During his first days as president, Barack Obama pledged to protect government whistleblowers. In fact, Change.org even highlighted this stance saying, “Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled.”

Oddly, or rather conveniently enough, this section of the webpage disappeared just days after the first round of Edward Snowden leaks.

President-elect Donald Trump has made his opinion on whistleblowers painfully clear in comments made on the campaign trail, even going so far as to suggest we “kill the traitor,” in reference to whistleblower Edward Snowden.

However, while calling for Snowden’s execution fits in with Trump’s caricature of a “right wing extremist,” if there is one thing we know for sure about Trump it’s that he often makes radical statements and then quickly changes his stance if he finds his popularity slipping. We have already seen this with his reversal on pretty much every issue, except of course his position on building a wall and making Mexico pay for it, which has stayed consistent throughout this entire 2016 circus.

Trump is not an ideologue, which means there may be a chance he can be influenced for good — if it will increase his favorability as president.

As a man who won the presidency by resonating with the anti-establishment and populist sentiment spreading throughout the country, it would be a foolish move for President Trump to turn his back on the very people who elected him into office.

For many Trump supporters — as well as the rest of the country — the surveillance state is one of the largest abominations to individual liberty seen in our lifetime, and that includes the passage of the Patriot Act and all the regulatory agencies that were conceived in the wake of 9/11. Without a firm anti-establishment stance against “big brother,” draining the swamp is not only unlikely, it is simply impossible.

Read the rest of An “Anti-Establishment” Trump Would Pardon Edward Snowden by Brittany Hunter at the Mises Institute.