The cabinet of Doctor MAGAligari

So Dictator-for-Life-elect Donald Trump has started to select his appointees for cabinet and other major government positions, and his choices are as appalling as they are unsurprising.  Apparently the only qualification for being selected is how fervently a prospective candidate has kissed Trump's ass.  Many of these are so awful they'd be funny if the consequences weren't so dire; the worst make replacing a distinguished jurist like Ruth Bader Ginsburg with the vapid Amy Coney Barrett seem like, "Eh, okay, that's not so bad."

Let's start with one that's so weird that when I first saw it posted, I thought it was a parody.  Alas, it isn't.  Trump has proposed a new department of the federal government, to be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, called "The Department of Governmental Efficiency."  Or... DOGE.

I swear, sometimes the jokes write themselves.

It's unlikely that Trump can just declare the creation of a new department without Congress's approval, so it might be that this will be some sort of advisory board -- or considering the current Congress, maybe they'll just rubber-stamp it.  Whatever form it takes, Musk has already promised to cut two trillion dollars from the federal budget, which is going to be tricky because the discretionary budget is only around 1.7 trillion dollars.

But Musk's grasp on reality is such that he considers the loss of three-quarters of the users of Twitter since he took over a sign of his excellent business acumen, so why not?

What's most amusing about this one is that apparently Musk is already rubbing Trump the wrong way, and there are signs that his stay in the administration might be under half a Scaramucci long.  It's unsurprising when you think about it; there's no way in hell Musk and Trump could share the limelight.  There can only be one egotistical, sociopathic man-baby getting the praise, or else sparks start to fly.  What I wonder is what will happen when they have a serious falling out; Musk's way smarter than Trump (not that this is a high bar), and if he starts using his obscene amounts of wealth to sabotage Trump's agenda, things could get ugly fast.

Then there's the nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.  At first, tapping Hegseth struck many people as a puzzling WTF moment; his sole qualification seemed to be that he'd been a host on Fox & Friends.  But further inquiry into Hegseth's background found that there's something darker behind this choice.  Hegseth has frightening ties to the Christofascist movement, especially the "Reformed Reconstructionists" (nicknamed the "TheoBros"), who advocate laws based on Christian supremacy, male dominance, and "building the Kingdom of God on Earth."  A sign of his beliefs is his tattoo someone found an image of:

"Deus Vult" ("God Wills It") was the rallying cry of the Crusaders, and has been taken over by the Christian Dominionists -- who want laws passed requiring Christianity as a prerequisite for holding elected office.

The Environmental Protection Agency is going to be run by New York State congressman Lee Zeldin, whose definition of "protection" is "deregulate the absolute fuck out of everything."  Zeldin has strong ties to the fossil fuel and auto industries, and basically wants to repeal any legislation holding back oil and natural gas drilling.  "While protecting access to clean air and water," Zeldin said, almost as an afterthought, although how he plans on doing both simultaneously is a mystery to everyone, probably including himself.

Then there's Mike Huckabee -- who stated "there's no such thing as a Palestinian" -- as ambassador to Israel.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; in a speech Trump said he was going to let RFK "go wild on health care."  The man is an antivaxxer, a conspiracy theorist who said that COVID-19 was genetically engineered to spare Jews and Chinese people, and promotes a whole shelf full of fringe-y "alt-med therapies."  He, in fact, seems simply to be an all-around general-purpose wacko, whose extreme anti-science views and determination to spread them was directly responsible for a measles epidemic in Samoa that killed dozens of children.  

And how about Tulsi Gabbard, who called media coverage of the January 6 coup attempt "sensationalized," and labeled Trump's 34 felony convictions as "persecution," who has been nominated for Director of National Intelligence despite having zero experience in intelligence (in both senses of the word).  Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, said about Gabbard, "Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin.  As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.  My Republican colleagues with a backbone should speak out."

But of course they won't, because no one questions Dear Leader.

Perhaps worst of all (at least so far -- heaven only knows what other hideous revelations await in this warped and surreal horror movie), there's the nomination of Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, which may have moved Trump onto shaky ground even with some of his supporters.  Gaetz has been the subject of investigation for having sex with a minor and for child sex trafficking, so putting him in the position of Attorney General -- the top legal advisor to the president, who oversees all issues of law enforcement nationally -- is a horrifying choice.  (I heard an interview with one Republican on the radio this morning who was one hundred percent supportive of Gaetz, and who said that one positive result of the nomination would be shutting down the investigation into Gaetz's actions -- further evidence that the majority of the GOP have more of a problem with a child being queer than they do with a child being raped.)  At least there were two Republicans, who (for obvious reasons) declined to be named, who said they were "stunned and disgusted" by the pick, and that "we wanted him out of the House, but this isn't what we had in mind."

Oh, and Republican Senator Susan Collins went so far as to say she was "shocked" by Gaetz's nomination, thus exceeding her previous most-overwrought emotional state, which was "concerned."  I'm sure she'll even make a frowny-face as she votes "yes" on confirming him.

What's coming?  I'd have said his next likely move was to put Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge of the Department of Education, but he's planning on closing that.  So MTG will have to cool her heels in the House of Representatives for a while longer.  Maybe the My Pillow guy can become the head of the Department of Homeland Security or Surgeon General or something.  I dunno.

The only glimmer of hope I can find in all this -- and it's a slim one -- is that his choices for cabinet members are, one and all, so dramatically unqualified that they're likely to resemble the Keystone Kops more than they do the Wehrmacht.  The problem is, as the entire mess implodes, it can do a lot of damage, depriving American citizens of services they depend on, and in the case of Kennedy and HHS, actually killing people.  As usual, the GOP is the Party of Small Government Until They Want Large Government.  Cutting services to ordinary Americans, defunding public education, destroying health services and medical care, deregulating industry, and killing environmental standards, that's all fine and dandy; but let's get the government into libraries, schools, and people's bedrooms, and along the way get the church into everything.

So those of you who voted for Trump -- I hope you're happy with the chaos that's about to descend.  It's grimly satisfying to know that with Republican control of the Executive Branch, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and (likely) the House of Representatives, you people at least won't have the option of blaming the Democrats when things go to hell.

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