Not that I expect them to care — because Republicans have long since worshiped at the altar of cash — but Donald Trump is, according to The Washington Post, putting together the richest administration ever. Republicans won’t care because a) they’ve just won the White House for the first time in nigh onto a decade and b) to reiterate, no matter how much their Bible commands against it, they view being rich as being next to godliness. Fans of history books, however, might be a little leery of a rich businessman assembling a cabinet of people with millions of dollars looking to get richer because of things like the Teapot Dome Scandal, though in Trump’s case I’m thinking it’d be Teapot Dumb, but you get my drift.

You’d think that you’d be seeing a lot of angry, middle-aged white people right now though. Because they just voted Trump in on the promise of draining the swamp of D.C. of all the cronyism, back scratching, and incestuous deal making (Trump probably doesn’t mind at least a little incest though, amirite?) that has corrupted our nation’s capital. And so far, Trump has shown he has zero intention of following through with that and other key, cornerstone campaign promises he made…and he’s not even taken the oath of office yet.

Mitt Romney being courted as the Secretary of State is a bit of a relief to those of us that are glad he didn’t give the job to Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin — though the half-term governor turned reality-TV attention whore Palin is being considered for the position of VA Secretary for some dumb reason. But it should be yet another signal to Republicans who voted for him that Donald has played them all like suckers, rubes if you will. Just don’t expect them to ever admit this, no matter how much, over the course of however long Trump is president, he continues to break their ideological hearts.

The first clue we’ve gotten that Trump Lovers will never admit to being conned came when just a matter of days — hours, really — after he was elected in part because he promised to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton, he decided, “Nah, not really.” Yes, Dinesh D’Souza and Ann Coulter howled wailed, but for the most part voters just shrugged. In fact, they made excuses for him like, “Well the president doesn’t really push for indictment, the FBI does, so maybe they’ll still lock her up!”

She’ll never be locked up. He’ll never assign a special prosecutor. He’s going to be too busy robbing the whole country blind with business deals and tax cuts and privatization of services to care about little things like fulfilling campaign promises.









Trump’s already indicated that a wholesale repeal of Obamacare may not happen after all. The pitchforks and torches that his base keep in their cars “just in case” though? They’ll stay right where they are, tucked out of sight. He’ll sell them some more Trump Snake Oil about how it was just an opening bargaining position he made, and that maybe the Affordable Care Act can be changed to better suit the country’s needs. In fact, he’ll probably point to polling that was just released that shows only one in four Americans actually wants Obamacare repealed as a reason for his flip-flop.

Then he gets to take credit for Obama’s legacy too, naturally.

Rubes. Complete and utter rubes. They’ll never, ever see it that way though. Some might wake up to the con that’s been run on them. But most will simply check to make sure he’s still got an “R” next to his name and roll over to go back to sleep.

But here’s an intellectual honesty check for you: If Hillary had won, her base would behave no differently, and I can promise you that.

Republicans like to pretend that Democrats invented the whole idea of the cult of personality, but we all know it was invented by Living Colour, the amazing band from the 1980’s and 90’s. In terms of American presidents though, they’ve always enjoyed such treatment. Lincoln is lauded for all he did despite having some sketchy thoughts on where black people should have had to go after the Civil War (Hint: “Go back to Africa!” wasn’t as nearly a racist sentiment back then as it is now). FDR is praised enormously for his war time leadership, and he signed the order sending Japanese Americans into internment camps, which we just don’t call “concentration” camps because of the Nazi comparison.

Hell, only Nixon could go to China, even after he resigned in disgrace. Ronald Reagan is a patron saint of the Republican Party, and he destroyed the American middle class that Trump is allegedly going to save single handed. Be honest though, the Clintons and the Obamas both have that kind of celebrity, can-do-no-harm cache from the left side of the aisle. How many civilians were killed in drone strikes under Obama’s watch? But I know, he was keeping us safe and shit, right? He had to order them, yes?

See. Cult of personality is everywhere.

In fact, Hillary’s cult of personality most definitely cost her the election, in some small or even large way. It was just assumed that she was well-qualified and so obviously better suited for the job than Trump that she’d cakewalk. She shimmied during presidential debates, literally. The “I’m With Her” crowd believed she could do no wrong, even when some of us were trying to convince people that she wasn’t the safe bet everyone thought she was.

For the foreseeable future, though, it’ll be all eyes on Donny and his admirers. He will continually undercut them and sell them out. He will make bargain after bargain and will cozy up to every single lobbyist and insider he said he was going to literally run out of town on a rail. And his rah-rah team will just stand dutifully behind him, cheering like the rubes they are.

Because you know, emails…and Make America Great Again…and drain the…

LOL.

Follow James on Twitter @JamboSchlarmbo.