Trump’s absurd and dangerous cabinet nominations reveal his administration’s plan for dysfunction and strife
~ Louis Further ~
Six weeks after the US election, effectively bought by Donald Trump and MAGA billionaires, a convicted felon and incompetent but vengeful fascist will control all three branches of government: the two Houses of Congress, the presidency, and parts of the judiciary – especially the Supreme Court.
With complete immunity. Without the advisors who curbed some of his first administration’s excesses. And with “lots” of Executive Orders for implementation when he takes office on January 20 2025.
These include white supremacist oppression: members of LatinX families will be separated as they are expelled. Trump threatens to withdraw from the Paris Climate accords and the World Health Organisation. And trade tariffs will increase inflation for those same families who voted for Trump. But polls suggest that most are happy with the transition. You might hope that opposition parties would be readying themselves aggressively to resist what amounts to a ‘slow coup’. But there’s no sign of that either.
Appointments
‘Highlights’ of Trump’s nominations known about so far include Pam Bondi’s as replacement for the outrageous choice of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General (rough equivalent of the UK Home Secretary) Like Fox TV personality Pete Hegseth nominated for Defence secretary, Bondi was involved in a scandal over Trump’s fake university; he illegally paid her $25,000 (£19,800) to drop the case.
Joining the foul-mouthed white supremacist, Tom Homan, to oversee mass deportations of non-white guest-workers is Stephen Miller. One of the most unsavoury and twisted racists in the MAGA mob is to be Deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security. In Trump’s first administration Miller devised the sadistic policy of deliberately separating children from their parents/guardians – punishment for not being white; this was described by the United Nations as ‘torture’.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services is one of the most dangerous appointments given Kennedy’s anti-vaccination stances and advocacy of junk science and medical conspiracies. Trump – far from arranging for Kennedy to be constrained by people with medical knowledge and experience – told him to “go wild on health”.
By Kennedy’s side will be Mehmet (‘Doctor’) Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid, on which almost half of the United States relies; but of which Oz has advocated the privatisation. Oz has no qualifications for running such an organisation; but is what Trump calls a “showman” who can “get into ladies’ bedrooms”. He too often peddles junk science… bogus weight loss products and harmful non-solutions to Covid: chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Indeed, during the pandemic Oz said that if schools were re-opened (to “protect the freedoms” of those refusing to wear masks) a resultant death toll of 2% or 3% percent was “acceptable”; that would have been two and a half million of the 80 million school age people in the US dead.
Health economist Jay Bhattacharya is Trump’s nomination for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which led the informed response to Covid-19 and did not advocate drinking bleach. In another pandemic we can also expect Bhattacharya to encourage mass death for US residents – as was his ‘plan‘ last time; let things ‘rip’ to reach the widely discredited myth of ‘herd immunity‘. Then Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister, nominated to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), had to withdraw his nomination because he DID enforce Covid regulations. Fox News contributor, Janette Nesheiwat, is nominated for Surgeon General – presumably because of her criticism of the CDC’s guidance on precautions during the pandemic.
Favouring fossil fuels over life on Earth is Doug Burgum. He will become Secretary of the Interior, equivalent of the UK’s Secretary of State for Defra. Chris Wright (Secretary of Energy) also denies the climate crisis. Both Sean Duffy (Department of transportation) and Lee Zeldin (Environmental ‘Protection’ Agency) have appalling voting records on the environment.
A strong supporter of Putin is Tulsi Gabbard, for Director of national intelligence. Avowed fascist and anti-Semite Sebastian Gorka will be (confirmation not needed) senior National Security Council director for counterterrorism and deputy assistant to Trump. Mike Huckabee, for whom there are no such things as Palestine or Palestinians, will be the ambassador to Israel.
Complimenting Mussolini (‘Il Duce‘- cognate with ‘doge’), far right billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, will run the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’; this will cut government agencies and departments. Serving on an oversight subcommittee with ‘DOGE’ is… wait for it – representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, she of the “Jewish Space Lasers“.
Brendan Carr (who wrote the communications chapter of Project 2025) will run the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and so be able unilaterally to revoke licences of broadcasters of whom Trump disapproves; and to scupper Net Neutrality, the principle that ISPs should ensure equal(ly fast and reliable) speed to all users regardless of content.
For Linda McMahon (education – involving 25% of the US population) a pending lawsuit alleges that she exploited children as entrepreneur in the world of… wrestling. Peter Navarro is yet another convicted criminal to join Trump’s cabinet – as ‘Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing‘.
Planned dysfunction
Trump’s cabinet nominations are so absurd, inappropriate and dangerous—some of them surely selected for pure shock value—that his administration will be an untenable mess and ought soon shake itself apart. Just look at the questions which potential Trump employees are being asked.
But maybe the chaos is calculated. Such far-reaching changes to many government offices will result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and cause them to cease to function properly. It seems likely that significant numbers of civil servants will simply resign. Decades of experience will be lost.
The hurry to inflict cruelty and damage on the country is both because Trump wants to impress his followers, and in order cause as much strife as possible before the 2026 mid-terms. Things could happen very quickly…
Abolition of the Department of Education: this could happen in case schools invite consideration of equality and tolerance; maybe to make way for full privatisation.
Bans on media critical of the MAGA cult: several companies have already abandoned Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and ‘soft-left’ media outlets have begun to adopt a less (or non-) critical attitude to Trump.
Pardons for January 6 2021 insurrectionists: violently to overturn an unfavourable election result will become the norm.
But let’s end with some Holiday charity. In January Democrat Congressperson (Delaware) Sarah McBride will make history by becoming the first openly transgender Congressperson. To welcome her, representative Nancy Mace (South Carolina) has introduced a resolution to deprive McBride of toilet facilities.
Image: Pixbay
