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The False Sense of Shock Over Trump's Nominees

Throughout his campaign Donald Trump promised to tear Washington apart and to seek vengeance on those he claimed had wronged him as well as use the U.S. military for the mass deportation of undocumented migrants.   Now that he is president elect, he is nominating a circus of unqualified individuals to cabinet positions where they will wreak havoc on the professional civil service ranks and faithfully pursue Trump's agenda of turning Washington upside down.  In the height of disingenuousness many Republicans and even some MAGA voters are expressing shock over Trump's nominations, his push to implement Project 2025, and promised mass deportation plan which may involve declaring a so-called state of emergency.  Had they listened to Trump was saying and those who tried to warn them of Trump's unfitness for office, NONE of what's occurring should be a surprise. The same holds true for many in the media who are now wringing their hands.  The only sweet irony is that those who claim to have voted for Trump due to higher prices are about to get slammed with further significant price increases when Trump's tariffs kick in. A piece in The Atlantic looks at this false sense of shock and all the indicators that were ignored.  Here are highlights:

At a rally in Las Vegas in September, the reggaeton star Nicky Jam came onstage in a Make America Great Again hat and endorsed Donald Trump. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president,” he said. But after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last month called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” the singer—whose father is Puerto Rican and who was raised partly on the island—had second thoughts.

He had no right to be surprised. Trump himself had previously gone after Puerto Rico—he punished its leaders for criticizing him after Hurricane Maria, and sought to swap it for Greenland—but even if Nicky Jam had missed or forgotten that, he had to know who Trump was.

Nicky Jam was ahead of the curve. Since the election, Trump has moved swiftly to do things he’d said he’d do, and yet many people—especially his own supporters—seem stunned and dismayed. This is absurd. . . . after four years as president, culminating in an attempt to erase an election he lost, Trump has demonstrated who he is. Somehow, the delusion of Trump à la carte—take the lib-owning, take the electoral wins, but pass on all of the unsavory stuff—persists.

In an article about how Trump’s transition is “shocking the Washington establishment,” Peter Baker of The New York Times writes: “Nine years after Mr. Trump began upsetting political norms, it may be easy to underestimate just how extraordinary all of this is.”

On K Street, Politico reports, health-care-industry lobbyists can’t believe that Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. They were “expecting a more conventional pick,” even though Trump emphasized Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda late in the campaign, and even though Kennedy said that Trump had promised him control of HHS. To be sure, Kennedy is a shocking and disturbing pick . . . . but his nomination should not come as a surprise—especially for people whose entire business proposition is being highly paid to advise clients on how Washington actually works.

Meanwhile, the New York Post, a key pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media juggernaut, is similarly jittery about the Kennedy choice. . . . . The columnist Michael Godwin, who beamed on November 9 that Trump’s victory “offers the promise of progress on so many fronts that it already feels like Morning in America again,” was back a week later to complain that “it’s not a close call to say” that Kennedy and Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, are “unfit” for the roles.

The lobbyists and editorialists are in good company, or at least in some sort of company. On Capitol Hill, Republican senators say they are shocked by many of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who notoriously professed surprise when Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, is “shocked” at the Gaetz nomination. Gaetz’s House Republican colleagues are “stunned and disgusted.”

Reactions to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense are less vitriolic, if no less baffled.  . . . . . If this is true, the senators could perhaps do with some better staff work. Hegseth was a real possibility to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration; more to the point, he was a prominent figure on Fox News, which is a dominant force in the Republican Party, from whose ranks Trump has repeatedly drawn appointees.

Staffers at the affected agencies have also expressed shock and horror at the prospect of an Attorney General Gaetz, a Defense Secretary Hegseth, or a Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Ordinary Americans may also be taken aback. As I reported last month, Trump critics were concerned about a “believability gap,” in which voters opposed some of Trump’s big policy ideas, sometimes quite strongly, but just didn’t trust that he would really do those things. Although they perhaps deserve more grace than the Republican officials and power brokers who are astonished, they also had ample warning about who Trump is and how he’d govern.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to deport undocumented immigrants en masse. He’s appointing officials such as Stephen Miller and Tom Homan who are committed to that, and yesterday morning, Trump confirmed on Truth Social a report that he would declare a national emergency and use the military to conduct mass deportations. And yet, when the roundups start in January, many people are somehow going to be taken by surprise. 

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Offensive Texts Targets LGBT Community

Donald Trump may claim - when does he not lie? - that he knows nothing about Project 2025, largely a white "Christian" nationalist agenda, but his cabinet nominations and mass deportation plans show that his regime is posed to go full speed ahead in implementing that agenda.  Equally frightening for black, Hispanic and LGBT Americans is the atmosphere which is encouraging the spewing of hate against communities targeted by Project 2025.  Hate filled text have targeted blacks and told them among other things to report to plantations and Hispanics have been threatened with deportation.  Now, LGBT Americans have been added to the target list even as a MAGA Republican has introduced a bill that would bar transgender individuals from using restrooms in the U. S. Capitol.  Fear is palpable within elements of the LGBT community as Project 2025 and its devotes seek to end same sex marriage, repeal non-discrimination protections and even revive sodomy laws to criminalize same sex relationships.  Indeed, some worry just how bad things may get and I will admit I've check a few resources on moving abroad if it becomes necessary.  It is frightening that people we know voted for this kind of hatred. A piece in the New York Times looks at the current text threats to LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights:

A wave of offensive text messages and emails has gone out to Hispanic and L.G.B.T.Q. people in recent days, according to the F.B.I., coming on the heels of a barrage of racist texts that were sent to Black people in the wake of the election.

The F.B.I. said in a statement on Friday that some recipients of the latest messages were told they had been selected for deportation. Others were instructed to report to a “re-education camp” for L.G.B.T.Q. people, the agency said, an apparent reference to conversion therapy or other coercive practices aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The messages were the latest in a series of offensive content that started popping up just hours after the presidential race was called for Donald J. Trump the morning after Election Day. . . . Some of the messages also made a reference to Mr. Trump — some even claimed to be from his administration — but a spokesman for his campaign said it had “absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

Misogynistic social media posts also surged in the aftermath of the election, with phrases like “your body, my choice” and “get back to the kitchen” proliferating online.

Diana Brier, 41, who identifies as lesbian, said she was shocked after receiving one of the texts targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people last Sunday. The message she got referred to an executive order and instructed her to check in to be transported to an undisclosed location for an “LGB re-education camp.” It also mentioned Mr. Trump and the date of his inauguration.

Ms. Brier said the specificity of the message had unsettled her. While she knew it was not real, she said it made her worry about what could happen to L.G.B.T.Q. people under the new Trump administration.

“The timing is not a coincidence,” Ms. Brier said, referring to when the message arrived and what it said. “There’s a lot of concern among my queer friends about what’s going to happen to us.”

The F.B.I. did not clarify how widespread the recent round of messages was or how the senders got the recipients’ identities. It was also unclear whether the messages came from the same source as the texts that targeted Black people.

Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. civil rights group, said in a statement that the hateful rhetoric could have real-life consequences.  “But hate will not silence us,” she said.

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The Dark, Unspoken Promise of Trump’s Return

The media continues to float economic concerns as the principal motivation for those that abandoned Democrats and voted for Donald Trump. Never mind that Trump's proposed tariffs and mass deportation of migrants, many of whom harvest agricultural products will cause price increases that will make post-Covid inflation look tame. This excuse also overlooks the reality that Trump's main offering to his supporters was amplifying grievances - mostly for white racists and whites fearing a loss of white privilege - and heaping hate on assorted others, particularly migrants, blacks, gays and Muslims, all of whom should fear for the future.  Trump also offered a perverted form of machismo that seemingly attracted Latino and Black males who insanely ignored the reality that they are members of groups targeted by Trump's white "Christian" nationalist agenda. Putting down women with slogans like "your body, my choice" apparently thrilled some of these men, but it will not save them when deportations start or non-discrimination protections are rolled back. The entire underlying current was and is one of self-centeredness with no thought for the collective good and greenlighting Trump's push towards authoritarianism.  A column in the New York Times looks at this phenomenon: 

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”

Around the world, populist autocrats have leveraged the thrilling power of that promise to transform their countries into vehicles for their own singular will. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban vowed to restore a simpler, more orderly past, in which men were men and in charge. What they delivered was permission to abandon societal inhibitions, to amplify the grievances of one’s own group and heap hate on assorted others, particularly on groups that cannot speak up for themselves . . . .

Trump’s first term, and his actions in the four years since, tracked the early record of Putin and Orban in important ways. Looking closely at their trajectories, through the lens of Magyar’s theories, gives a chillingly clear sense of where Trump’s second term may lead.

Magyar is Hungarian, and has extensively studied the autocracy of Orban. Like Trump, Orban had been cast out of office (in 2002, in a vote his supporters said had been fraudulent); he didn’t regain power until eight years later. In the interim, he consolidated his movement, positioning himself and his party as the only true representatives of the Hungarian people. It followed that the sitting government was illegitimate and that anyone who supported it was not part of the nation. When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an “autocratic breakthrough,” changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again.

Trump, similarly, spent four years attacking the Biden administration, and the vote that brought it to the White House, as fraudulent, and positioning himself as the only true voice of the people. He is also returning with a power trifecta — the presidency and both houses of Congress. He too can quickly reshape American government in his image.

Trump and his supporters have shown tremendous hostility to civic institutions — the judiciary, the media, universities, many nonprofits, some religious groups — that seek to define and enforce our obligations to one another. . . . . he will likely begin by getting rid of experts, regulators and other civil servants he sees as superfluous, eliminating jobs that he thinks simply shouldn’t exist. Expect asylum officers to be high on that list.

A major target outside of government will be universities. In Hungary, the Central European University, a pioneering research and educational institution (and Magyar’s academic home), was forced into exile. To understand what can happen to public universities in the United States, look at Florida, where the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis has effectively turned the state university system into a highly policed arm of his government. The MAGA movement’s attack on private universities has been underway for some time . . . . Watch for moves to strip private universities of federal funding and tax breaks. Under this kind of financial pressure, even the largest and wealthiest universities will cut jobs and shutter departments; smaller liberal arts colleges will go out of business.

Civil society groups — especially those that serve or advocate for immigrants, formerly incarcerated people, L.G.B.T.Q. people, women and vulnerable groups — will be attacked. Then they may come for the unions.

In an Opinion article in The Washington Post, the publisher of The Times, A.G. Sulzberger, laid out some probable scenarios for a Trump administration’s war on the media. I would add that, like Orban — and like the first Trump administration — this president will reward loyal media with privileged access and will attack critical media by targeting its owners’ other businesses.

Kamala Harris’s campaign, of course, tried to warn Americans about this and a lot more, labeling Trump a fascist. . . . . The Yale philosopher Jason Stanley, author of the book “How Fascism Works,” has argued that fascists are defined less by political beliefs than by the way they do politics: by trafficking in fear and hatred of the “other,” by affirming the supremacy of “us” over “them.” All of which describes Trump, doesn’t it?

Orban used the fear and hatred of immigrants to declare a state of emergency when refugees from the Middle East started coming to Europe in 2015. (He later used the Covid-19 pandemic and then the Russia-Ukraine war as pretexts to adopt emergency powers.) Trump, during his first term, similarly declared a national emergency in connection with the arrival of asylum seekers at the southern border of the United States.

Magyar describes autocratic breakthrough as the transition from the rule of law to the law of rule. When Putin campaigned for president in 2000, his slogan was “Dictatorship of the Law.” . . . . He proceeded to rule by decree, as Orban does now and as Trump did in his first term — and has said he intends to do in his second.

As to the specifics, we know less than we may think we know. Had Trump been elected to a second term in 2020, Magyar says he would have expected him to try to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which established a two-term limit for presidents. I think he may still try to do it, clearing the way to run again at the age of 82. Much has been written about Project 2025 as a sort of legislative blueprint for the second Trump presidency. . . . . the document is more a reflection of the clan of people who empower Trump and are empowered by him than an ideological document. It is not a blueprint for coherent legislative change, but it is a blueprint still: a blueprint for trampling the system of government as it is currently constituted, a blueprint of destruction.

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