VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Many of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees the US President has chosen simply do not have the gravitas or the institutional experience to handle a giant bureaucracy to serve effectively, critics say. The sound you hear is the sound of progress.
Trump, who has spent his entire business career in real estate taking the wrecking ball for what does not work and then building luxury in its place, staked all his campaign messages to American voters on the need to do the same with Washington. You will not ask for renewal and reform of the cabinet appointees who figure that the place looks good overall, but only needs a little paint. You need a human bulldozer.
One of the few nominees that the establishment actually accepts proves the rules: Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state. Even Democrats say that despite their ideological differences, they are viable candidates for the job because they know the ropes. Which is really just another way of saying that he’s in a bipartisan neocon talking point that doesn’t differentiate between Republican and Democratic positions, if at all, emphasizes the need for anti-establishment forces that are skeptical of both establishment parties and any systemic corruption that supports some consensus that horrible.
A tweet from October 2015 by Trump himself speaks volumes about why he can vote for Rubio. “Sheldon Adelson wants to give big money to Rubio because he thinks he can make him the perfect little doll,” Trump wrote, referring to top Republican donor and Israel advocate Sheldon Adelson, whose wife gave $100 million to Trump. the last campaign in the game, according to the official disclosure as reported by the Times of Israel.
Not sure if anyone can puppet Trump now that he’s cashed the check and doesn’t have to worry about re-election, but Trump clearly doesn’t see Rubio as a troublemaker. Maybe Trump also envisions himself as someone who can translate Trump’s MAGA worldview to all the swamp creatures in the State Department.
The same goes for Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who was nominated to be Trump’s UN ambassador, who has appeared to have worked on her MAGA fluency after years of speaking only neocon. “I have seen the importance of Ukraine for the region,” he said in March 2022, according to WWNY-TV News. “They should be recognized in NATO and we should do everything we can by giving them ammunition and spears….”
Fast-forward to just a few days ago. Stefanik “strongly supports President Trump’s peace through force policy agenda and will follow his leadership as commander-in-chief on best practices to end the war in Ukraine,” a spokeswoman said.
The “best practice” to end war is to start with a cease-fire agreement and negotiations, which is the opposite of what official Washington supports, and what America has chosen to do. But Stefanik seems to already know what it will take to keep the job.
Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth as defense secretary immediately sparked a personal witch hunt involving everything from his tattoos to his personal life, with critics suggesting he lacks the ability to lead one of the nation’s largest bureaucracies. Pentagon. He had previously appeared on a podcast saying that he would clean the Pentagon of all the “woke s—,” which has put him first about how the place is now.
How much worse can a man do, really? The Pentagon, when not managed by Hegseth, fought against Russian and Chinese possibilities, and lost. It is now also losing the war it is waging in Ukraine against Russia. What exactly is the establishment worried that Hegseth will destroy, other than the morale of a few Purple Hearts paperclips in the bureaucratic brigade?
The main concern about Trump’s choice director of national intelligence, army reservist and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, is that Russian President Vladimir Putin will expose the US intelligence community. All because they haven’t swallowed standard talking points and are open to considering all sources and types of information and analysis. That is the true definition of intelligence gathering. Perhaps in Gabbard there will be more and less time setting fire in foreign countries as an excuse to rush and put people out.
And last but not least: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health and human services. The department is currently managed by Dr. Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender official confirmed by the Senate. “Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steadfast leadership and critical expertise we need to address this pandemic — regardless of ZIP code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability — and meet the public health needs of our nation at this critical time. and beyond,” Biden said of Levine’s appointment as deputy secretary and current health attorney, Xavier Becerra.
But the real diversity will be Kennedy, whose career in environmental law involved suing industrial polluters, and who will be the first Big Pharma and the medical-industrial industry to hold a position at a time when the US has become synonymous with pharmaceutical profiteering and obesity.
America’s problems will not be solved by a small variation of the people who created them. Trump was elected as a giant middle finger to the system. This cabinet is just another hand, winding up for some long overdue spankings.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and independently produced talk show host in French and English. Her website can be found at http://www.rachelmarsden.com.
