Is Trump’s Cabinet Part of the Educated Elite?

DC Politics National Politics
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Source: The Washington Post

New Orleans   President-elect Trump claimed he was going to “drain the swamp” in Washington and was going to overturn the control of government by the professional elite and its domination from Boston to DC. One part of his attack was the domination of the Ivy League educated class-based control of government.

Let’s look at how he has done so far on his picks for key positions and cabinet posts:

· Andrew Puzder for Labor went to Cleveland State for his BA and Washington University in St. Louis for law school.
· Linda McMahon, the wrestling nominee for Small Business Administrator when to East Carolina University.
· Scott Pruitt for EPA graduated from Georgetown and went to University of Tulsa Law School.
· General John F. Kelley for Homeland Security went to the University of Massachusetts at Boston and got a masters at Georgetown.
· General James Mattis for Defense graduated from Central Washington University.
· Steve Mnuchin for Treasury graduated from Yale.
· Elaine Chao for Transportation graduated from Mount Holyoke, Hillary Clinton’s seven sisters college, and has a Harvard MBA.
· Tom Price for Health and Human Services when to the University of Michigan undergrad and med school.
· Wilbur Ross for Commerce went to Yale and has a Harvard MBA.
· Betsy Devos for Education never went to public school and graduated from Calvin College, the Christian Reform school in Michigan.
· Nikki Haley for UN Representative went to Clemson University.
· Ben Carson for HUD went to Yale and then the University of Michigan Medical School.
· Mike Pompeo for CIA went to West Point and then Harvard Law.
· Jeff Sessions for Attorney General went to Huntingdon College, an Alabama-based Methodist college and University of Alabama Law School.
· Stephen Bannon his chief counselor went to Virginia Tech as an undergrad, then Georgetown for a Masters and has a Harvard MBA.
· Reince Priebus the chief of staff went to the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater and then University of Miami Law School.

So what do we have for swamp drainers? We have three Yalies and three Harvard MBAs and one Harvard Law School with one Seven Sisters grad from Holyoke as part of the combine. We have three degrees from Georgetown, which isn’t Ivy League, but is housed in the swamp. Some of these are doubleheaders though like Ross, Bannon, and Chao. In fairness though of 16 nominees thus far that’s a small percentage. The nominees represent a preponderance of state schools, both for undergraduate and other degrees, and not necessarily big time schools but more along the line of regional public universities.

Some of Trump’s attack on elite institutions is paradoxical because he started at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx, but then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School of the Ivy League himself, but truth to tell, his nominees for the most part may be rich and well-armed, but outside of the finance folks, they aren’t silver-spooners. They may have a chip on their shoulders and something to prove, but for the most part, unlike Trump, they didn’t start on third base thinking they had hit a triple.

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