Jokers and Losers

Trump’s cabinet is absurd. Republicans will accept it anyway. That’s the point.

Photo by David Todd McCarty on Unsplash

Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. RFK Jr for head of Health and Human Services. Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary. Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence.

These choices aren’t just shocking. They’re sending the message that Donald Trump cares about loyalty over basic competence. And perhaps more importantly, they’re setting a norm from the beginning: that no matter what Trump does, he expects Republicans to comply.

Trump is coming into his second term as an angry and vindictive authoritarian. But the US does still ostensibly have a separation of powers; the executive can’t do everything on his own, despite right-wing efforts to vest the president with ever-more power. Trump may not be the most sophisticated president of all time, and he may lack even a recent viewer of Schoolhouse Rock’s understanding of government function, but he knows he sometimes needs the advice and consent of the Senate (or the consent of other branches of government) to get stuff done. And so he’s doing what has often worked for him: he’s establishing dominance early. He’s choosing objectively insane cabinet members to show Republican senators, and the country, that he is the boss — and that he can get others in Washington to comply with his demands, no matter how absurd.