Many of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees just don’t have the gravitas or institutional experience in dealing with giant bureaucracies to serve effectively, critics say. That whining you hear is the sound of progress. Trump, who has spent his business career in real estate taking a wrecking ball to what doesn’t work and then building luxury in its place, staked his entire campaign message to American voters on the need to do the same with Washington.
You’re not going to get renewal and reform from appointees who figure that the place looks good overall, but just maybe needs a little bit of paint. You need human bulldozers. One of the few nominees who the establishment actually accepts proves the rule: Florida Sen.
Marco Rubio as secretary of state. Even Democrats have said that despite their ideological differences, he’s a viable candidate for the job because he knows the ropes. Which is really just another way of saying that he’s on board with the bipartisan neocon talking points that don’t distinguish between Republican and Democrat positions much, if at all, underscoring the need for an anti-establishment force that’s skeptical of both establishment parties and whatever systemic corruption underpins some head-scratching consensus.
Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense immediately triggered personal witch hunts related to everything from his tattoos to his personal life, with criticism suggesting that he doesn’t have the chops to lea.