RINO knives are out — for many, but, interestingly, sparing some (more on that later) — of Trump’s cabinet nominees.
For its part, legacy media is very happy to exploit any intra-GOP rift — after all, after having been wiped out electorally at all levels and branches of government, basically all they have for at least the next two years strategy-wise is divide-and-conquer and sabotage of the incoming administration.
We expect attacks on Trump nominees by the opposition party, but whom they are targeting most aggressively, along with whom they have teamed up with on the nominally Republican side of the ledger, is the story here.
Mike Pence — who, despite what you may have learned from CNN, was not actually hanged by a rampaging mob of Deplorables on January 6, 2021 — has thrown whatever political capital he believes he has into an effort to oppose RFK Jr. as Secretary of State.
Via The Daily Beast (emphasis added):
When it comes to Donald Trump’s new Cabinet picks, there’s at least one that his former second-in-command doesn’t approve of: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary.
“If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history,” former Vice President Mike Pence said in a statement touting the “pro-life” record of the first Trump administration…
He pleaded with Republican lawmakers to shoot down Trump’s HHS choice.
“I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services,” Pence said.
Two things:
A.) Literally no one not ensconced in the Washington D.C. bubble, right or left, black or white, non-binary or normie, cares what Mike Pence thinks. It’s arguable whether anyone ever did in the first place.
B.) Somehow I doubt RFK Jr.’s abortion stance is the issue here; it’s the pharmaceutical industry’s interests that are threatened. Swamp creatures like Mike Pence just cling to the abortion talking point because it’s a convenient alternative rationale for the ideology they peddle.
Related: NPR Releases Hardcore Abortion Porn Audio to Savor on Your Morning Commute
Here we have elite neo-con, The Atlantic staff writer, and Never-Trump Republican Tom Nichols going on state media to denounce Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
Related: Cable News Is Riddled With War Profiteers
And, finally, Matt Gaetz has gotten a shellacking from his own party members, who in droves have proven enthusiastic about taking to legacy media to malign what is arguably the president’s most important cabinet pick.
Via Associated Press (emphasis added):
Gaetz is unpopular with many fellow House Republicans…
Here are what Republicans are saying about him:…
JOHN BOLTON, former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser:
“It must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet secretary in American history. I think this is something that falls well outside the scope of deference that should be given to a president in nominating members of the senior team. Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude.”
Other Republican critics willing to go on record with cold feet about Gaetz include Sens. Lisa Murkowski and John Thune, Rep. Don Bacon, et al.
However, the liberals curiously spare the rod for a select subset of Trump nominees.On the contrary, not just RINOs but Democrats are elated with the Rubio-type picks because people like Marco Rubio are dependable members of The Swamp who can be counted on to do the bidding of the permanent governing structure that persists administration after administration. In other words, Rubio is a threat to nobody currently in power.
For this reason, nominal Republican Ana Navarro of The View loves Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and isn’t afraid to tell the world.
Via Entertainment Weekly (emphasis added):
After months of sounding alarms over the dangers of a second-term Donald Trump presidency, The View cohost Ana Navarro has praised the president-elect after speculation arose indicating that he might appoint conservative senator Marco Rubio to his cabinet.
In a rare on-air move, the 52-year-old Republican panelist praised a member of her own political party on Tuesday's live show, admitting that she's known Rubio for a long time, though the pair haven't "spoken in years" on a personal level, she said.
"I will say this, Marco is qualified, he's been on foreign relations in the senate for many years. I'm happy because he knows Latin America, which, for me, is a region that's often forgotten. He speaks Spanish, he knows who these leaders are, he knows what the issues are," Navarro said, after speculation mounted that Trump would name Rubio as Secretary of State. "I think he's going to come in hot on places like Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, which I care about enormously."
We should ask ourselves the rhetorical question: Why is it that RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Matt Gaetz engender such vitriol from Washington, whereas not a peep of criticism is to be heard of, for example, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State?
Part of what’s going on here appears to be a power struggle between Trump and the Senate, which views itself as the elite vanguard of Democracy™ and traditionally enjoys flexing its political muscle in the vetting of presidential appointees.
(As I am a constitutionalist, senators bucking the president, even as a member of the same party, is fine with me. But Trump won an undeniable mandate two weeks ago, and so thwarting his will should come with political penalties come next election season; any of these Congress members who stonewall Trump’s agenda should get the hell primaried out of them.)
However, the more fundamental takeaway from this palace intrigue, aside from the struggle session between branches of government, in my view, is establishment status quo vs. populist upheaval.
We’re in a new era, and a lot of entrenched interests don’t want to see any substantial changes to business as usual come to fruition.
So it’s going to be a slog.
