One attitude sets me apart from my neighbors in Washington and most of my colleagues and commentators who are indignant about everything: Donald Trump’s appointments do not surprise me. They don’t even scandalize me. Where were, in recent months, all those who are tearing their shirts today?
It seems to me that I had spoken about it, that I had informed the readers, the viewers, of it. What has Donald Trump reiterated in one endless speech after another since announcing his intention to return to the White House? That the system – you name it: legal, financial, bureaucratic, etc. – is gangrenous to the bone! And that he was going to appoint a team of destroyers, not usual administrators, but gravediggers of standards to manage all of this.
Trump has repeatedly trumpeted that he would make exactly the kinds of decisions he has been dishing out to us all week. Robert Kennedy Jr., that damned anti-vaccine, as Minister of Health? Trump warned us though. I take you back to the famous October 27 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Loud and clear in front of 20,000 people!
It’s true that so many outrageous things were said there – the New York Times ended up describing the event as “a carnival of blame, misogyny and racism” – that one of the lines of the Republican candidate’s hour and a quarter speech clearly did not receive the attention that she deserved.
Between a comedian’s “joke” about Puerto Rico, this “waste island”, and the description of Kamala Harris as being “the Antichrist”, Donald Trump declaring that he was going to leave RFK son “go wild on Health» (let him go wild in Health) did not actually have the same resonance. The future president had nevertheless been quite clear, right?
I’ll allow myself a short aside, it’s just too tempting. Further evidence of the disconnect between political analysts and the American electorate, it was predicted that the Puerto Rican community would severely punish Trump on election day.
In fact, not only did the Republican candidate win 43% of the Latino vote across the country, an eight-point increase from 2020, but in Pennsylvania, home to one of the largest Puerto Rican communities on the continent, Trump held Harris’ share of the Latino vote at 57%, a 21-point drop from Latino support for Joe Biden in the state during the 2020 presidential election. But I digress.
A government in “demolition” mode
Pete Hegseth to Defense and Matt Gaetz to Justice, appointments, it’s true, that we didn’t see coming. Come to think of it, however, we should be even less surprised. At the end of his first term, Donald Trump emerged furious about his relationship with “his generals” whom he admired so much. They resisted his orders, then each in his own way made it known that he was considered unfit to become commander-in-chief again.
At Justice, it’s even worse. Trump and his entourage are convinced that the Department was used against him throughout the four years of the Biden presidency. From prosecutors to FBI agents, the future president had promised a complete housecleaning. We were also entitled to this throughout the electoral campaign.
Hegseth and Gaetz appear visibly incompetent to assume the immense responsibilities associated with their ministry. But Trump, at this point at least, is not looking for competent managers, but for wrecking balls. The next government of Donald Trump will be in his image: brusque, provocative and, lip service, respectful of certain conventions. We had been notified. No one should be surprised.
