The GOP confirmed billionaire donor Betsy DeVos yesterday for Secretary of Education. I’m not convinced this woman would recognize her own face in the mirror, let alone comprehend nuanced policy alternatives on education, but that doesn’t matter in today’s GOP. Her single, definable qualification for this position is the emptiness of her ambition to protect public education.
(I kid…it was her ability to purchase a seat via campaign contributions – but let’s make sure we all remember how corrupt Hillary was)
Next up is Jeff Sessions, a guy who felt it necessary to fabricate his role in several civil rights cases just to deflect the mushrooming charges of racism. Does that give you comfort – not only that it was an accusation he had to defend against in the first place, but that he had to insert himself fictitiously into the history books to do so? The fact that Sean Spicer today mused about Coretta Scott King and Sessions catching a burger and a flick together is a joke that doesn’t need writing.
The full list is, of course, ridiculous. Pruitt – anxious to burn the world to the ground (and to turn a buck doing it), Carson – as qualified to run HUD as I am to run an NBA offense, and Tom Price – who curiously purchased healthcare stock while sponsoring legislation impacting its value.
This is what happens when we grant power to people whose primary motivations are revenue generation and opponent-shaming. As a nation, we’ve become desensitized to bullshit. Make no mistake – nominating a potato with a haircut to run the Department of Energy is complete…bullshit. I’d like to think some GOP supporters even recognize the piffle that’s been peddled, but unfortunately I’ve seen no evidence suggesting they care. When the president and his handlers promote the unqualified rogues highlighted above, and continue to sell the bollocks about crowd sizes, popular vote victory, “successful raids,” and historical delays of cabinet approval, it becomes clear they’ve recognized us a nation of marks. Meanwhile, after campaigning as a populist vowing to take on Wall Street in defense of everyday Americans, he’s nominated the wealthiest cabinet in history, including a sizable amount of sludge from Goldman Sachs.
Sad!
Update: an earlier version of this post incorrectly listed Rex Tillerson as the nominee who purchased healthcare stock while writing healthcare legislation. Post has been updated to indicate Tom Price. Tillerson is the Secretary of State nominee who made his bones as an executive at ExxonMobil, a company who learned in 1977 that humans were causing climate change, yet intentionally misled the public while lobbying the government to block emissions regulations. DOD apologizes for the error.