"... Gabbard against the rest of the foreign policy team on whether to expose more national security secrets, the pro-choice and regulation-friendly Kennedy against abortion opponents and free-marketeers, the pro-union Chavez-Deremer against other economic appointees, Hegseth against the more cautious JD Vance, perhaps, on how far to go on behalf of Israel and against Iran.... But another way to look at these picks is that they’re designed to stoke conflict within the different agencies rather than within the cabinet... less the representation of different factions and more just disruption of all kinds.... [A] third interpretation of the Trump cabinet: That he’s assembling a 'team of podcasters'... a cabinet of 'communicators, not administrators,' who are picked for their celebrity and their experience as faces and voices — on cable news, on podcasts, on daytime television in the case of Mehmet Oz... or just in the general glare of celebrity that attends any scion of the Kennedy clan."
Writes Ross Douthat, in "Three Theories of the Trump Cabinet" (NYT).
So there are 3 ways — at least 3 — that Trump's choices might work quite well... or quite badly.
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86 comments:
This is the same media playbook from the first term. Every day, we'll hear, "Trump White House In Chaos." It's lazy.
His education sec might be a really bad choice.
Looking forward to the Team of Rivals allusions. If it worked for Lincoln…
I love the Makary pick. His book, Blind Spots, is a must read.
It is entertaining to watch you cover the pond scum who populate the Regime Pravda mill. But at this point the purpose of the NYT has changed. The only purpose is to look for signs of renewal. They are now a barometer on a faction whose power was illegitimate and that no longer has power.
Without mass voter fraud or a complete reformation of the Democrat party there is nothing they can do to gain back political power.
Harris did not win a single state that had any kind of ID requirement to register or to vote. Any such requirement nationally will end the party nationally as it currently exists.
You know why the democrats filled blue states with illegals? For the census count. The 3 million extra illegals in CA - give CA 54 electoral votes. That's insane.
The left do nothing but scheme for power. Our nation be damned.
I've never been in charge of a bunch of important people and I'm okay with that but every now and then I have to admit that I think it'd be kind of nice to preside over an unruly meeting and get to be the guy sitting at the head of the table who gets to stand up and hold his arms out and say nice and level: "PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE, I WANT EVERYONE ROWING IN THE SAME DIRECTION HERE, AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?!"
The abortion deal is already done. It went back to the sates.
if you want an abortion 9 months in - come to Colorado! They just codified it in the Colorado constitution.
"If you don't like this ludicrous theory of how the Trump Administration would work, how about the EXACT OPPOSITE?!"
The New York oligarchy has really lost its touch to let this deluded rambling go to print. No wonder the WaPo and LA Times are seriously contemplating mass dismissals.
The corruptocrat strangle hold.
It's time to break it.
The fact that this wasn't the first place they go indicates how poorly they understand the history of the White House. But I suppose it runs the risk of reminding Democrats that Lincoln was a Republican and took away their slaves.
Lincoln was the first thing I thought of, too. Didn't the beloved Doris Kearns Goodwin write a laudatory book about Lincoln's cabinet called "Team of Rivals?" I seem to remember the idea of a team of rivals as being genius.
Murkowski(D) wants all of Trump's picks vetted by the corrupt FBI.
Shame on you - Alaska.
Another worthless column from Ross Donut. A complete lack of insight and "conservativism" as usual. Lets speculate how trump's cabinet wont get along when we don't know yet who will actually get confirmed and be IN the cabinet.
And of course, who cares if the cabinet members disagree? Trump will get a variety of opinions and choose. The oddest so-called "Conflict" is RFK being Pro-abortion and everyone else being pro-life. Is RFK going to reinstate Roe v. Wade? He obviously doesn't care that much about abortion or RFK wouldn't have endorsed Trump in the first place. Maybe Ross Donut is engaging in wishful thinking.
There will be conflict between the old Deep State establishment types like Rubio and those who want to release information and weed out leftists in the intelligence community. But then, that conflict was there in the 1st term. And Trump will be the "decider".
It is interesting how Democrat Adminstrations always seem to speak with one voice, while the R's are always in conflict. Blame GOPe and the "moderates" who always want their way or they throw a temper tantrum.
Trump tried to get illegals segregated from the electoral count last term, maybe he'll be successful this one?
Why would anyone trust the premises of any NYT article when it come to Trump, much less the GOP?
You expect truth, from the people that gave fidel his job, that covered up the Holomodor, good luck to you
I knew it was the NYT before I had finished the first few lines of the quote. The Resistance ! Pay no attention to the voters, we know our market.
I have no idea why the pro-choice pussy-hat wearing women are so Goddamn nuts. It seems they wont be happy until the Government guarantees a free abortion up to 9 months to every women everywhere in the USA.
Of course, if they got that, who knows what stupid crap they'd support next. Invading every country that bans abortion? Imprisoning Pro-life advocates? $10,000 rewards for every abortion? God how they love to kill the fetus.
It's not an "or", it's an "and". Cabinet picks are disruptors, rewarded loyal supporters, and telegenic communicators. Douthat likes to play the coy wizard, so he can't say anything declarative, such as asserting that this is a good way to pick a Cabinet.
Trump’s Treasury nominee is openly gay, married and has two kids.
The campaign against Russia only really got started when Putin stopped pimping- sorry, "adopting out"- Russian children to Western homosexuals. It's not really that simple, of course, the fall of Russian oligarchs like Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, and Chubais had a lot to do with it. You can bet VVP is "noticing" that most of them just happened to be Jewish, but that's purely a coincidence.
Well, we all know what happened to Abe, don't we...?
Personally, I am excited to see how this experiment turns out. It can't be any worst than the Kamala Walz front for the DNC Davos MSM complex
The fact that Trump has named his Education Secretary is very indicative that he intends to continue operating an Education department.
This will come as a surprise to those Trump hoodwinked. The next shot might come from an actual Trump voter.
So far, Trump has chosen:
* A lobbyist for Qatar and business partner of CNN's Christiane Amanpour's husband.
* George Soros' point man for Treasury.
* Gaetz (do the math)
Meanwhile the mayor of Denver has said at a news conference he will used armed soldiers in a resistance against the Federal government and he hasn't even been arrested.
Trump's second term isn't going to be what his voters voted for.
What it isn't is rewarding the party's bigwigs and rising powers or trying to pick someone from every possible demographic. It shouldn't be assumed that someone like Pete Buttigieg has great administrative abilities and was chosen for that reason. Do we really even know to what extent cabinet secretaries actually administer their departments and to what extent they have just been politically connected figureheads for what the bureaucracy decides?
Do most newly elected presidents announce their picks this early? It's striking that Trump, who didn't have the most organized and disciplined presidency the first time is doing this so soon out of the gate. Looking over the full list so far, I see that it's not full of telegenic celebrities. Douthat focuses on the visible tip of the iceberg, not on the rest of it. There are plenty of ex-representatives and others who haven't been on television much.
Looking at the list it also occurs to me that Trump needs another black face. It's good that he's not trying to fill up his cabinet with people chosen because of skin color, gender and sexual preference, but if he wants to keep the transracial coalition that he's started going that's something to bear in mind.
“those who want to release information and weed out leftists in the intelligence community.” — It’s the leftists who want to release national secrets.
The Treasury Secretary nominee worked for Soros decades ago. He’s not a Leftist.
Great pick for Treasury. Scott Bessent understands markets extremely well, recognizes the debt situation, he’s an international banker with a global perspective. Eminently qualified to run the Treasury.
The bio included in the release does not mention Bessent was a protege of George Soros and was the CIO of Soros’ fund.
It does mention at the end some of the things that Bessent was a part of at Soros’ fund, however.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113529294640959784
Hopefully the confirmation hearings will mention Soros, a hundred times 😂
Pete was objectively terrible as mayor of tiny South Bend. Name one good thing he did at Transportation.
This Douthat has no insight to share.
In 2016 Trump surrounded himself with serious people, it took a while to get to the complete chaos of his later years. This time he has dived straight in, further even than last time. Some are serious — Rubio, Wiles, Bessent and Vivek are smart regardless of what you think of them. But others are at best inexperience then range from incompetent to a vindictive middle finger at the system — playing up to a core element of Trump’s base.
Take Huckabee, he is a Christian Zionist. They believe that there will be a religious war in Israel where America will vanquish its enemies (you know Russia, Iran etc), which will result in the 2nd coming. Or Kennedy — believes in a 1960s communist conspiracy theory about fluoride. Or Gabbard, maybe the maddest of all — is being celebrated in Russia as a Russian agent, now as the head of intelligence.
Perhaps Trump knows it will be a push to get them all confirmed, but it will be hard for the Senate to refuse them all. It will be something of a purity test on day one. But then I doubt many will last the course — Trump loves firing people above all else.
Avoid cabinet arguments by not holding cabinet meetings. Biden only had one during the last year and his wife ended up running it.
Avoid cabinet arguments by not holding cabinet meetings. Biden only had one during the last year and his wife ended up running it.
Ross is full of shit as usual.
Bessent is a fantastic selection. He's certainly effective as an advocate for the use of tariff's in negotiations.
He is also fantastic in other dimensions, such as this:
"Scott Bessent, Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary, offers one of the best explanations for the war on crypto: the Democratic Party tried to destroy crypto to distract from taking $100 million+ in illegal donations of stolen FTX customer funds from SBF."
https://x.com/cameron/status/1860324690171937256?t=c-1IEF980VV_cv9vIZqB4A&s=19
Time for Abacus Boy LLR-democratical Rich to go cry some more in a corner.
BTW, did you happen to see xAI has hit a valuation greater than the price of the Twitter purchase? Elon owns 60% of xAI and he is now at around $335B in net worth...and X is launching its payments platform in the US in 2025...which will change everything at X.
Poor, poor, little Rich. Are there enough tissues in the world?
LOL
The self-gaslighting copium and historical rewrite here is off the charts funny.
Friends don't let friends take political advice from Ross Douthat.
I'm not your friend, annie, but... you've been out of the tower for long enougn now. It's time we started thinking for ourselves, even on non-girlie issues like politics, ok, prof? Your friends would tell you this. THink for yourself... read more sources. Yes you can! Douthat thinkng is not going to take you far in life...
"Gabbard against the rest of the foreign policy team on whether to expose more national security secrets,"
What does this mean?
Just listened to an interview of Javie Miliei of Argentina. He was relating how much he respects Musk and Trump ( also mentioned Vivek ) for having the courage to take a chainsaw to the american government. It takes a LOT OF GUTS and courage. Trump needs some serious, seriously courageour people to do what they want to do. As Miliei said, all of the people complaining of what they do will be people who's priviledge is being taken away. Godspeed soldiers. New founding fathers.
Sell that somewhere else, Dave. It's like saying that someone worked with Satan ... but that was before he was bad.
The swamp and the scum who love them continue to point claim without evidence that anyone not of the swamp is incapable of decision making due to ‘inexperience’. These people if not of the swamp are in unproductive professions like leftie propaganda…
A lot of us changed our minds about “secrets” after the details of what Snowden revealed. We are better off knowing that the government lied about the Patriot Act and then the FBI showed us how easily they lie over and over during the Russian Hoax in Trump 45 term.
"The Treasury Secretary nominee worked for Soros decades ago. He’s not a Leftist."
Thank you for your comment. I was concerned. I should have known better.
Utah? North Dakota?
Dixcus that’s just a lame take. Someone trusted has to be running it while it is wound down. Did you think it would be demolished day one? You might want to check your assumptions of what is “obvious” at this point.
Trump has not announced that the Education Department will be "wound down."
Lincoln got shot in his head. It did not "work" for Lincoln.
Bessett held a fundraiser at his home for Al Gore. He was also a major donor to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He is not a Republican. He is a died in the wool New World Order bro.
How can Trump be so naive?
Roos Douthat is rarely worth reading.
Eh, she is needed to make decisions such as parcelling out federal education dollars to HHS to return them to the states while separating them from ideological litmus testing, decide what to do about universities with massive endowments, tax-wise, and a million other financial tasks. Someone has to return ideological control to the states. I bet of just the three above tasks, a lot of blue state Ivies are shaking in their shoes about being made to answer to their own state legislatures about their massive pots of gold.
In an era of groupthink on both sides it is perhaps difficult to appreciate the positive side of diversity of thought. With Trump as the final arbiter it is unlikely that disagreements among his cabinet are a bad thing.
This is an important issue.
August 2024 client talk and 2025 chaos creation?
Financial vola … mental vola, feeding each other?
Bessent in Seeking Alpha, 20.8.2024:
“Scott Bessent, founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, said he expects volatility to rise and the U.S. markets to decline due to being in a “precarious economy.”
In a letter to clients, the Donald Trump fundraiser and supporter said the U.S. economy is in a “precarious, emerging market-style equilibrium” and is more fragile than investors realize.
He said the government’s deficit and debt issuance, which have fueled asset bubbles in stocks and real estate, is to blame.”
Chaos creation: Trump will raise volatility with outdated tariffs, foreign allies will be made enemies and Trump is good at making debt and bankrupting others.
How is Mr Bessent invested himself and how does he bet how he and his money will be affected by quite volatile Trump?
I've completely changed my default position on "secrets". I used to assume they protect the country. I now assume they protect the people in government.
Is that the Lex Fridman interview? I have that queued up.
I am pessimistic that Trump et al. will succeed at tackling the Leviathan, but I sure am rooting for them.
LLR-democratical Rich, exposing his astonishing ignorance...again.
There aren't enough hours in the day or days in a year to correct his shallow, politically driven Harry-Sisson-like stupidity...exceeded only by his insistence to consistently offer it up on display.
Yet Rich has marketed himself as a analytical savant...but has gotten every single prediction in every single discussion area wrong for years.
I cant wait to see what comes next. Its sure to be a laugher even as I struggle to try to keep from laughing over Rich's previous tales of the kamala campaign JUGGERNAUT!
I wonder if Dixcus' maiden name is "Epps"?
Always a solid opening assessment of any Douthat column.
So bus them to red states, count them, then send them on to New York or deport them.
Hyuk, hyuk.
"Harris did not win a single state that had any kind of ID requirement".
I have seen that claim elsewhere, but I am wondering which is cause and which is effect. I have believed since November of 2020 that the election was stolen, in GA, PA, MI, and maybe AZ and NV. But if so, why didn't they steal this one? It's hard to believe that they tried but failed.
The NYT needs new columnists across the board.
Its fun to remember that Abacus Boy Rich marketed himself as a "lifelong republican" and business whiz kid who had been "in the room when big business decisions" were being made!
It didn't take long for that schtick to be exposed for what it really was.
Dixcus has been a bit of a mystery since he showed up here. I think we are beginning to see his purpose.
Do you remember, when you took that Shakespeare class in your senior year because you needed the Liberal Arts credit to graduate, and the term paper, on Taming of the Shrew, was due in three days, and you had a tough math final tomorrow to study for? So, maybe you aren't all that proud of the gibberish you handed in (Grok could certainly do better), but hey. The Shrew got Tamed, you passed the course, and you graduated, right? That's pretty much where Ross Douthat is at this point. He's as sick of writing this crap as we are of reading it, but for people like Ross, and Maureen, and Gail, and Charles, there is nowhere else to go. They are perched on the pointy pinnacle of the tallest mountain in their cramped little Universe. With a keyboard, an internet connection, and a deadline. Think. Think. Think!
Bill Bennett was supposed to pull the plug on the DoE for Reagan. Didn't work out that way.
""in the room when big business decisions" were being made!"
Serving coffee, maybe.
After trialing Bluesky it has major advantages over X which aren't related to blowback from the political machinations of Musk or the network's user base.
Because Bluesky lacks an algorithm which pushes content you have complete control over who and what you see. This isn't filtering so much as active seeking. On X if you scroll and dwell on anything, or read someone's account (because for example, you're interested in what someone a bit mad is saying) you'll be fed more and more of that kind of content which floods out the kind of content you're there to engage with. Academics, politicians, tech commentators, high quality journalists. On X false rumors spread like wildfire because the algorithm pushes them on you. On Bluesky if you follow high quality accounts you only see high quality content.
The issue with only seeing content you actively follow is that discovery is difficult — the algorithm on X helped with this, but the way the algorithm pushed engagement bait which were manipulated by bots to push them up the algorithm has made it harder and harder to find quality accounts to follow over the years. Bluesky's starter packs are an elegant solution. I now follow hundreds of very high quality accounts posting fascinating content and quality commentary as a result. This includes right wing journalists, and right wing conservatives.
The other enormous benefit (currently) is the lack of bots and troll farms. They've seriously degraded the effectiveness of X over the last few years. If Bluesky will remain largely bot free is an open question, but currently it is.
Another elegant improvement is verification. The old X blue tick verification largely worked but was cumbersome. The monetized tick system has now made it pay for engagement. Bluesky's verification is based on DNS verification. A WSJ journalist can be verified by wsj.com etc… As users and IT staff learn to use it effectively it should be an ideal scalable solution to the problem.
Is Douthat envisioning cabinet meetings are free-for-alls where Trump sits silently then when disagreements occur, Trump calls for a vote? One suspects that for most interactions:
Trump leads, and the pertinent cabinet member (e.g. rail safety = DoTransportation) is the focus.
Was it Department of Trans under Mayor Pete? Justn askin'.
Trust me, even doesn't know
could they even recognize them, see david french
at least 3
Thank you for that caveat, Althouse. I doubt whether Douthat has the slightest clue how Trump plans to run his cabinet.
The difference was X. Nobody thinks Biden got 81 million votes and nobody was going to accept Harris.
There were millions of people with cameras. They couldn't remove the observers this time. They couldn't censor them either.
They still got their 130% turnout in inner cities. But that wasn't enough and the urban core of their voters started to abandon them. This pattern will only accelerate. Substance will finally win over form.
political anthropology, don't try this at home
"why didn't they steal this one? It's hard to believe that they tried but failed."
Wisconsin Senate Race>Wisconsin Senate Race questions
{sigh} Could google write a clumsier comment interface?
I, for one, welcome "entertaining" to the several other, often quite pejorative, adjectives used to describe so many prior administrations' running of the federal government. One question worth asking in any Cabinet meeting: Has this idea been parodied on South Park or the Simpsons? Could save a lot of time in this already lame duck presidency.
One of my purposes would be preventing CNN's Christiane Amanpour's grubby hands of my fucking tax dollars.
Big Tax cuts would lead to much higher issuance of US Treasuries.
The resultant huge fiscal stimulus boost and tariff war would likely boost inflation.
With the annual interest cost already approaching $ 1 Trillion the government would be keen to cap this cost — in an environment of much higher UST issuance and higher inflationary pressures and likely higher bond interest rates.
The UST yield curve would be at risk of significant steepening in such an environment, leading to a higher interest cost on new UST issuance.
The Treasury could counter this for a while by concentrating the new issuance at the very front end of the yield curve — lower interest cost but steadily increasing rollover risk and a developing liquidity trap as average tenor of debt keeps reducing.
The "ideal" Fed policy from the government's perspective would be lower policy rates through multiple Fed rate cuts — but what about inflation?
As long term yields continue to rise in the face of huge new issuance and rising inflationary expectations, at some point the Fed might be "advised" to step-in with a new and massive QE to try and push down bond yields — deficit financing.
Trump wants a weaker USD as he wants to boost US exports but any risk of a significant USD weakening can adversely affect foreign investor flows into US capital markets including into USTs.
Ok, so the above spaghetti of objectives and inbuilt contradictions needs someone clear-headed and strong at the Treasury.
Expected career lifespan in the position could however be just one or two years if not shorter, due to having to deal with a mercurial boss with a short temper and umm......non-traditional ideas.
Very brave of Bessent to accept the role, but he probably sees this as just a stepping stone to even bigger rewards and riches on his return to the private sector, like his predecessor during Trump 1.0, so nothing to worry -- for him.
"One of my purposes would be preventing CNN's Christiane Amanpour's grubby hands of my fucking tax dollars."
What if she moisturizes sufficiently?
She has NO POWER to make that happen. OTOH it's standard practice for the new POTUS to formally allow the Senate to vet his picks as part of their "Advise and consent" duties.. The Senate has used the FBI for that purpose. But perhaps they will go around the Bureau, given its hostiliy and criminal behavior toward Trump. But there's no legal requirement that they use them.
It worked for the preservation of the Union, something of supreme importance. All men die.
I don't get the take on Tulsi. There is zero chance that anything her critics are saying is close to accurate. If anything, the worst that can be side is that as a politician, she has molded herself to serve those who elected her. How else does one get elected in Hawaii?
She has her head wired on straight. I think she'll be great.
- Krumhorn
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