The hyper-macho and online energy of the Trump campaign is now aimed at Washington.
It used to be that the perfect cabinet pick was a steady, behind-the-scenes expert who wouldn’t take too much attention away from the president.
Think James Baker III, the Princeton-educated lawyer who played tennis with George H.W. Bush, became Ronald Reagan’s Treasury secretary and was later named Bush’s secretary of state. Or Condoleezza Rice, who spent her career in government and academia before becoming a stalwart in the cabinet of George W. Bush.
That era ended this week, its demise encapsulated by a single word: “doge.”
With his early selections for cabinet and other high-level posts, President-elect Donald Trump is taking the bomb-throwing, hyper-macho and preternaturally online energy that infused his campaign and seeking to inject it directly into Washington’s veins.
He has asked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an initiative to cut government waste named for the elder statesman of online memes, Doge. He has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose skepticism of basic measures like vaccines has haunted public health officials for years, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1.6 trillion agency charged with ensuring the “well-being of all Americans.” And he wants former Representative Matt Gaetz, a chest-thumping Trump loyalist who has been investigated on suspicion of sex trafficking and accused of showing colleagues nude photos of women on the House floor (and who has denied both accusations), to be his attorney general.
What Trump is proposing could bust norms, pave the way for his promises of retribution and make the institutions that stood in his way during his first term more pliant. It’s effectively government by bro — and it seems that the more you’ve trolled the establishment, the better your chances are of being invited by the president-elect to join it.
POTUS, U.F.C.-style
Trump’s presidential campaign was a celebration of masculine kitsch. It created multiple opportunities for Hulk Hogan to rip off his shirt in front of the president-elect’s most devoted followers and ended with the Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White taking the stage as Trump declared victory.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
