One year after Trump’s rhetorical war on elites produced a shocking electoral victory, the president still talks and tweets like a populist, promising lower taxes, better health care and terrific infrastructure for hardworking families. But it is now possible to evaluate Trump’s policy priorities based on more than his words. And a review of his executive orders, personnel picks, budget choices and regulatory actions, as well as the legislation he has backed from the White House, show that he has mostly governed as a corporatist, siding with big businesses, wealthy individuals and the Republican establishment on almost every domestic issue. His agenda has neatly fit the playbook of the K Street lobbyists and conservative ideologues he attacked and mocked last year on the campaign trail, pushing to slash funding for nursing homes and student loans, gut rules protecting workers from toxic chemicals, and cut taxes for the rich.
Political campaigns are never precise blueprints for what comes next. George W. Bush sounded much more moderate on the trail than he did in the White House; Barack Obama ran for president as a post-partisan outsider but
didn’t really govern that way. Still, the gap between Trump’s rhetoric and his actual record is much more extreme, and almost all his major initiatives fit the pattern.
Trump touts his tax reforms as the biggest middle-class tax cut ever, but independent analysts say nearly half the benefits in the House Republican bill would go to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, while tens of millions of middle-class families would actually see their taxes go up. He campaigned on a pledge to protect Medicaid from cuts, but as president he’s pushed health care bills and budget plans that would have cut Medicaid by well over $1 trillion. His long-promised trillion-dollar infrastructure bill has yet to materialize. Trump also promised a war on financial elites, accusing Wall Street in general and Goldman Sachs in particular of bleeding the country dry, but he has stocked his administration with Wall Street veterans—and installed Goldman alumni as his Treasury secretary, top economic adviser, deputy national security adviser and chief strategist. His top Wall Street regulator is a former attorney for Goldman and the husband of a Goldman wealth manager.