who felt that President Obama’s stimulus package didn’t go far enough and that government should “find the unemployed and hire them directly.”
· Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (since replaced by John Kelly): Priebus is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and Trump loyalist. He once led a report that recommended shortening the primary season and endorsing immigration reform as a way of reaching out to Latino voters. Priebus was seen as weak and ineffective, partly because he had no control over Bannon and Kushner because Trump didn’t give him the authority to do the job, and was quickly ousted and replaced with John Kelly.
· Chief Strategist Steve Bannon: Where to even start with this one. Bannon was the executive chairman of Breitbart “news,” which is an alt-right websitefor misogynist, white nationalist, Neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, racist opinion pieces and fake news. He has been described as the most dangerous political operative in the US. Bannon once worked for Goldman Sachs and is an advocate of the tea partiers. Oh, and he was unsurprisingly once charged with domestic violence, which seems to almost be a prerequisite these days for working with Trump. He has compared Planned Parenthood to The Holocaust. Trump appointed Bannon to full membership of the National Security Council while stripping membership from the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Even Karl Rove was barred from National Security Council meetings. With this membership, Bannon was elevated above the director of the CIA. If there was one person very excited about Bannon’s appointment, it was David Duke, former head of the KKK. Everyone else — from the left and the right — were rightfully concerned about a security crisis. Bannon eventually left the White House when John Kelly became chief of staff. Bannon preferred to have direct access to the president, which is not how things work in the White House. Typically, everything goes through the chief of staff. Priebus let Bannon get away with that, but Kelly would not.
· Senior Advisor Jared Kushner: Kushner is Trump’s son-in-law. That’s about the extent of his qualifications. The only reason this appointment is legal is because an anti-nepotism law enacted in 1967 does not apply to the president’s staff. Kushner’s background is very similar to that of Trump himself: he ran his family’s multibillion-dollar business after his father pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges. He also owns the New York Observer, a right-wing weekly paper. Kushner was brought on to lead the newly created Office of American Innovation (ha!). However, a former coworker of Kushner has suggested that Kushner’s profits-over-people mentality could be very harmful, rightly noting that “not everything that works in the private sector is transferrable to the public sector — and even if it were, Kushner isn’t the best person to transfer it.” Besides the fact that he is unqualified and inexperienced, as well as the fact that this is nepotism at its worst, Kushner’s appointment brings many ethical concerns, such as the fact that Kushner persuaded Trump to appoint Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn as director of the National Economic Council while Goldman Sachs was lending money to Kushner’s businesses.
The next installment of this series will be on Science and the Environment.
