These Days Before the Vote: "Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests."

Whitewater, Wis. — Today’s entry this Wednesday morning continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing each day before the November election a principle or position on which our liberal democratic tradition rests.

Here in my beautiful small town, a common challenge comes from the machinations of a few men scheming to control this city of sixteen thousand: self-promoting, self-described local notables. They've kept the town smaller and less successful than it might have been, but for all their self-importance they're more ridiculous than anything else.

One cannot say the same about Trump's self-promotion and self-dealing — here one finds a man of insatiable avarice. In Trump we have less a first family than a crime family. In all these centuries on this continent, has anyone seen a leader so character disordered? (Of his many vices, avarice is only one; to describe Trump accurately one should reasonably append ignorant and bigot to any description.)

Early in the last century, former president Theodore Roosevelt delivered remarks in Osawatomie, Kansas, that were fitting for any American town, then or now:

Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. 

See Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, Ohio State Univ., August 31, 1910. (Whatever problems Roosevelt's nationalism presented then, his nationalism was nothing like Trump's nationalism now.)

On the first day of his second term, Trump revoked executive branch ethics requirements that imposed restrictions concerning lobbyist gifts, former employers and clients, and post-government activity. See Exec. Order No. 14,148, § 2, Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions (Jan. 20, 2025); Exec. Order No. 13,989, § 1, 86 Fed. Reg. 7029 (Jan. 25, 2021), Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel.

While one sees that Trump falls asleep often, he's awake often enough to suspend ethical guidelines or pursue self-enrichment.

Only a few months into his second term, Trump held a May 22, 2025, dinner for major holders of his $TRUMP cryptocurrency. The largest of those holders received a private VIP reception. Reuters reported that investors spent an estimated $148 million acquiring tokens simply to qualify for attendance. See Michelle Conlin, Wealthy Foreign Crypto Investors Descend on President Trump’s Golf Club for $148 Million Meme Coin Dinner, Reuters, May 22, 2025.

From its earliest days, Elon Musk’s involvement in DOGE and leadership of SpaceX raised conflicts concerning agencies overseeing his company’s contracts. Using Roosevelt’s plain, sensible standard, the problem is clear: a private contractor’s influence over government requires effective separation from decisions affecting his own interests. See Mike Stone, U.S. Lawmakers Question Musk’s Dual Role at SpaceX and Government Agency, Reuters, May 6, 2025.

DOGE was always a sham program, giving ideological biases masquerading as cost-cutting over actions under and through the rule of law. Those self-professed libertarians who fell for DOGE placed unpersuasive claims of savings ahead of persuasive arguments against lawless federal actions.

Roosevelt would have seen Trump for what Trump is, assuming Roosevelt could even have imagined a man like Trump in executive office.