The Donald Trump presidency is now one year old and in many respects the unhinged tweeting, the contempt for democratic norms, the potential collusion with a hostile foreign power it has been unlike any presidency in history.

But there is one respect in which Trumps tenure in office has been rather ordinary: his administrations year-long effort to push familiar Republican initiatives that shift money and power towards corporations and the rich, and away from everybody else .

No, this is not the kind of presidency that Trump promised. As a candidate, he portrayed himself as a different sort of Republican, one who would attack the financial industry, govern independently of wealthy special interests, and protect public programs on which poor and middle-class Americans depend.

On Inauguration Day , speaking from the steps of the Capitol building, Trump reaffirmed those allegiances and priorities: We are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.

Of course, when Trump vowed to protect the forgotten men and women of our country, he likely had a specific subset of men and women in mind working-class Americans and, in particular, white working-class Americans. Stoking their racial resentment has been a theme of his presidency, just as it was a theme of his candidacy.

In public, Trump has assailed African-American football players for protesting during the national anthem. In private, he has said he wants to stop letting in immigrants from shithole (or, in some versions, shithouse) countries. In that sense, he has been exactly the kind of president he promised to be.

But the attacks on people of color, both abroad and home, look less and less like an effort to protect his supporters and more and more like a smokescreen for policies that will leave them along with most poor and middle-class Americans worse off than they were before. In a presidency that already has a reputation for dishonesty and graft, what Trump policies are doing to Americas workers may be the biggest con of all.

Giving Big Tax Breaks For The Wealthy

By far the clearest example of this is the Tax Cut and Jobs Act , which the Republican Congress passed and Trump signed in December. The legislation showers the vast majority of its benefits on businesses, investors and the wealthy by permanently reducing taxes for corporations, the owners of pass-through businesses, and holders of large estates. And although it also lowers some taxes for lower- and middle-income households, those cuts are smaller and temporary.

Ten years out, once the law takes full effect, more than half of all taxpayers will be paying more and most of the rest will see no change, according to analysis by the Tax Policy Center .