Trump's business advisory boards are incubators of his future oligarchs

The talk about Trump and the business community avoids mentioning the events that breached the wall between CEO’s and politics long before their public repudiation of Trump’s racism . These CEO’s due diligence in joining Trump’s administration consisted of backing his most wild claims to be their champion and rationalizing his obvious ignorance of all business issues.

Here’s how he did it.

False promises
In his campaign Trump boasted about his ability and desire to support the business community and enact business friendly legislation and regulation. CEO’s believed Trump and turned a blind eye to his ignorance of trade and other business issues. They were willing to go along with him in hopes that he would actually be pro-business.

Fear
Out of the gate, however, President Trump began his attack on the business community . He attacked Carrier and put the CEO’s on notice that he would unlevel the playing field by picking winners and losers based on their ability to accept his agenda. Companies began lying or accepting Trump’s lies about when they had made decisions about increasing jobs. Trump’s message to the business community was “I can drop your stock price in a tweet.”

Co-opting the CEO’s
By creating councils and advisory boards, Trump lured the CEO’s into tacitly approving his administration by by giving them hopes that they could actually have a say in Trump’s agenda. These councils were just petri dishes for Trump to winnow out the CEO’s that would not be loyal to him no matter what he did. Those who thrive in the toxic environment would become members of Trump ’s Future Oligarchs of America club.