Are there any grownups in the room?

Trump’s clown car makes a mockery of government

Source: The Guardian

So just who will run the U.S. government over the next four years? And is this something that Trump voters actually voted for?

Will the guy in charge be the thrice-married philandering felon with a history of sexual abuse and business fraud who occupies the Oval Office? Or will it be the autistic billionaire and father of 12 who is now dismantling U.S. agencies, trying to fire tens of thousands of government workers, and who has given access to the entire federal payroll system to a handful of barely post-adolescents including a dropout from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln?

Of course, Donald J. Trump is the nominal head of the circus. But the clown car, on which Elon Musk seems to fill the driver’s seat as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, is far more colorful than just this pair.

Gabbard, RFK Jr., source: KTLA

Consider the Cabinet that Trump is assembling. Unless something surprising happens, the U.S. Senate is now on its way to approving Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. In case you know little about her, Gabbard’s divine teacher – her “guru dev” – is a former Hare Krishna devotee who set up a cult in which followers mix his toenails into their meals and use his shoes as prayer totems. Gabbard was raised in that cult.

We kid you not.

Gabbard distinguished herself during her confirmation hearing by refusing to use the word “traitor” for Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who leaked highly classified NSA documents. He then fled to Russia where President Vladimir Putin granted him citizenship. In the past, Gabbard made a name for herself by blaming NATO for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, most notably, met with now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, later arguing that he was not a threat to the United States.

She is a turncoat former Democrat just cleared for the DNI job by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a partisan 9-8 vote who most likely will slide through the full Senate and soon take the helm of all the nation’s spy agencies. Eighteen organizations, from the CIA and FBI to the intelligence branches of the military services and the Drug Enforcement Agency, will operate at her whim.

Gabbard served in the Army National Guard for more than 20 years, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, and represented Hawaii for four terms in the U.S. House. However, she’s never run anything and her politics have been, well erratic. She sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, quit the race and endorsed Joseph Biden. Then, she switched parties, became a Fox News contributor and took to appearing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Trump rallies.

A stable person? The kind of person that Trump voters want overseeing the nation’s most important secrets and foreign security efforts? Is this the sort of person that Trump voters voted for?

But then Gabbard will most likely to share the Cabinet room with RFK Jr., whose nomination as secretary of health and human services is also on a greased path. The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-13 to approve this man who has no scientific training but believes childhood vaccines cause autism.

RFK Jr., whose main qualification seems to be fealty to Trump, during the COVID-19 pandemic touted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and suggested that social media companies conspired with public health leaders to suppress effective treatments. He wrote a bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” that accused the former chief presidential medical adviser of masterminding “a historic coup d’état against Western democracy.”

Kennedy has warned of false dangers of aluminumacetaminophen, and fluoride. He headed an organization that launched a campaign against Gardasil, the vaccine for preventing HPV. He has argued that psychiatric drugs are to blame for the rise of mass shootings in the U.S. And he has asserted that Wi-Fi causes cancer—or, more specifically, “Wi-Fi radiation” from cellphones causes “cellphone tumors.”

Caroline Kennedy, source: Reuters

The Wall Street Journal, in editorializing against RFK’s appointment, argued that senators “would be wise to believe RFK Jr.’s career of spreading falsehoods rather than his confirmation conversions.” His own cousin, Caroline, warned in a letter that “siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.”

Is this the sort of person Trump voters voted for?

Both of them will likely share spots at the table with Pete Hegseth, the approved Secretary of Defense. Hegseth, readers will recall, has long had a drinking problem and lots of other baggage, some from at least one of his three marriages. His former sister-in-law in a sworn affidavit told investigators that he so frightened his second wife, Samantha, that she feared for her personal safety. He also had a Trump-like fancy for adultery.

Aside from such, um, moral flaws, Hegseth is now running a huge government department with global responsibilities equipped with what one might call the slenderest of backgrounds in running anything. Before becoming a Fox News host – perhaps the only credential that Trump really cared about – Hegseth was forced to step down from two organizations he ran – Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America – because of allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and personal misconduct.

Is this the sort of person Trump voters really want atop the Defense Department? Do the evangelicals look to him as a role model for their young men?

It may be that Trump voters actually want people such as these in charge. Perhaps they warm to such obvious incompetents because they believe the pap about the “deep state” and see these folks as welcome dismantlers.

Mark Milley, source: CNN

The last thing they would want are adults in the room even of the sort that Trump had in his first term – especially those with substantial military backgrounds. These were people such as retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, who chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later called Trump a “fascist;” former Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, a Marine veteran who faulted Trump’s understanding of what it means to be in the military, and former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, a career Army officer and combat veteran who said Trump “repeatedly compromised our principles in pursuit of partisan advantage and personal gain.”

No, what Trump wants – and perhaps what his followers want – are toadies who will never say “no” to their erratic leader.

It’s often been remarked that Trumpers are cultists, fanatical devotees who will surrender basic American principles — things like democracy and common decency — in obeisance to their leader. Gabbard is a prime example, with real history in a cult. RFK Jr. similarly seems to toe the line on whatever crazy ideas Trump has about former science adviser Fauci (as well as a bevy of his own nutty notions). Hegseth will stand and salute, as shown by his persecution of former Gen. Milley.

The real tragedy, however, is there appears to be no one on the GOP side of the U.S Senate or Congress with the courage to stand up and put a halt to the craziness. Is that also what Trump voters voted for?

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