Why a Regretful Donald Trump Voter Is Now Protesting Goldman Sachs
With most of his home state of Utah, 65-year-old Vietnam veteran Richard Robinson voted for Donald Trump on Nov. 8.
But on Tuesday -- with just three days to go until Trump’s inauguration -- Robinson took a flight from his home state to New York City for the sole purpose of protesting his presidential pick outside the headquarters of banking giant, .
Under the watchful eyes of roughly a dozen police officers, Robinson, alongside some 50 other protestors holding up signs and wearing green “swamp monster masks,” decried Trump and his multiple cabinet picks who are Goldman Sachs alumni. Many of the protesters originally supported Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders during the primary.
But Robinson fits squarely into the demographic that helped carry Trump to victory. He is over 45, once worked in the manufacturing industry, and is a white male without a college degree. He said he voted for the President-elect because he thought Trump’s lack of background in politics meant he would bring a breath of fresh air to Washington D.C.
“What I’ve found since his election is that he’s becoming more and more politician-like, where he says one thing, and does another,” Robinson told Fortune during the protest, which was organized by the New York Community for Change and the Resist Trump movement and is the third of its kind.
Robinson noted that while Trump criticized Wall Street on the campaign trail and promised to “drain the swamp,” the President-elect added yet another Goldman Sachs alumnus to his White House circle of week. Anthony Scaramucci joins fellow Goldman Sachs alumni including incoming White House strategist Steve Bannon, and U.S. Treasury Secretary pick, Steve Mnuchin.
While many of the protestors, who plan to stay on the sidewalk outside Goldman until Friday morning, are worried that Trump’s close ties to Wall Street and plans to ease regulation on the industry could result in consumers being exploited -- or even another financial crisis -- the issue of Goldman Sachs hits a little closer to home for Robinson.
He lives on disability after an accident in 2000. While he and his wife could once make holiday trips to Alaska, Robinson now gets by on one-third of his former salary--$1,538 a month from Social Security. That makes it difficult for Robinson to pay for his home in a community owned by Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties, where rent is hiked on an annual basis.
Goldman Sachs in turn owns $53.2 million shares in that company--or 0.8% of Equity LifeStyle as of the third quarter according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Robinson, alongside the other protestors, are also worried about Trump Treasury Secretary pick Mnuchin, who oversaw the bank OneWest during the time it foreclosed on over 36,000 homeowners.
For Robinson, those foreclosures are hard to swallow.
“I saw people in manufacturing -- my neighbors -- lose their jobs and homes,” he said.
But Robinson, who says he took Trump more seriously than literally, is now regretting his decision. He had largely dismissed Trump’s plans to deport Mexican immigrants and build a wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Instead, he took Trump seriously on issues that he thought were doable -- like cutting the government’s ties to Wall Street.
“I’m not sure that was the best decision anymore,” he said.
Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fortune.
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