Shortly after Jamie Dimon made his stunning comments about Donald Trump at Davos—praising the indicted former president as “kind of right” about a lot of things—my phone blew up with soliloquies from Wall Street’s liberal in-crowd. The callers wanted to know what the hell had just happened. Had Jamie lost the plot? Had he forgotten the chaos of Trump’s four years in office? More importantly, was he positioning himself and JPMorgan Chase for what he must be figuring will be a Trump victory in November? Since when had Jamie become so craven? 

After all, Jamie has long appeared to be what passes for a Democrat on Wall Street, where the top brass often support Republicans while the rank-and-file usually vote for Democrats. Jamie, it seemed, was both top brass and a Democrat, a rare breed that includes Larry Fink, at BlackRock; David Solomon, at Goldman; Tom Nides, newly installed as a vice chairman at Blackstone; and Blair Effron, at Centerview Partners. Although he has taken to calling himself “barely a Democrat” these days, Jamie has been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary in Democratic administrations.