Trump and his sex offender cabinet
Want to look smart and good, surround yourself with dumb, bad people!
To look very smart, hide among the stupid!
It pays to wait sometimes in the commentary business because, you know, people tire of public affairs and politics.
I was tired of Donald Trump years ago, and the situation has not improved. But I think he has stumbled on a tactic that is well worth considering.
Think about it!
Why would you suggest so many obviously unqualified, dim or conflicted people to form your cabinet?
Why would you send people who have no respect for the institutions they will lead? Blind followers will argue that’s because Trump wants to reform government.
Why would you submit a lineup (and that’s what it looks like on one level) of men accused of sexual offenses against women as your cabinet members?
Something else is at work, I would argue.
Insecure people do whatever they can to avoid appearing to be weak. In Donald Trump, the intellectual weakness is so apparent he can only shine by surrounding himself with very dim people.
This he is achieving.
And now, I would suggest, the president elect is working to diminish his own array of sexual offenses against women by surrounding himself with men carrying the same baggage.
The cabinet choices, from tarnished Congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general on down (or is it up?) the names on the list are almost uniformly bad.
It would not be a surprise to see a new president lard his administration with friends.
But with TV personalities?
Does a daytime Emmy give Dr. Mehmet Oz the chops he needs to oversee Medicare, Medicaid and affordable care program?
Fox’s Pete Hegseth, the choice to head defense, gave a woman who accused him of sexual assault a financial settlement that included a non-disclosure agreement.
Health choice Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. groped a family babysitter.
Elon Musk, who is supposedly going to help reshape government, created a sexually fraught workplace.
If surrounding yourself with dumb people is one devious way to make yourself seem the smartest person in the room, perhaps this is the same plan, but with sex offenders.
Trump is, of course, the first court-adjucated sexual abuser to become president. And the rest of his behaviors, even down to claiming women let him grab them “by the pussy” because he was such a celebrity, only add to the improprieties.
The minute he walks into a cabinet meeting, he will seem to be in exactly the right place, the biggest felonious miscreant in a room full of lessers.
It puts a real shine on the idea of guilt by association. An aggressive prosecutor might rush in and sweep them all up as some kind of conspiracy in the offing.
But, of course, there won’t be any aggressive prosecutors left in Matt Gaetz’s Department of Justice.
Could this possibly be who we elected?
Yes, indeed.
Like I said in an earlier essay, hide your daughters!
Charlie Madigan was a reporter and editor for United Press International and The Chicago Tribune for 40 years. He was a professor at Roosevelt University for a decade. He lives in Evanston. Find him at Charlesmadigan.com.
I would LOVE to move to Canada! This country is going down the s--- hole !!!