We on the Left have underestimated Donald Trump on many counts. But there’s a bright side to this: I definitely underestimated just how stupid Trump is.
This is from a woman who once wrote a ForwardKY article entitled “He’s Called ‘President Dunce’ for a Reason.” In fairness, I knew Trump was quite stupid, but I never counted on him being this stupid.
An evil genius would not be stocking his Cabinet with some of the most unintelligent people on the planet. Sure, Trump values abject loyalty over competence, but he could find some slavishly devout politicians to staff his Cabinet who aren’t simultaneous utter morons.
For example, if your goal is to remake the U.S. military, would you nominate Pete Hedgepeth, a guy whose highest qualification is that he and his good hair appear on Fox News, a guy no one in the military is going to respect? He could have gone with either Mike Flynn or his brother, who had at least been generals. But no! Trump decided to make one of the lousiest choices possible.
Let’s take Lauren Boebert as the nominee of the Department of Education, a vastly stupider gaffe machine than even her predecessor, Betsy Vos. Which is saying something. Why not just go back to Betsy? Not only is she wrong about everything to do with education (a definite plus in MAGA world), but she’s got ties to the Amway fortune, a brother who runs a mercenary shop, and an actual college degree, even if it is from a mediocre college. What MAGA minion could ask for anything more?
In contrast, Lauren Boebert had to take the GED three times to pass, is so innumerate that she thought it would be cheaper to have a baby than get birth control, and provides an excellent example to America’s youth when it comes to theater arts. There are YouTube videos galore of Boebert making a fool of herself to actual laughter. Not to mention the many articles. I have to agree with the Twitter sage JoJo from Jersey who opined: “Lauren Boebert is so dumb she could throw herself on the floor and miss.” So if you’re looking for someone to make it easier for college rapists to get off, to slash college loans and grants, and to shortchange women’s sports by messing with Title IX, I’m pretty sure she’s not your girl.
As for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz has spent more time under investigation than he spent practicing law. I’m not counting his DUI, which his daddy took care of for him. This nepo baby — like all toddlers (see Trump, Donald J.) — can wreck things, but he can’t organize his sock drawer, much less lead an organization effectively. Witness the lovely job Gaetz did in replacing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with Gaetz’s fellow bomb-thrower Jim Jordan. Oh, wait! That’s right, it failed utterly, and he made the GOP a laughingstock. Gaetz, of course, tried to make his power grab look high minded, but soon enough everyone figured out Gaetz was covering his heinie. He’s made so many enemies that Gaetz might not make it. Whether he gets the job or not, I will relish the fireworks and trust that someone as coddled and ignorant as Gaetz will find it hard to outsmart people like glorious attorney Marc Elias, legal scholar Lawrence Tribe, and Congressman Jamie Raskin.
Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Bobby Kennedy Jr. make me a bit more nervous. Elon and Bobby may be gullible nepo babies (so many nepo babies in Trump’s inner circle starting with Trump himself), but they’re not complete idiots. Vivek is actually smart, if completely devoid of conscience. We can hope that they will commit the cardinal sin of MAGA world: outshining Dear Leader. Trump’s already warned Kennedy: “Don’t get too popular, Bobby.” Let’s see how long before the Night of the Long Knives begin.
Lastly, I do remain very alarmed about the prospect of former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as national intelligence director. She’s not very bright, but how bright do you have to be to ferry American secrets to Vladimir Putin in return for additional favors to Trump? My only consolation is that Trump probably already trafficked in U.S. secrets out of the cache of top-secret documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago, so maybe there’s not a lot left to reveal.
The only conclusion an observer could come to is that Trump is so stupid that he can’t even recognize abject idiocy when he sees it. Overall, I think Trump’s Clown Cabinet is too moronic to accomplish the fascism that Trump desires. We’re gonna be all right.
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| Tip Jars |
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