The Washington Post has a story today that inspires two thoughts:
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen relatively conventional experts to lead his second administration’s economic policy, even as he pursues tariffs that could upend the international trade order and fills much of his Cabinet with ideologues and loyalists.
Trump tapped a former Fox News host to lead the Defense Department and a vaccine skeptic to run the Department of Health and Human Services; his choice for attorney general, former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), withdrew from consideration after even GOP senators said they doubted he could be confirmed.
My first thought is this: Why is it that when reporters run down all the crazy people Trump has picked to staff his administration, they never mention Tulsi Gabbard? She strikes me as the craziest of all—which is really saying something considering that Team Trump contains RFK Jr., Elon Musk, and (for a while) Matt Gaetz. But she seems to be mostly staying under the radar even though Trump has nominated her for a deeply sensitive post (head of intelligence).
My second thought is: This piece is completely right. MAGA folks were basically all on board with crazy-is-good except for the Treasury Department. The Wall Street Journal just came right out and said it:
Disrupt away, the editorial said, "disruption is needed in many places." But not in economic policy. So we got the conventional Scott Bessent as treasury secretary, Kevin Hassett heading the CEA, and Robert Lighthizer reprising his role as "trade czar."
The same was true during Trump's first term. Steve Mnuchin was a no-drama treasury secretary, Jerome Powell was a nice safe Fed chair, Jay Clayton stayed in his lane at the SEC, and so forth.
The thing that surprises me is that the Defense Department hasn't gotten the same treatment. I would have thought that Republicans in Congress, who take defense seriously, would insist on a serious candidate. Instead they got Pete Hegseth, a Fox News talking head whose only qualification is writing a book about how he holds the military in contempt. Why are Republicans insisting that Trump take Treasury seriously but apparently don't care if Defense is run by an amateur demagogue?
Things are just peachy for rich people. No disruption needed here!
Exactly. The GOP, Trump and MAGA have all been pretty transparent on this point. It should come as no surprise.
Except for all those regulations, gotta disrupt those.
Trump says he is going to remove those unfit to serve. Hegseth is totally onboard with that. Much of the military brass is not.
It can't come quickly enough for you.
What a pleasant human being you must be. /s
I am totally on board with shaking up the military. Current woke bullshit has to go. In particular:
1. The military should not be a way for trans people to get free transition surgery or aftercare. In general, anyone who foreseeably needs expensive medical treatment in the future should not be recruited. Heck, the military will not even enlist people with diabetes or unresolved pre-diabetes (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/can-you-join-the-military-with-diabetes#:~:text=The%20DoD%20provides%20a%20list,within%20the%20last%202%20years). Whether trans people who come out after enlisting should be discharged is a more complicated call.
2. Fitness requirements for combat and for all military specialties should be gender neutral. There is some queston about whether the military should have a general "fitness" requirement that is more about having a military bearing and looking professional than ability to do the job. That might legitimately be gender normed.
3. Combat needs and budget are more important than DEI. For example, see https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/first-coed-submarine-joins-navy-fleet-rcna171150. You have to wonder. What did it cost to design and build this submarine to be coed? Was it worth it? How is that determined? It has more doors. What is impact on safety, speed with which crew can move around, etc. It has more washrooms. What was cut to make that room? At what cost in combat effectiveness, crew comfort, etc?
4. The military is no place for equity. The priority is combat effectiveness. If some people did not have the same chances as others, that is unfortunate. For example, you pick the best marksmen is snipers. If those people are disproportionately white because disproportionately more whites hunt (https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024-09/2022-participation-and-expenditure-patterns-of-hunters-and-anglers-by-demographics.pdf) then so be it.
The problem with Hegseth is that I am not at all convinced that he can control the DoD bureaucracy. Trump should find someone more competent who is on board with these goals.
Its funny how the resentful, angry guys that spew this stuff will readily adapt to whatever the new buzzword or group is.
MF has been pointed at the wokes and the trans and so he dutifully adopts the new crusade (same as the old crusade) and charges forward.
So much anger and resentment, he will happily apply it to whomever he is directed at.
Here he is angry at the woketrans. Lol, poor guy.
"I am totally on board . . . "
You? Who are you?
I say we throw him over.
Re: The military should not be a way for trans people to get free transition surgery or aftercare.
I might well agree, but it strikes me as a small-bore problem that could be easily solved with no need to nominate a nitwit for Defense Secretary or fire all the generals. Ditto the DEI stuff: a quick executive order would get rid of that, no "disruption" needed.
Agreed. Nobody needs a white supremacist to get that done.
The problem is the mindset that supports these things.
You need to get rid of the people who pushed this and change the culture that tolerated it or you just eliminate a few high profile issues like the ones I described and leave the rest of the cancer untouched.
Given that warships, especially submarines, tend to be cramped, it would make sense to me to crew them exclusively with women, who average smaller and therefore will fit better. The same goes for tanks and other armored vehicles, and fighter planes.
Sure. If you can find enough women who are willing to join combat specialties ACS have the necessary physical capabilities.
And since I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, it appears that Adam Gray and Derek Tran might both unseat Republicans. Which means that Trump's coattails look to be -1 in the House.
Tran race was called I thought
As of earlier today, he was a couple hundred votes ahead.
You are correct about CA-45 (Tran). I didn't think they would call a race that close until it was certified. There are still hundreds of uncured votes in that district.
Gray passing Duarte, means that the final would be 220 (-3) - 215. So until the replacements come along (not sure the Democratic Party candidate can win in any of those districts), the Republicans can have one member missing, but no defections on bills in order to have a majority.
I'm in that district and sending Michelle Steel, a hard core Christian Nationalist, to the unemployment office gives me a real reason to celebrate today.
The obvious question is, so, what's new? For years now, the conservative base has had two parts, the rich who hate progressive taxation and regulation, the rest who are susceptible to race baiting or, more generally,us vs them.
What's new has been, first, the overtness and vehemence with which Trump can pursue the second. Second, his lack of concern for how the first plays out so long as he's the star of the show. Third, how a changing media mean it's hardly even necessary to play up the culture wars since you can manipulate the base simpl by saying the Dems have taken your money and ruined the economy. And fourth, the willingness of the mainstream press to treat this all as perfectly normal.
Oh, Axios has an even better take
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/23/trump-liberal-cabinet-rfk-tulsi-gabbard-bessent
Yeah, I don't think this is "better":
"Nothing captures the dramatic ideological transformation of the Republican Party more vividly than President-elect Trump's proposed cabinet.
A pro-abortion-rights Kennedy running HHS (RFK Jr.)."
Kennedy isn't liberal, he's just a crazy person with opinions that range and change with the time of day.
"A former elected democrat in Tulsi Gabbard" - she was always obviously kooky and, like RFK Jr., not liberal. Just a whacko with whacko opinions that sometimes happen to coincide with a liberal position. But only if you don't look too closely - she's still crazy.
Regarding defense, it seems to me that the Trumpian embrace of Putin means our alliance with western democracies is over and thus we will withdraw from NATO. I suppose that would mean the former Republican Party’s love affair with our military is irrelevant.
At one level, this makes a lot of sense. I think it’s time to stop giving Republicans credit for things that they claim to believe in like a strong military and Christianity. It’s all situational and transactional with them.
So, in the case of the military, they’re going to withdraw from NATO and throw in with Putin and other authoritarians. Consequently, they will, in essence, be surrendering to Putin et al. And so the American military will be used only to control the American people and keep them loyal to Trump and the Republican Party. It will no longer have a role in defending the country from our enemies since we’re surrendering to them.
Apparently Trump is ready to invade Mexico so I guess the American military will have to get used to attacking our friends instead of defending them.
Yup, it's Makers and Takers all the way down.
The rest of it is just Theater for Dummies. Meanwhile, "disruption" is good because later you can blame it on the Deep State (remember that?).
Mnuchin may not have been a disruptor, but he & his wife certainly staged an unusual scene with some currency, didn't they?
American innovation, we used to build things in this country,
https://i.redd.it/5bmb2z6upg3e1.jpeg
Where is the bold spirit of adventure??
The generals wouldn't order troops to do whatever in 2020, and on January 6th, the coup had to be attempted without military help. Therefore, the incoming administration wants to change that. Also, remember "Mad Dog" Mattis as Sec Def when "Mad Dog" was an ironic nickname.
At Treasury, the only department that matters is Secret Service and there are still serious questions regarding their actions on and before January 6th. Therefore, the incoming administration doesn't care.
Sorry. Name a Republican who takes defense seriously. Several times now they've said bugger all when one of their own sets out to block promotions. Apparently they'd rather fight Russia in Europe than Ukraine, or even worse, not fight Russia at all. Let them have whatever they want. Likely that is the gist of the secret conversations that Trump and Putin have had over the last 4 years. That was a serious violation of the Logan act, but good luck getting Merrick Garland to bother with such trivia.
Get a Republican to care about veterans. Burn pits? Fuck that shit. VA funding? Fuck that too.
Republicans run their mouths about defense but show me a single one who has put his vote where his mouth is.
They take the defense budget seriously since huge chunks go to their donor base. Veterans can go eff off if they need anything more expensive than a parade.
Keep in mind that all serious/significant policy decisions are made at the WH level in the Domestic Policy Council or NSC. In most instances Cabinet Secretaries and Agency Heads carry out policy, they don’t make it
"Why is it that when reporters run down all the crazy people Trump has picked to staff his administration, they never mention Tulsi Gabbard? She strikes me as the craziest of all."
She is definitely that--and also, by leagues, the most dangerous. My own guess is that the national news orgs' political desks long ago decided that Trump's own, rather obvious effort to embrace Putin as a de facto close ally--which necessarily entails putting NATO, and the entire post-WWII national security strategy that rests upon it, on the path to ultimate destruction--was a legitimate policy choice that they had no right to treat otherwise, lest they be accused of Red baiting (which, in this case, would actually be Brown baiting, but, let's face it, that's a nuance lost on this audience).
I think the ossification of this narrative was well under way even before the Mueller report but, once Bill Barr's interpretation of that report became conventional wisdom, the gig was more-or-less up.
"The thing that surprises me is that the Defense Department hasn't gotten the same treatment. I would have thought that Republicans in Congress, who take defense seriously..."
Hold it right there pardner. Are we quite sure that there any of those left? See the above point about the obviousness of Trump's "opening" to Putin. Would a national party leadership that still cared about national defense have re-nominated such a man to be POTUS? I really think this is giving them too much credit.
There may be some left, they just don't have the power to oppose Trump.
Well on red baiting, the left can blame itself.
No one who had ever shown the slightest degree of tolerance or support for communism should ever be allowed anywhere near our government.
Kevin Hassett is "conventional"? This is the guy who famously predicted that the Dow would hit 36,000, a mere 22 years too early (adjust that for inflation!), using a laughably inane formula. Much later, during his time in the first Trump White House, his office created and publicized a middle-school-level model of the pandemic that predicted that it would be over by May 2020. I'm not buying that the grown-ups are in charge.
Conventional by MAGA standards and conventional by normal people standards are two very different things.
Why are Republicans insisting that Trump take Treasury seriously but apparently don't care if Defense is run by an amateur demagogue?
We don't know they don't care about Defense. The Fox News dude could be in for a rocky confirmation process...Tulsi, too. And RFK for that matter.
Oh, yeah! Let's count on Lindsey Graham to remove his fish-mouth from Trump's ass for 5 minutes, out of respect for the ghost of John McCain.
Speaking of McCain, "It's always darkest before it goes pitch black." That's where we are now.
The old Army story always includes the oblivious CO who'd sign his own death warrant if the first sergeant put it in front of him.
Start with "From Here To Eternity"
Hegseth will play Mr. Secretary and kiss ass in the cabinet meetings, and the same old pros will be running things despite his interference.
"The only thing Republicans (apparently) care about is the Treasury Department" or 'why did you rob the bank", was previously answered "cause that's where the money is" https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/willie-sutton#:~:text=When%20asked%20why%20he%20robbed,Trust%20Company%20in%20Philadelphia%2C%20Pennsylvania.
Reportedly the new, inexperienced Sec Navy has withdrawn his name from consideration.
When asked why he said "I thought this was for Steal Team Six, not Sec Nav"
(obviously snark)
I have to assume that nobody thinks the oil tanker that it is our defense department can be be meaningfully disrupted from its course regardless of who is nominally calling the shots. Also as long as the money keeps rolling into the correct districts to support the industrial complex side of the equation, all will be fine as far as the senators are concerned.
"Why are Republicans insisting that Trump take Treasury seriously but apparently don't care if Defense is run by an amateur demagogue?"
Republicans do care about the DoD, but Trump cares too in this case (because he wants to filter out generals that are loyal to the constitution and prefer generals that will be ready to be loyal to him), and Trump "care" takes precendent.
There are no generals (and in general people with guns) in the Treasury (at least as far as Trump knows), so he doesn't care about it.