Trump is communicating with blunt body language by nominating Matt Gaetz and RFK Jr.
We are in a moment of "cartoon physics."
We all knew the rules of cartoon physics before we could read. Four-year-olds who watch Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner know that when a character runs off solid ground into mid-air that gravity is suspended. Then, after of moment of humor for the audience -- because the audience knows something the character doesn't; what fun! -- the character looks down. He realizes he went too far. Then he falls.
Cartoon physics is also political physics. The reversal of fortune takes place when the politician catches up to the audience and realizes that his enthusiasm brought him too far and off a political cliff. We are in the momentum-off-the-cliff zone. Maybe the beaver can tiptoe back. Maybe it is too late. It is a moment of suspense for the nation. A few Republicans are looking down. We don't know yet if there is still solid ground of public support for where Trump is bringing us.
I hear Democrats say that Trump voters are trapped in a cult of personality. Not all of them. A great many Republicans tell me they understand that Trump is a lawbreaking scamp, that he exaggerates and lies, and that his post-2000 election behavior was dishonest. They voted for him anyway. They don't like Democrats. They think that the border was mishandled, that inflation is the fault of Democrats, that the Afghanistan withdrawal was ugly, and that Democrats are immoderate on culture-war issues. They gave Trump a second chance.
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| The Wall Street Journal warns of "cranks and cronies." |
Many Republicans never really believed that Trump would "burn it all down," as Steve Bannon urges. Many Republicans don't hate the FBI, the ATF, the SEC, the FDA, and the CIA. They eat processed foods. They vaccinate their children. Most got Covid shots and get flu shots. They aren't nut-jobs. They made common cause with MAGA because that was how to have a majority that would stop a Democrat. But the nominations of Matt Gaetz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. go a step beyond expectations.
Members of the Republican coalition are troubled by the nominations of Matt Gaetz, the fringiest Freedom Caucus disrupter as attorney general, and brain-worm RFK Jr. as head of Health and Human Services. RFK, Jr. frightens the drug, chemical, agriculture, oil, packaged food, fast food, and medical industries. Gaetz disgusts nearly everyone who ever worked with him. These nominees aren't just bold and outspoken. People who know them well call them kooks.
I had predicted that backlash would come, but later. I had presumed Trump would slow down to bring along the cautious ones in the GOP. That appears to be wrong. Trump populism was built around opposition to the establishment perspective of The Wall Street Journal. He owes Fox opinion hosts, not the WSJ. The populists in the party want to burn stuff down. Trump is racing forward.
To continue the cartoon metaphor, the U.S. Senate may rush to build scaffolding under the Trump beaver. They would "let Trump pick his team," as Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville put it. They would let Trump make recess appointments.
It may work. It may not. We are in suspense. If a few senators get the courage to break with Trump and refuse to confirm these two appointments, a fracture line will split the GOP. Trump's honeymoon will have lasted fewer than two months.
3 comments:
Trump's cabinet picks demonstrate how helping get him get elected was the most effective sabotage Putin ever perpetrated against the U.S. It brings to mind an old quote: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad,
Keep telling yourself that cooler heads will prevail, and stuff like that. You'll be happier that way. Four more years, as they say...
The thing going against Gaetz is that he alienated a whole lot of fellow Republicans , he has a lot of enemies among his own people. His sex with teenage girls at a party just is a statement of what kind of guy he is. The question is what kind of politicians are Republicans now that they are in charge of pretty much everything. They know how to rail against stuff, but do they know how to govern?
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