As the Senate gears up for confirmation hearings, it may be time for a refresher in all the ways in which Trump’s cabinet picks are awful. Bear with me, there’s a lot of them. But we can identify several key dimensions which distinguish the ways in which Trump’s cabinet, if confirmed, will serve us (in the same way that a prize bull ‘serves’ a cow). We’ll look at the 15 cabinet departments, along with the half-dozen additional positions generally regarded as cabinet-level (Small Business Administration, UN Ambassador, etc.). We’ll also include a handful of key national security and White House positions, because of their importance in the day-to-day running of the administration or the critical intelligence and security functions of the Executive branch.
All in all, 25 key positions are listed below in the Spreadsheet of Woe, with commentary following. As of now, there are two positions with no nominee: Veteran’s Affairs and Agriculture. We’ll include these in the spreadsheet anyhow, just in case something should be announced soon.
Position |
|
Nominee |
White male |
Swamp dweller |
oligarch |
saboteur |
special comment |
The Spreadsheet of Woe: Trump's Cabinet Picks
State |
|
Rex Tillerson |
Y |
|
$$ |
|
FR, FF |
Defense |
|
James Mattis |
Y |
|
|
|
Legally ineligible; J |
Homeland Security |
|
John Kelly |
Y |
|
|
|
J |
Attorney General |
|
Jeff Sessions |
Y |
Y |
|
Y |
Opposed VRA, VAWA, gay rights |
Treasury |
|
Steven Mnuchin |
Y |
Y |
$ GS |
|
Oversaw many illegal foreclosures |
Energy |
|
Rick Perry |
Y |
Y |
|
Y |
FF, PP |
Education |
|
Betsy DeVos |
|
|
$$$ |
Y |
Career devoted to undermining public schools |
Labor |
|
Andrew Puzder |
Y |
|
$ |
Y |
Opposes minimum wage, overtime pay |
Commerce |
|
Wilbur Ross |
Y |
|
$$$ |
|
|
Interior |
|
Ryan Zinke |
Y |
Y |
|
|
FF |
HHS |
|
Tom Price |
Y |
Y |
$ |
Y |
Attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare |
HUD |
|
Ben Carson |
|
|
|
Y |
Admitted he is unqualified for Cabinet post; PP |
Transportation |
|
Elaine Chao |
|
Y |
$ |
|
Mitch McConnell’s wife; Mitch now in Trump’s back pocket |
Agriculture |
|
? |
|
|
|
|
Trump searching for a Hispanic to fill post |
Veteran’s Affairs |
|
? |
|
|
|
|
|
Cabinet-level: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPA |
|
Scott Pruitt |
Y |
|
|
Y |
Best know for suing EPA multiple times; FF |
UN Ambassador |
|
Nikki Haley |
|
Y |
|
|
No diplomatic experience; PP |
SBA |
|
Linda McMahon |
|
|
$$ |
|
|
OMB |
|
Mick Mulvaney |
Y |
Y |
|
Y |
Thought it would be ok for US to default on debt payments |
Council of Economic Advisors |
|
Gary Cohn |
Y |
Y |
$ GS |
|
Seriously, how many Goldman Sachs alums can one cabinet have? |
Trade Representative |
|
Robert Lighthizer |
Y |
|
|
|
Retread from Reagan Revolution |
Other key positions: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
National Security Advisor |
|
Michael Flynn |
Y |
|
|
|
Dined with Putin, retweeted insane Pizzagate; FR, CT, J |
CIA Director |
|
Mike Pompeo |
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
WH Chief of Staff |
|
Reince Priebus |
Y |
Y |
|
|
The epitome of Swamp Dwellers |
WH Chief Strategist |
|
Steve Bannon |
Y |
|
|
|
Enabler of the alt-right white supremacists; CT |
First, let’s consider the White Male Quotient: WM=72. Yes, 72% of the positions are white men, the least diverse Presidential cabinet in decades. Maybe Trump’s campaign slogan should have been “Make America white again.” It’s clear that as a rich white male oligarch, Trump prefers to surround himself with people who look just like him.
Second, the Swamp Dweller Quotient. In this column, I check off those people who are or have been officeholders in Washington, or longtime political operatives, or denizens of Wall Street — the political and financial elite with whom Trump voters were supposedly so angry. Trump himself? Apparently, not so much. SD=44; a full 44% are certified Swamp Dwellers, and they’re not going to be draining their own water anytime soon.
Third, the Oligarch Quotient. Here I have assigned 3 $ for billionaires, 2 $ for hundred-millionaires, and 1 $ for mere tens-of-millionaires, with the GS bonus mark for current or former employees of Goldman Sachs. While Hillary Clinton gave some ill-advised highly paid speeches to GS, Trump is apparently even more enamored of them — and wealth in general. The champion of the little people has surrounded himself with the richest cabinet in history, and at least as many GS alums at high levels as anyone. I score the OQ=68 (each $ or GS =4%).
Fourth, the Saboteur quotient. Here we note nominees that have made a career out of denouncing, undermining, suing, or threatening to abolish the very agency they are now being called upon to lead. This isn’t just the fox guarding the henhouse; it’s the farmer signing over the deed to the chicken farm to Mr. Fox. Sessions, Perry, DeVos, Puzder, Price, Carson, Pruitt: all have opposed, denounced, sued, or threatened to abolish the very departments they will now lead. In the case of Mulvaney, he’s a Tea Partier who not only wants to slash any Federal spending that benefits the average American, but supported the government shutdown that downgraded US government credit and suggested a default on US government debt would not be bad thing. See Thomas Franks’ excellent book The Wrecking Crew for a discussion that makes clear why this sort of sabotage is exactly what we should expect from conservatives in power. I score the SQ at 32%.
Finally, our Special Comment category. Here are special codes and comments to identify yet more alarming characteristics of the nominees, as it turns out there are so many of them that it wouldn’t be possible to just keep adding new columns. I have created a few abbreviations to help simplify things. These are FR=Friend of Russia, FF=Fossil fuel advocate/climate change denier (these usually go hand in hand), CT=purveyor/tweeter of conspiracy theories, PP=Peter Principle, J=Junta.
The Friends of Russia (Tillerson and Flynn) are both alarming, Tillerson because of his massive financial conflicts of interest surrounding ExxonMobil exploration in Russia and Flynn because of his apparent willingness to cozy up to Putin. Of course, given Trump’s own record of admiration for Putin, that’s probably a feature rather than a bug.
Equally of concern is the fact that some of the closest advisors to Trump, including Flynn and Bannon, have spread CT regarding Clinton and Democrats. In the post-truth era of politics this is perhaps not surprising, but it is still an extraordinarily dangerous thing. Either these individuals actually believe some of this deranged nonsense, or they are willing to deliberately spread it in the name of getting and maintaining political power. These are not people who should have any positions of high responsibility in the government.
Needless to say, there is a whole crew of fossil fuel advocates who eagerly deny the reality of global warming (at the least, Perry, Zinke, Pruitt, and Tillerson, although the latter has tried to moderate his public statements). Trump himself has of course denounced global warming as a Chinese hoax, so it is unsurprising that someone so extraordinarily ignorant or willfully deceitful would want like-minded minions in key positions.
Yet another concern is the Peter Principle (the idea that individuals in a hierarchy will rise to their level of incompetence, and remain there). Who can forget “Heckuva job, Brownie” and his disastrous FEMA mismanagement in the George Bush administration? Trump is apparently determined to bring in an even larger quotient of outright incompetents. At Energy, we will go from having an actual nuclear physicist to a political hack (Perry) who in the 2012 primaries actually managed to forget that Energy was one of three departments he wanted to eliminate. Ben Carson openly admitted he felt unqualified to run a Cabinet agency, then became Trump’s nominee for Housing and Urban Development. And Nikki Haley, South Carolina governor, will possibly become Ambassador to the UN despite lacking any diplomatic experience.
Finally, yet another concern is the Junta factor: Trump’s nomination of military figures to oversee Defense and Homeland Security. Mattis is in fact legally ineligible for the position, and it would require a special waiver from Congress for him to become Secretary of Defense. Civilian oversight of the military (and, it should be obvious, internal security) is a hallmark of the United States government from its beginning, and a feature of functioning democracies worldwide. That the GOP is so ready to toss this principle out the window is yet another indicator of how radical and extreme the party has become. Also, Trump’s key military picks (especially Flynn as national security advisor) are very hawkish on Iran; the risk of a pointless, unnecessary war with Iran increases dramatically the more of these men there are in power.
It remains to be seen if the Democrats will have enough backbone (and any assistance from GOP senators still capable of sanity) to resist any of the more outrageous and unqualified nominees. But no matter what, we are in for an extraordinarily dangerous time as soon as Trump and this crew are in power.