Lessons From Cabinet Chaos
Terry H. Schwadron
Nov. 26, 2024
After the flurry of Donald Trump appointments — and the first withdrawal — what have we learned?
Trump may have learned that even his “landslide” election victory, a win that statistically is turning out to be a tiny 1.5% among 150 million votes, he may not exactly have the free hand to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants.
Maybe Trump learned that he would have to manage rather than dictate, however new a concept that is to him. One thing Trump apparently did not learn is that that it is useful — no, important — to vet his candidates and policies before announcing more of them as if he just needs to let voters know about his latest whim.
Oddly Trump was still blaming “radical Left lunatics” for his setback on Gaetz, but it was his own supporters, the Republican-majority Senate, that is insisting on not only its Constitutionally mandated confirmation duties but seems to want a say on the qualifications of candidates to run federal agencies. Still, at least one takeaway from last week’s shucking of Matt Gaetz as attorney general was that the Senate may have been reacting more to unwanted publicity from sex scandal than Gaetz’ shocking last of experience.
In other words, the structures of democracy held for a single, bad appointment. But there are a load more Cabinet picks of people who are being chosen for personal loyalty over experience, and it feels at this moment as if most will get through the process.
Nomination Beat Goes On
It was a momentary blip before a Gaetz replacement was named, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who offers all the Trump promotional value without sex scandal or lack of experience. It is just her beliefs, including support for baseless election fraud and anti-gay governmental policies that raise questions about suitability to be top cop and prosecutor. By contrast, selection of venture capitalist Scott Bessent, an openly gay billionaire, seemed to be pleasing both to Wall Street and to most Republicans weirdly as a “more traditional” pick.
The House learned again that politics and image is more important than substance, and that its leadership will bend to every will and utterance of Trump. It proved impossible to count how many Republicans had lined up to protect Gaetz and other nominees whom they otherwise might not hire themselves or decide to issue a security clearance. It remains a question about whether Gaetz would have been ejected from Congress by a damning Ethics Committee investigation had he not resigned to seek the Justice job.
At this telling, there was lots of chatter about troubles facing Tulsi Gabbard as national intelligence advisor, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary. But the talk is about confirmation votes, not about what happens to the country.
And for Trump voters, it was an open question about whether they are getting what they hoped for. None of this messiness has anything to do with lower supermarket prices or financial relief.
What does seem clear from the nomination skirmishes are that Trump clearly views the U.S. government as his personal vessel, much as he ran The Trump Organization as a tight, family operation with little oversight and a lot of loyalty. It’s already become a cliche that Trump is viewing the Justice Department as an extension of his personal lawyers’ den to serve both as shield and spear, as one TV pundit noted last week.
It is amazing that Team Trump still has not learned how to count votes in Congress. Or to acknowledge public distaste for disdainfully suggesting that Congress take a long walk while the incoming president simply fills jobs through “recess appointments” with no review. Outside of fawning right-leaning television hosts, Trump has miscalculated on just how much king-like behavior he can adopt.
Trump believes his narrow victory provides justification or “mandate” for whatever he personally wants to do — and is backed by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in doing so. The remarkable part is that there are no Trump plans outside of those identified in the very Project 2025 he sought to distance for its unpopular ideas — and whose authors are now providing his agency draft picks.
Culture War Personified
The other big takeaway to date is that these confirmation blow-ups just seem to be personifying culture war issues, whether anti-trans, anti-gay, the invented “masculinity” crisis that masks misogyny, the load of perceived issues arising from “identity politics.” What Trump fails to realize is that those targeted in each attempt to undercut protections and rights eventually boomerangs politically.
Trump’s impatient desire to remake the federal government to eliminate regulation and to rid the country of millions of migrants, to set up tariffs that will explode global response to costs, to snub all thinking about climate change in expectation of more immediate growth each have constituencies that may have helped him get elected now but will disappear as there are no tangible results.
Getting rid of a federal Education Department over culture unhappiness about what is taught will not save money or that many jobs, since the prescriptions are to move those accounts to other agencies or to states. It won’t lower the cost of eggs, which are bound to rise as Asian Bird Flu is spreading. Likewise, revisiting vaccine mandates being targeted by those seeking to influence Kennedy as health secretary or putting directorship of U.S. intelligence efforts in the hands of a Gabbard who disowns the very collection of spy information is unlikely to reward Trump voters.
What Americans across generations and identifiable voter groupings seem to want most is personal prosperity and wealth. So far, they are being handed a menu of chaos in agencies, with entrees of retributive prosecutions of political enemies and a concerted campaign to blame and punish migrants in ways that will run afoul of law and humane values.
It’s unfolding before our eyes. It seems there should be better ways than trial and error to set national policy with scandal-free people who know what they are doing.
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