"Although Americans were warned that President-elect Donald Trump would staff his administration with loyalists, few expected the shock of his calamitous selections ...
"If Trump gets his way, we will have a defender of war criminals as Secretary of Defense, a Russian lackey as Director of National Intelligence, a criminal running the Department of Justice, and a crank promoter of quack remedies in charge of Health and Human Services.
"This is a negation of government, an act of nihilism directed at the central function of each of our government’s agencies. ...
"It’s not just that Trump has reserved his worst nominees for the things I regard as legitimate and necessary functions of government—defense, intelligence, law-enforcement, even disease control. It’s that he doesn’t seem to be trying to reduce the power of government, but rather to abuse it in the way he prefers. ... a cabinet of nihilists who will be loyal to him not their jobs. ...
"It is a mistake to think that authoritarian leaders want to strengthen government. To the contrary, they want to weaken government’s institutions. They want an unstructured government, one without rules and procedures, so as to leave fewer impediments to their whims. That is the point of Trump’s anti-government: to provide more scope for the exercise of arbitrary and capricious power."~ Robert Tracinski from his post 'The Trump Administration Will Be the Government’s Evil Twin'
Monday, 18 November 2024
"...He has assembled a cabinet of nihilists who will be loyal to him not their jobs. ..."
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Sorry for being anonymous, not a commenter usually.
Thank you Peter for reminding us that so many who are apparently otherwise knowledgeable completely miss the point of Trump and his cabinet selections.
Trillion in interest payments.
A completely corrupted DoD, DoJ and every other government bureau plus the uniparty congress.
And you want the same business-as-usual “qualified” appointments?
"This is a negation of government, an act of nihilism directed at the central function of each of our government’s agencies...It is a mistake to think that authoritarian leaders want to strengthen government. To the contrary, they want to weaken government’s institutions. They want an unstructured government, one without rules and procedures, so as to leave fewer impediments to their whims
Fascinating arguments being put forward on an Objectivist blog. Mr Tracinski either approves of the status quo at the Pentagon, the DNI, and outfits like the NHI, given their track record of losing wars, fucking up intelligence, and funding Chinese GE virus labs or prefers them to be shrunk via the incremental approaches of the likes of Bush, McCain, Romney and company.
Either that he's just lost the plot completely in his hatred of Trump. On just three points:
- The new SecDef defends war criminals? I've heard the Christian Cross on Segheth attack but not this one, which puts him in the same category as Bush, Obama, Biden, Rumsfeld, Cheney.... While what I see is someone who at least understands what's wrong at DoD and might be able to fix it.
- A Russian lackey as DNI? This one I have heard: the 1950's McCarthyites are back. I guess that's why Gabbard was put on a watch list by Homeland Security when she flies, courtesy of the Bush's Patriot Act, which I suppose Tracinski supports.
- A criminal running the Department of Justice? Well, Gaetz is not exactly my cup of tea either, but while I'm aware of accusations against him I don't think he's been convicted and on the actual charges of doing naughty things with a 17 year old the DOJ dropped the investigation.
- A crank promoter of quack remedies in charge of Health and Human Services. Yes, I'll grant you that's not great, but get back to me when he enables a global pandemic because he didn't give a shit that the President (Obama in Fauci's case) had shut down that sort of GE virus research in the US while Mr Evil Sir Humphrey decided otherwise and funded it in China.
Does he say anything about Trump using Musk and Ramaswamy's planned advisory efforts to cut huge amounts of government waste (I really don't want to give him clicks), or is that just dismissed as a failure at conception or more giving power to Hitler stuff?
Following the LA Time's refusal to endorse Harris, a number of people there quit and were cheered on by the WaPo's Jen Rubin - who then did not quit when her paper did the same. But there's still hope and if that refugee from the Right can do the job, and if she quits, I suggest Robert Tracinski for the role.
He'll be a perfect fit.
There’s a consistent pattern to your comments Tom when it comes to Trump. You describe how bad the previous team were, as excuse for the new team who are looking like they’re going to be worse. We’ll know for sure in a year or two whether they are better or worse - whether Tracinski is over-pessimistic, or you’re over-optimistic. That’s assuming we agree on what ‘better’ looks like, but frankly I’m not so sure.
Lockdown Don is a big government interventionist.
Now Trump has nominated “Dr Oz” a reality Tv star as head of Medicare. Mr Tracinski could not be more correct in his letter.
Mehmet Cengiz Öz (also known as Dr. Oz), is an American television personality, physician, author, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University,
Medicare needs an actuary more than cardio surgeon but if the implication of "reality TV star" is that he's dumb, well...
More evident for brilliant thinking that's gone into Trump's tariff plans below. You couldn't make this stuff up. It's only his son to be fair, but I suspect the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/eric-trump-demonstrates-in-30-seconds-he-doesn-t-have-a-clue-how-tariffs-work/ar-AA1uNaLO?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f876f36444834a7d8ba54ac249d0b1b3&ei=18
"Eric Trump appeared to mix up tariffs and sanctions during an appearance on Fox News on Monday night, aggressively going after Mexico, Canada, and China as his top targets.
“You want to allow drugs to come through our southern border? We're going to tariff you,” he said. “You want to allow them to come through Canada? We're going to tariff you.”
Donald Trump’s second son proceeded to rant about costing the economies of the three countries “billions”, while failing to acknowledge the impact tariffs have on American consumers as prices on imported goods are inevitably hiked in response."
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