Well, that didn't take long. Just ten days have passed since Trump was elected president, and he's wasting no time proving that those of us who said he'd be a dictator on Day 1 are being proven correct.
Even before Day 1, obviously, since Trump won't take office until January 20, 2025. But his current nominees for top jobs in his administration are showing that if there's one thing we can be sure of in Trump's second stint as president, it's that he'll be our most authoritarian president ever, by far.
Before I talk about what horribly bad nominees he's putting forward, let's marvel at how Trump wants to upend our nation's long history -- ever since its founding, really -- of having virtually all high-level presidential nominees go through the "advice and consent" duty of the Senate as specified in the Constitution.
Trump doesn't want that to happen. He's demanding that the Senate agree to him making recess appointments when both the Senate and House have taken a vote to formally adjourn for a period of time.
That's allowed in the Constitution, but recess appointments have rarely been used by presidents. Obama tried it, but that effort was struck down by the Supreme Court. Maybe that would happen with Trump also, but I doubt it, given the rightward slant of the current Court.
If Trump attempts to do the recess appointment thing, this would show his utter disdain for the Constitution as envisioned by those who wrote and ratified it in the late 1700s. They knew that our nation needed checks on imperial power. The last thing they wanted was an American king, since they'd just liberated themselves from the British king.
Congress and the courts are constitutional checks on an authoritarian president. Trump is letting the Senate know right from the start of his presidency that he doesn't want any check on his power. He wants senators to surrender their advice and consent role on presidential nominees by letting him make as many recess appointments as he desires.
Which could be all of them. Hundreds, if not thousands. No hearings. No questions about candidate qualifications. No probing into policy preferences. Just total acquiescence to whoever Trump wants in his administration.
Currently Trump is refusing to have the FBI conduct background checks on his nominees. Ordinarily the Senate would have a fit over this. If a Democratic president tried to do an end run around Senate oversight by recess appointments and no FBI background checks, Republican senators would have dreams of impeachment running through their heads.
But with Trump, there's a good chance almost all of those senators will shrug and say, "What can we do? It's just Trump being Trump." That's how fascists like Trump gain unlimited power -- by decent leaders of a country doing indecent things to forestall retribution by a feared authoritarian.
Now let's marvel at the extremely poor qualifications of some of those Trump has picked for high-ranking jobs in his administration. Here too, Trump is breaking new ground by putting forward the names of people who are spectacularly unqualified for the positions they've being nominated for.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Trump's pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services. The Washington Post has published a story about ten RFK Jr. conspiracy theories and false claims in his own words. The links are revealing, even if you can't read the story itself without a subscription. Remember, this is what the guy who Trump wants to lead on health care believes.
Then there's Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department, Matt Gaetz. He's disliked by almost all House Republicans for his antics that led to the ouster of Speaker McCarthy and almost to the ouster of current Speaker Johnson.
Gaetz resigned from the House this week, two days before the Ethics Committee was going to discuss release of a report about accusations that Gaetz engaged in sex with a minor and used illegal drugs. Now it's unclear if the report will be released. It should be, and other Ethics Committee reports have been released after the accused person had left the House.
It's almost comical that Trump's nominee to be the head of the Justice Department faced credible accusations of sexual abuse and illegal drug use. The only qualification Gaetz has for the job is that he's said many times that he favors the Justice Department charging Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and other Democrats with unnamed crimes.
Which obviously is complete B.S., but "complete B.S." is what you need to have Trump nominate you for a high office.
Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense passed that test. Pete Hegseth was an evening Fox News host where he opined about the horror of "wokeness" in the military, which seems to mean that women, minorities, and gay people were given the same rights as white heterosexual men.
Hegseth has said that he doesn't think women should be serving in combat roles and has tattoos that identify him a white supremacist. A Fortune story says:
Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo he has that’s associated with white supremacist groups.
...If Hegseth assumes office, it would mean that someone who has said it’s a sham that extremism is a problem in the military would oversee a sprawling department whose leadership reacted with alarm when people in tactical gear stormed up the U.S. Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in military-style stack formation. He’s also shown support for members of the military accused of war crimes and criticized the military’s justice system.
So Hegseth is Trump's kind of guy. No respect for the rule of law. Hates equal rights. A Christian nationalist, from what I've read. Buckle up, America. Trump has just gotten started on his authoritarianism. There's much worse to come, for sure.
More proof that Dems like you are all about "defending democracy" as long as your side is in power. As soon as you feel your power is threatened, you call it "authoritarianism" and start accusing all the opposition of being criminals.
You still don't get it, and you've accepted nothing. You had your chance, the country voted, and you lost in a landslide. And it won't get any better. Scream all you want to, the country isn't going to come around to your side.
Posted by: sant64 | November 16, 2024 at 10:45 AM