Goths at the gate
Trump's narrow victory ... Gangsters, plunderers and incompetents ready to sack Washington ... Trump's narrow victory ... Dross on top ... Roger Fitch on America's kakistocracy
"Trump's reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena ... the states ... have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president" - Tom Nichols, the Atlantic
"[C]ompetence is the last in the list of traits [Trump] seeks in nominees. That is usually a bad thing, but when the job they’re being tasked with is destroying all that is good and true, it's a reason for hope. Trump lost a lot of momentum early in his presidency because of his contempt for competence. Let’s hope that happens a second time around" - Amanda Marcotte, Salon
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A convicted felon, he's been judged the worst president in American history. Yet, boosted by the invincible ignorance of some, a plurality of voters re-elected Donald Trump president of a country he nearly destroyed.
He plans to finish the job, endowed by the supreme court with newly-invented criminal immunity. We may be certain he will use it early and often.
After the most expensive election in history, Republicans scored a trifeca with the presidency and both houses, but the 435-seat house is very close: 220 Republicans/215 Democrats, but three Republicans are new Trump nominees. Republican gerrymanders produce at least 16 seats, now 19, after a 3-seat North Carolina pickup: NC's 2022-elected supreme court re-allowed gerrymanders the previous court found unconstitutional.
After obstructing Biden for two years, a Republican-majority congress can't wait to undo his reforms, dismantle agencies, overturn regulations, stack courts and cut taxes for the rich.
Corruption on an unimaginable scale will return. With Trump v US giving presidents immunity, and the court's watered-down bribery jurisprudence, Trump has little to fear in legal consequences.
Kleptocracy rules, and the usual villains and lobbyists are queuing for pillaging permits. It's pay-to-play, especially if you're rich: cabinet-designees Linda McMahon and Elon Musk donated $15 million and $118 million, respectively, as "campaign contributions".
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Like Silvio Berluscone and Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump escaped prison by getting elected. Now he wants revenge.
He plans to start by prosecuting all the people who prosecuted him, beginning with Special Counsel Jack Smith. Smith was previously head of a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, where he succeeded in trying and convicting criminal leaders in other countries.
Berluscone - election saved him from the clink
While in office, Donald Trump won't have to worry about any of the outstanding federal crimes he's been charged with committing during and after his first term in office, and thanks to a timely ruling from the party's Revolutionary Tribunal - the Supreme Court Six - he doesn't have to worry about being charged for crimes he plans to commit or may inadvertently commit during his next term in office, self-dealing included.
He's demanding alarming additional powers, e.g, skipping senate confirmations, by recess appointments, and power for Treasury to selectively label as terrorist organisations, any non-profits that get in his way. Trump truculently stalled, then agreed, the transition's uncongenial ethics requirements.
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Within days of the election, the president-elect began holding court for the already rich (e.g, Australia's Gina Rinehart), and aspiring corrupt, at Mar-a-Lago, his pseudo-Spanish pile in Palm Beach, Florida; on a narrow peninsula between two bodies of water, M-A-L should be an early victim of climate change.
With 126 rooms, the estate (built for Marjorie Merriwether Post) has plenty of space to store additional classified documents that Trump may decide to keep. Existing federal charges against him for taking and hiding documents, e.g, under the Espionage Act, have been withdrawn by the Special Counsel. Still, it's alarming that a state convict, lately charged under the Act, has received confidential intelligence briefings.
Marjorie Post: the original châtelaine of Mar-a-Lago
As Trump begins his (ill-)considered appointments to his new administration, it looks like it will be the most extreme cabinet ever, with nominees who are "anti-qualified". Eight years ago it was foxes in government henhouses; now, it's arsonists, too.
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"It's sensible to be dismayed when you learn that Caligula wants to make his horse Incitatus a Consul, but is it really surprising? Incitatus is hardly your biggest problem when Caligula himself is Emperor" - Michael Dorf
"It is hardly a coincidence that so many greedy people have filled the administration's ranks. Trump's ostentatious crudeness and misogyny are a kind of human-resources strategy. Radiating personal and professional sleaze lets him quickly and easily identify individuals who have any kind of public ethics and to sort them out ... Trump is legitimately excellent at cultivating an inner circle unburdened by legal or moral scruples. These are the only kind of people who want to work for Trump, and the only kind Trump wants to work for him" - New York Magazine (2018)
He isn’t president yet, and the new senate hasn't taken office, but Trump is already setting up a kakistocracy. Top offices will be filled by appalling, completely unqualified nominees, appointments like a former pro wrestling executive for Education, a privatising, quack TV doctor for Medicare and an ex-reality TV star for Transportation.
The first two men proposed, Pete Hegseth for Defence Secretary, and Matt Gaetz for Attorney General (since withdrawn), were each credibly-accused sexual predators.
Trump named as Director of National Intelligence (overseeing the CIA), ex-congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, an ex-Democrat quisling who's never worked in intelligence and is considered pro-Russian.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the Harvard drug-dealer, vaccine sceptic and health crank, would lead Health.
More cabinet stinkers here, non-cabinet here and here. None were background-checked by the FBI.
One nominee seems well-qualified: John Sauer for Solicitor-General; he has the right CV, and was Trump's successful appeals lawyer in Trump v US.
Ms Bondi - Trump's Christian pick for AG
The worst, most dangerous nomination is Fox TV presenter Pete Hegseth, a man inordinately unqualified for Defence. An ex-National Guardsman and Guantánamo prison guard, the rightwing Hegseth believes International Humanitarian Law is optional for Americans. With no management experience, he'd be in charge of three million people and a Pentagon budget over $900 billion.
Replacing Gaetz as AG nominee is Pam Bondi, a devious former Florida AG with conflicts of interest. Bondi was too toxic for appointment in 2017; she was under investigation for soliciting a $25,000 "campaign gift" from Trump in return for not joining a NY State fraud suit against Trump University. After the (illegal) payment of that sum by the non-profit Trump Foundation, she decided not to sue.
The IRS fined Trump and made him reimburse the foundation. Florida investigated Trump and Bondi for possible bribery, but no charges were brought. NY fined the foundation for illegal payments and closed it.
