Trump's cabinet so far is a big middle finger to his voters

If anyone was expecting anti-establishment picks to "drain the swamp" and "shake up Washington," they got exactly the opposite. Trump's choices only benefit Israel, himself, and beltway Republicans.

Hi Cappers. I am just returning from a much-needed weekend in the woods, and I must say, I would not recommend choosing rural Pennsylvania as your “election escape” destination ahead of time. In trying to find a cabin reasonably drivable from both D.C. and Brooklyn, we found ourselves vacationing amid a sea of Donald Trump signs, in a cabin filled with cheugy phrases on the wall like “Blessed” and “When Life gets too hard to stand, Kneel.”

This is—now bear with me on this rough transition, please—a metaphor for what many Trump voters are experiencing right now, after they thought they elected a candidate that would free them from the oppressive monotony of politics-as-usual in Washington. They sought an easy escape from the Beltway Establishment, but what they got was four more years of the Beltway Establishment on steroids, plus a healthy dose of fascism that seeks to make this period of American history permanent for all of us.

Let’s talk about Trump’s reported cabinet picks so far. The main thing they all have in common is that they’re Trump loyalists; they’ve kissed the ring. Trump can’t afford to have an another entire administration, including his own Vice President, that turns against him once they see up close what a chaotic dictator-loving clown he is. The second thing they have in common is that they’re all rabidly pro-Israel, neocon hawks who never saw a war they didn’t like. And the third thing is that they’re all incredibly boring pro-establishment choices—especially for a man who ran on lobbing a grenade into the existing federal government. Let’s take a look at who Trump is surrounding himself with:

Marco Rubio for Secretary of State

Hahahahahahaha.

First of all,

Secondly, the Florida senator is known for being an establishment try-hard. He’s most famous for having a horrible case of dry-mouth during the 2013 State of the Union rebuttal, wherein he bombed his speech because he kept having to take emergency sips of his tiny water bottle, and posting a photo of himself pretending to phone bank for a fellow Republican candidate with his headphones visibly unplugged from the wall. He lost his own state to Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary, which was absolutely humiliating for him, and once said of Trump, “If he hadn't inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan.”

Trump, meanwhile, has mocked Rubio for being a part of the D.C. “swamp,” calling him a “puppet” and a “nervous basket case.” But Rubio has since bent the knee to Trump, which is all our new president apparently requires in a cabinet member.

As Secretary of State, we know what we’re getting in “Little Marco”: a man who supports Russia over Ukraine and wants Israel to complete its genocide of Gaza. He was one of 15 Republicans to vote against a $61 billion supplemental aid bill earlier this year that would have supported the Ukrainian military. He’s called Palestine “a joke” and “a state that’s never existed,” and as to whether he’ll call for a ceasefire in Gaza, he said, “No, I will not. On the contrary … I want [Israel] to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes.”

This is bad news for anyone who voted for Trump out of frustration with Harris’ position on Israel, which apparently some did.

Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security

Trump plans to nominate the governor of South Dakota, a loyal Trump surrogate who infamously shot her own puppy for being “untrainable,” to head the third largest department in the U.S. government, behind the DoD.

Noem is currently banned from all nine Native American reservations in the state she governs because she falsely linked Mexican drug cartels to tribal leadership there. And unfortunately for the Trump/Elon voters who thought they were casting a vote for “free speech,” Noem recently signed hate speech legislation into law that counts criticism of the state of Israel as antisemitism. (It’s not, as most of us already understand and as Rabbi Andy Kahn smartly explained on this newsletter.)

Tom Homan as “border czar”

The former acting head of ICE from Trump’s first administration will serve as his new "border czar," seeing out the “Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” per Trump’s deeply racist and xenophobic announcement. If “border czar” doesn’t sound like a real cabinet position, that’s because it’s not—Trump is making up the job title to circumvent the Senate confirmation process.

Tom Homan was the architect of the horrific family separation policy during Trump’s first term. This time around, he told 60 Minutes that he wants to take his mass deportation scheme a step further by deporting entire families together—including those who are U.S. citizens. '

“Homan” is a perfect name for this man, in my opinion, because it falls just short of human.

Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador

The Republican congresswoman from New York—who made a name for herself by being incredibly dramatic about anti-Israel college campus protests, has parroted unhinged conspiracy theories about Palestinians, supported the Jan. 6 insurrection, and echoed the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory”—will be our representative at the United Nations. Stefanik, the highest ranking Republican woman in House leadership, is yet another win for the neocon establishment.

Susie Wiles for Chief of Staff

Don’t ever let them tell you Donald Trump hates women! Trump has selected Wiles for White House chief of staff, making her the first woman to ever hold the role. And Wiles will be the first to tell you that she is the most “establishment” member of them all.

Wiles started her career as a scheduler for Ronald Reagan. She later worked on the VP campaign for the Bush-Quayle ticket in 1988 and co-chaired Romney’s Florida advisory council during his 2012 presidential run. She is a corporate lobbyist for the pharmaceutical, tobacco, junk food, insurance, and coal industries, and she co-chairs a firm that has lobbied for tobacco giant Swisher International, Tesla, Uber, and AT&T. She’s so deeply ingrained in big-money Republican politics and lobbying that Jeb (!) Bush—the most embarrassing, milquetoast Republican of them all—called Wiles a “great choice” for chief of staff last week. But Wiles is “unassuming,” a good secret-keeper, and has covered up Trump’s crimes, which makes her a perfect choice for this nation’s first woman White House chief of staff. **pops champagne**

So there you have it, Trump voters who thought you were throwing up a big middle finger at elitists in Washington and making way for a government that actually serves the people. Trump’s regime is as corrupt and bogged down by corporate party interests as any other that’s come before it—in addition to being exponentially more horrible for reproductive rights, the health of the planet, democracy writ large, and Palestinian civilians.

And for those who are still reading…

I will be serving up unfiltered coverage of the Trump administration’s movements—and whatever counter-movements rise up on the left— on this newsletter. This writing takes a lot of time, is quite labor-intensive, and does not yield a lot of financial support. And so I ask, if you enjoy my voice and are learning something here and can afford it, to support me by upgrading to a paid subscription.

As always, I welcome all readers. Until next time!