With his cabinet of jokers and losers, Trump is doing what has often worked for him: establishing dominance early.
This story originally appeared on Jill.substack.com, a newsletter from journalist, lawyer and author Jill Filipovic.
Matt Gaetz for attorney general. RFK Jr. for head of Health and Human Services. Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.
These choices aren’t just shocking. They’re sending the message that Donald Trump cares about loyalty over basic competence. And perhaps more importantly, they’re setting a norm from the beginning: No matter what Trump does, he expects Republicans to comply.
Trump is coming into his second term as an angry and vindictive authoritarian. But the U.S. does still ostensibly have a separation of powers; the executive can’t do everything on his own, despite right-wing efforts to vest the president with ever-more power. Trump may not be the most sophisticated president of all time, and he may lack even a recent viewer of Schoolhouse Rock’s understanding of government function, but he knows he sometimes needs the advice and consent of the Senate (or the consent of other branches of government) to get stuff done. And so he’s doing what has often worked for him: He’s establishing dominance early. He’s choosing objectively insane cabinet members to show Republican senators, and the country, that he is the boss—and that he can get others in Washington to comply with his demands, no matter how absurd.
Tyrants are never one-man machines. They are made and enabled by many others.
It’s an act of dominance, and of humiliation. It is humiliating to be a competent member of the U.S. Senate and consent to the appointment of a vaccine skeptic to lead HHS, or a right-wing news personality to be defense secretary, or a woman who parrots Kremlin talking points and is suspected to be compromised by a foreign government to be director of national intelligence, or a man recently under investigation by DOJ for sex trafficking to lead DOJ.
The whole thing is a big public farce, and Trump is demanding that Republicans publicly play along—that they attach their names to this. It’s a signal that he expects to be treated as powerful beyond measure; that he is not to be questioned, no matter how dangerous or ridiculous his decisions. That he owns the government and everyone in it.
A whole lot of Republicans are about to go along.
Tyrants are never one-man machines. They are made and enabled by many others. And when tyrants emerge in democratic systems, they are made by people who consent to their abuse and misuse of that system.
Trump has already said he expects Republican senators to step out of the confirmation process all together—that the senate should call a recess and simply allow him to appoint who he wants, without the standard approval process. This, too, is a sign that he expects this group of duly elected politicians to simply abdicate their responsibilities to do as he pleases. And it would all be perfectly legal—just entirely out of step with historical precedent and constitutional norms.
It’s hard to overstate how dangerous this is. These are not the actions of a man who wants to be president. These are the actions of a man who has no use for the constitution, or separation of powers, or even competency; there are the actions of a man who wants to be king (or dictator).
This is a test. Republicans are set to fail it—and all of us.
