The Most Annoying Way This All Ends

I recently appeared on Mona Charen’s “Beg to Differ” podcast from The Bulwark. We discussed Donald Trump’s cabinet selections (with reference to my recent article on that at The UnPopulist) and the future direction for the Democratic Party.

Check it out.

See this also for my comments on the “lowlight of the week,” which is also simultaneously the highlight: seeing RFK, Jr., forced to gobble down cold McDonald’s on Trump’s airplane. You have to find the humor where you can in these situations.

I have a few additional notes on Trump’s selections—I won’t call them “appointees,” because it’s still not clear whether he will succeed in his attempt to evade the Senate confirmation process, though it is looking less likely. Then I want to expand on my comments in the podcast about what to do next.

One point I want to draw out from the podcast discussion is that Trump’s worst appointments are not made at random. I think it’s Mona who points out that most of his worst choices are in the agencies where an authoritarian would need to exert control and destroy all resistance: the military, intelligence, and law enforcement. These are certainly the areas where Trump felt as if he faced resistance from the professional bureaucracy and particularly from his own cabinet appointees—the “shallow state”—last time. Trump doesn’t really give a damn who the Secretary of Transportation is. He cares about who control the police and national security.

But there are plenty of other bad selections outside of those core areas.

Reason looks at Trump’s selections for immigration enforcement.

[Border “czar” Thomas] Homan was an unapologetic proponent of separating migrant families as a deterrent policy, first pitching the idea during the Obama administration. (The Trump administration separated thousands of children from their families, and many of them still haven't been reunited.) Homan once argued that politicians who govern sanctuary cities should be charged with crimes, and ICE under his watch swept up undocumented immigrants trying to make an honest living.

This time around, Homan will likely play a central part in Trump’s mass deportation effort, which the president-elect claims could target millions of undocumented immigrants. Workplace raids will again be on the table, Homan has said, and on Monday, he warned blue-state governors to “get the hell out of the way” of the administration’s enforcement activities.

Some people are speculating, including in that Bulwark podcast, that Trump won’t really attempt to implement mass deportations. He will do what he did with the border wall in his first term in office: stage a few immigration sweeps for photo ops to satisfy his supporters, then drop the whole thing as he goes off after some new shiny object. Mebbe so. But the people he is putting into place at the immigration agencies sure look like the people he would select if he is serious about mass deportations.

A lot of attention has been paid to Trump’s attempt to select his congressional lackey, Matt Gaetz, as Attorney General. (Minutes before the podcast began recording, we learned that Gaetz had withdrawn.) But Trump is also looking to place his personal lawyers at key positions at the Department of Justice.