Don't fall for Trump's trolling

Jonathan

Nov 14, 2024 — 2 min read

Trump is trolling us with nominations like Matt Gaetz for AG and Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. He knows it is a no-lose strategy. By pushing the envelope as far as possible, he may get some truly ridiculous picks confirmed.

"Ridiculous", rather than what I first wrote of awful because some of his more conventional picks may well be worse than the ridiculous ones. And, what he is doing with these picks is ridiculing the system.

But if some aren't confirmed, or Trump ends up withdrawing them saying he was joking, he wins in other ways. The ridiculous ones "trigger the libs" and get progressive organizations geared up opposing them, giving cover to the less outrageous but perhaps more sinister nominations.

If the Senate balks at confirming Matt Gaetz, the press will kvell about how the "adults" in the Senate are providing guardrails. And he will switch to someone like Ken Paxton and we will get an AG who is at least as horrible as Gaetz, just in different ways, and probably more capable.

We can't let the mainstream press get away with its natural tendency to praise the reasonableness and restraint of the Senate if they reject a few of Trump's worst picks – while approving others.

I hope the progressive organizations will not take the bait. That they will count on the GOP to reject Gaetz and instead focus most of their effort on picks that seem less outrageous on their face but may be more insidious. And I particularly hope that the press doesn't get fooled into pretending the senate is acting reasonably and providing meaningful guardrails if a few of his picks are blocked.

A more important and accurate focus for the press is on Trump's efforts to evade Senate oversight of appointments altogether. He is trying to grant power to oligarchs like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami entirely outside the Constitional process of Congress creating agencies and the Senate confirming appointments to them. He asked the Senate to roll over and play dead by facilitating his effort to make all of his cabinet "recess" appointments – bright spot: GOP senators rebuffed that effort. Seems good to end on a positive note!

Keep smiling, Keep fighting!

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