Weeding Out the Last Good Souls

Opposing Trump's worst nominees would require Republicans of good conscience to likely end their own political careers. Is there a reason to think enough will?

Barely over a week ago, I expressed my deep concerns with the types of people Donald Trump might tap for his second administration. I worried he’d surround himself with unfit loyalists and nominate crackpot conspiracy theorists and anti-institutionalists for immensely important positions.

As it turned out, I was being too optimistic.

Let me take a step back…

The first few names that came out actually struck me as being pretty good. From what I’ve learned of Susie Wiles, she seems like a serious, competent person. Mike Waltz, considering his qualifications, feels like a strong choice for National Security Advisor. Marco Rubio may be a shell of his former self, but he’s still a good communicator who remains more hawkish than a lot of his colleagues; a reasonable choice for Secretary of State. Even as embarrassing as Elise Stefanik has been as a born-again Trump sycophant, her interrogations of college presidents over antisemitism on campuses make me think she could do a good job as our UN Ambassador.

I wasn’t even all that torn up over Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy ironically co-heading something called the Department of Government Efficiency, which previously didn’t exist. Maybe it’s because I’m not quite convinced the department will turn out to be a real thing; Ramaswamy sure doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously).

But then things got really stupid, and just kept getting stupider.

Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth was nominated to be the Secretary of Defense, reportedly in large part because Trump likes his “look” (a measure Trump sometimes applied to personnel in his first administration). That’s not to say Hegseth is just a pretty face. He’s a decorated military veteran who admirably served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Army National Guard. He later not-so-admirably lobbied (successfully) for President Trump to grant pardons to U.S. soldiers who were very-credibly accused of war crimes. What’s not part of his resume is managerial or high-level national security experience, which would seem fairly important if you’re vying to direct almost three million national-defense employees.

In a move absurd beyond words, Tulsi Gabbard — the former Democratic congresswoman, noted defender and apologist for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and frequent pro-Putin propagandist — was tapped for Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.

For Attorney General, Trump nominated MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz… who subsequently resigned from his congressional seat to escape a damning House Ethics Committee regarding allegations that he had “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” As Attorney General, Gaetz would of course be the nation’s top law-enforcement official.

And then there was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the freewheeling, intensely pro-abortion anti-vaxxer who believes Covid-19 was engineered to spare Chinese and Jewish people, wants to rid drinking-water of fluoride, and campaigned on suspending drug and infectious disease research for eight years — who Trump nominated as his head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

These ridiculous picks will of course need to go through a congressional confirmation process, where Republican senators (who will have a 53-seat majority come January) will once again be placed in the uncomfortable, potentially career-ending position of having to choose between the welfare of the country and the worst instincts of Donald J. Trump — a test that far too many have failed miserably time and time again.

“The President deserves great deference as a president with a mandate,” Senator Marco Rubio said the other day of Trump’s nominations, “and he has a right to surround herself with people he trusts.”

Even if one believes that winning an election (and what looks in this case to be a razor-thin popular-vote plurality) is a “mandate” for a president to get whatever he wants, that’s not how our nation’s separation of powers is supposed to work.

As The Dispatch’s John McCormack writes, “The voters elected Trump. The voters elected 100 senators. They all swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. If Trump wants to nominate unfit characters, senators have a duty to exercise their constitutional authority to reject every single one of them.”

But will they? Will they reject any of them?

My concern isn’t that the magnitude of the situation isn’t being recognized by the key players. The “burn it all down” crowd on the MAGA-right may be very excited about these picks, but most U.S. senators — including on the GOP side — are far more serious people (even if they don’t act like it on cable news), who understand the importance of these agencies and departments. Even those who sincerely see a need for big reforms understand the importance of putting capable people in charge. And they know these particular individuals are at best incapable, and at worst dangerous.

My concern is that political self-preservation, once again, will trump everything. No one in the Republican Party is going to want to embarrass a freshly elected Donald Trump, and that’s what shutting down any of his nominees would amount to — a big embarrassment. As we’ve seen every two years since Trump’s first victory, elected Republicans who get on his bad side typically get primaried out of office (or forced into retirement) in the next election-cycle. A few representatives in less MAGA states have had the political might to hang in there as Trump campaigns hard to turn the party’s base against them, but people like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are much more the exception than the rule. And if enough Republican senators do find the backbone to derail an especially bad nominee (like Gaetz), wouldn’t they then feel obligated to confirm the others?

I think they probably would, because while they could conceivably get away with jettisoning a unlikely disliked deviant like Gaetz, denying the others would likely sign their own political death warrants.

Of course, I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love for enough Republican senators to pass the test this time. But after the latest round of Senate retirements, and the hopeless servility of today’s GOP, it’s nearly impossible to imagine.