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Notes -
Political Quick Hits
A few scattered thoughts that don't merit separate posts:
The Nancy Mace Capitol Hill bathroom saga has come to an unceremonious close. Sarah McBride issued a public statement that she came to Washington to legislate, not to wage personal battles, and that she'd abide by whatever the House wanted. Trans activists were predictably disappointed, not only wanting a more forceful response from McBride but a unified response from House Democrats, but they weren't going to get it. The only notable public statement came from AOC, who pointed out that neither Mace nor Mike Johnson could tell you how they planned on enforcing such a rule, unless they planned on posting a guard who would check the genitals of anyone who looked suspicious. She also cynically accused Mace of trying to exploit the issue to get her name in the papers. Mace responded by calling AOC dumb and her suggestion disgusting, but she didn't offer any alternative enforcement mechanism. Johnson himself sided with Mace, but only to the extent that he believed existing rules favored her interpretation, and he never said that he'd be bringing Mace's resolution to a vote.
This whole tack seems like it's part of a new strategy for the Democratic Party. Five years ago an incident like this would have resulted in mass condemnation from the entire party, including those in leadership positions. The sum total of opposition in this case came from three people, and all three seem like they were hand-selected. Two were LGBT themselves, and the only one with any national profile was AOC, easily the most liberal member with any credibility. And even then, the comments were unusually focused. All three reps managed to hit just two themes: That the suggested rules were unenforceable, and that Mace is doing this as a publicity stunt. No long jeremiads about trans rights or anything. It's almost as if they've finally become aware that the issue is a loser, and rather than engage they'd rather let the issue quietly die while letting the least vulnerable members of the party get a few potshots in.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the Gaetz withdrawal, the center of attention among Trump's controversial cabinet picks has shifted to Pete Hesgeth. In addition to falling woefully short of the traditional qualifications for Defense Secretary, Hesgeth is taking heat for sexual misconduct allegations in his past and for comments suggesting that women shouldn't serve in combat. Once again, Democrats have been unusually silent, with the exception of Senator Tammy Duckworth, whose legs were blown off in Iraq. I suspect this whole thing is part of an exercise in time biding. There is serious doubt as to whether Hesgeth will survive the confirmation process. But a sex scandal and some controversial comments won't be enough to sink his nomination on their own. The biggest knock against Hesgeth is that he's written books where he essentially says that conservatives should aim for complete victory over liberals, whom he describes as enemies of America, and suggests that it may ultimately be appropriate to use the US military in pursuit of that goal.
If Democrats bring this up now then he gets to respond on his own terms, and by the time confirmation hearings roll around the results become predictable. On the other hand, if they start hammering him about predictably dumb shit now then he spends his energy responding to predictably dumb shit that he gets predictably hammered about during confirmation hearings, only for Democrats to change tack in the middle and start asking him about all the controversial opinions in his book. I wouldn't expect him to be caught totally off guard, but he won't have had weeks to rehearse his responses. How he responds to this kind of grilling could be the difference between whether the requisite number of Republican senators vote against him or not.
One other notable figure Democrats have been eerily silent about is RFK, Jr. I suspect this is because while rank and file Democrats hate him for his dumb woo woo opinions on vaccines and other things, actual politicians realize that he's the most liberal cabinet member they're likely to get. Hell, he's probably more liberal than anyone Kamala Harris would have appointed to the post. So Democrats won't challenge him, just lob softball questions at him asking him to expound on his opinions of abortion, single payer healthcare, dangerous chemicals, and big bad pharmaceutical companies. If the guy is going to be confirmed anyway, and is likely the best you're going to get, then why not throw your support behind him in a way that makes Republican senators squirm? Worst case scenario his nomination fails due solely to opposition from the party that nominated him.
After Hesgeth, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the nominee that the smart people seem to think has the least likelihood of being confirmed. I don't think it behooves Democrats to back her in the way it behooves them to back RFK, but her nomination presents an interesting conundrum. A large part of Trump voters supported him, at least in part, because he was perceived as an America First isolationist who wouldn't get us into any new wars and try to get us out of existing ones. Yet Tulsi is the only cabinet nominee who seems to embody that vision. Everyone else—Rubio, Walz, Hesgeth, Ratcliffe—are all traditional conservative hawks. Her presence in the cabinet would only serve to foment the same kind of dysfunction that riddled Trump's first cabinet. As a former Democrat and tepid member of the GOP, Republicans might prefer a more united front when it comes to foreign policy and sweep her aside as the Democrats did, and for the same reasons. That being said, I've always been skeptical of Trump's supposed dovishness, as I've never met a Republican who didn't want to bomb Iran at the first opportunity. But I still think it's odd that he hasn't just gone full neocon.
On cabinet picks. I have a conception of what a cabinet should be for Trump, and his picks don't surprise me because they line up with that conception, even if I don't have the specifics and the details down. I keep seeing news stories or people posting here that think he has cabinet picks that don't make sense, but some of those specific cabinet picks make the most sense to me.
My conception of Trump is that he picks opinionated and individually competent people to head up things. He wants them to have opinions that may not be the same as his. If they work for him and with him he will support them in their goals at a higher level. If they work against him or his directives he will fire them. How the people under him get along with each other is largely inconsequential to Trump.
Trump does not have strong ideological beliefs, but he does have strong social beliefs. By social beliefs I mean he finds friends, allies, employees, bosses, enemies, etc to be very important distinctions. He plays Tit For Tat strategy almost religiously. He would never put a political/social non-ally in his cabinet. But he doesn't care too much if you conform on some ideological spectrum. Trump is after all a bog-standard democrat from the 90's, and he just won as a republican presidential candidate.
Contrast this with Obama who was willing to make ideological or party based cabinet nominations like Hillary Clinton, even though she was absolutely not an ally of his. Or Joe Biden who picked Kamala as his VP even though I don't think anyone has ever claimed they are allies or friends.
I think you can see Trump's cabinet picks best by looking at his history with John Bolton, who was his National Security Advisor, and was ultimately fired by Trump. Bolton has been on a tour lately saying that Trump's cabinet picks can be summed up as requiring "fealty" to Trump. I think Bolton is a dirtbag, but he is correct here. But it shows a reason to like Trump, not dislike him. The president is the elected position. He is temporary King. Cabinet people are meant to serve the King and enact his will. If they don't they can be fired and replaced. No one ever elected John Bolton to National Security Adviser. Its a little crazy that Bolton thinks its ok to be picked for a specific cabinet position to advise the president, and then the correct course of action is to betray that person and work against them.
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It will be nice to finally have one party which isn’t all woke all the time.
The Republican Party will be the endless anti-wokeness party and maybe the Democrats can just grow up and stop talking about all of it like our entire culture should have a decade ago.
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I don’t think democrats are playing 5d chess, I think they’re shell shocked. Most of them probably recognize that trans is a loser of an issue but AOC isn’t exactly being strategic, and I think the sex scandals are legit juicier than spicy opinions. Democrats are responding to media stories right now, not crafting a master strategy.
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