Sunday Issues-November 24, 2024
Things not to talk about over Thanksgiving dinner.
Thanksgiving is four days away, and families that want to stay together will avoid political discussions on Thursday. This includes MAGA families, including members who might wish to raise a glass to salute Trump’s victory.
The problem is that it is becoming clearer that the administration won’t just be about border security, inflation, and taxes but will also include mass deportations, the end of popular federal programs, and the weaponization of the Department of Justice. That means there will be plenty of things to argue about in the coming months, even among Republicans. But the new administration doesn’t take office for over seven weeks. And that’s why many of us will avoid political discussions this Thanksgiving.
Trump’s cabinet nominations are now complete.
Last night, Trump announced the final member of his cabinet: Brooke Rollins. The leader of an America First think tank, she will head the Department of Agriculture. I wasn’t surprised when she promised to Make Agriculture Great Again.
The complete list of Trump’s nominations compiled by The Hill can be found here. There is no need to discuss them in detail. The selections have one thing in common—they are all loyal to Trump. (It will be interesting to see if that loyalty lasts as some of the nominees, after confirmation, are asked to execute orders with which they disagree).
Trump remains doggedly distrustful of the government. He has declined to have nominees vetted by the FBI, has not required them to sign ethics commitments (other than one put together by his non-government transition team), and has not accepted or used any of the traditional procedures of a presidential transition. Trump’s team is not using office space from the General Services Administration, instead choosing to run the transition out of Mar-a-Lago. Although Trump has met with Joe Biden to discuss the transition, transition team members have not met with federal agency staff. That is highly unusual.
Does Trump and his transition assume meeting with federal agencies is unnecessary in light of the detailed blueprint of Project 2025 having already “figured out the answers?”
Only two cabinet picks may face confirmation challenges.
You know who they are if you follow politics. Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. To my surprise, some GOP Senators are rallying around Hegseth, even as details of his alleged sexual assault on a Republican woman continue to be discussed. Gabbard may face challenges as Republican Senators learn more about her troubling relationship with Putin.
Pam Bondi.
Pam Bondi will be confirmed as Attorney General, but not without some controversy. Although Bondi was cleared of ethics charges associated with her receipt of a $25,000 donation from Trump shortly before her office decided not to investigate Trump University, Democrats and others still smell a rat. Will new information come out?
Joe and Mika’s mistake.
When Morning Joe’s dynamic duo made what they thought was a bold decision to meet with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, they made a mistake. Some in the media, including Steve Schmidt of The Warning, are outraged. Here is one comment from Schmidt:
There is something that must be said about Zbigniew Brzezinski and his daughter Mika’s invocation of him to justify her and Joe Scarborough’s decision to sit with “Hitler,” er, Trump at the Berghof Mar-a-Lago. Mika said, “My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That is a task shared by reporters and commentators alike.”
Bullshit.
Zbigniew Brzezinski would never have recognized what his daughter did through a diplomatic lens. He would have recognized it as a capitulant act. He would have recognized it as an appeasement to strength and power at the cost of what’s right and decent. He would have recognized the fecklessness, weakness, arrogance, entitlement, and suffocating determination to hang onto a privileged perch that so easily bends the knee and bows the head to a man like “Hitler,” er, Trump. He would have recognized perfectly that democracy collapses when public character fades to nothingness, and journalism becomes an amplifier of power as opposed to its skeptic.
He would have recognized the “Morning Joe” summit for exactly what it was: a kowtow to Donald Trump and an act of self-debasement, humiliation, and epic groveling that he would have rightly and mightily disdained.
Enough about Morning Joe.
Project 2025.
Remember when Donald Trump disavowed any connection between Project 2025 and his administration? He was lying. He has picked Russell T. Vought as OMB Director. The New York Times had this to say about Mr. Vought in this morning’s paper:
Mr. Vought’s role in Project 2025 was to oversee executive orders and other unilateral actions that Mr. Trump could take in his first six months in office, with the goal of tearing down and rebuilding executive branch institutions in a way that would enhance presidential power.
Enough said.
People are taking a break from the news.
As I was reading the Times this morning, I found a story on page 37 titled, “Some New Yorkers Wonder If It’s Time to Tune Out the News.” I am not ready to do that, but I find a lot of the rest of us are. Viewership of news programming on networks, cable and streaming is down, podcasts and blogs on politics are struggling to maintain readership. The Times should have titled the article, “New Yorkers are Tuning Out the News.”
Since election day, political news, apart from a couple of unhinged nominations, has become boring. That is why people are tuning out. We’ll see how long that will last, but remember, Trump doesn’t take office for another seven weeks or so.
Thanksgiving.
As Thanksgiving Day approaches, I plan to take longer walks and bicycle rides, reading about nature, and catching up with friends.
If anyone starts talking politics over dinner, I will do my best to say nothing, hoping that everyone else will join me in ignoring the speaker. I will be prepared to discuss the NFL, the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce relationship, and the weather. I will brush up on what a “bomb cyclone” is and marvel that it snowed in Washington, D.C., a week after early-fall-like temperatures.
Happy Thanksgiving.
"Since election day, political news, apart from a couple of unhinged nominations, has become boring. That is why people are tuning out. "
Well, I hope that if people are tuning out, it's because they have to cook and clean for Thanksgiving, and that they plan to reengage next week. We cannot allow the political news to be seen as "boring" and therefore not worth our time and attention. That normalizes what is happening or about to happen, and we cannot allow that to take place. It's already clear that those of us who oppose Trump will have a much greater challenge than we did in 2016. This time, there are no adults in the room, only people who are unqualified, malevolent or both. We all have to make sure we are paying attention, fully informed and ready to do whatever we can to stop the worst abuses.
"I wasn’t surprised when she promised to Make Agriculture Great Again."
Like most of Trump's acolytes, she's incapable of original thinking. Why not riff off the Orange Menace?
Excellent commentary, as usual.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, John.