By ELIOT WEINBERGER*
The makeup of Donald Trump II's government is more bizarre and dangerous than that of Trump I
They came from Florida, from Fox News and Fox Business, square-jawed men and women with big hair and collagen lips. They came from professional American football and World Wrestling Entertainment. They came from the talk shows daytime and reality television. They came “straight out of the central cast,” as the future president said.
Some of the women looked like his daughter and some looked like his wife. None of the men looked like him. A group of them went with the future president to Madison Square Garden to watch the fights of Ultimate fighting.
The future defense secretary is adorned with white supremacist tattoos of a Jerusalem cross, the battle cry of the Crusaders.”God vult” and an AR-15 assault rifle next to an American flag. The future homeland security secretary once killed her hunting dog, Cricket, in a gravel pit because she couldn’t hunt, and later killed her pet goat because it was getting old and “gross.”
The future health and human services secretary once cut off the head of a beached whale with a chainsaw, put it on the roof of his car and drove home. He boasts of having a refrigerator full of roadkill.
Less than half of voters cast their ballots for the future president, but his team declared it an “avalanche,” a “mandate” to “drain the swamp” and shake up the capital. The future White House communications director calls the opposition “snowflakes” whose “sad and miserable existence will be crushed” when the future president returns to power.
The future FBI director promises a “manhunt” gangsters government” and revenge against disloyal journalists. The future head of the Federal Communications Commission threatens to penalize television networks that criticize the future president.
They promise mass layoffs and the deportation of millions of people. They promise to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget—five times more than the combined annual salaries of all federal employees. They promise to end the “wave of Woke” in all its imagined forms and the return of American greatness.
But they either have no connection to the work they are going to manage, or they have no experience in the work they are going to manage, or they have no experience in managing large bureaucracies like the bureaucracies they are going to manage.
The future commerce secretary is a billionaire.
The future treasury secretary is a billionaire.
The future interior secretary is a billionaire.
The future education secretary is a billionaire.
The future special envoy for the Middle East is a billionaire.
The future director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a billionaire.
The future general surgeon, a regular visitor to Fox News, and the future administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, a daytime television host, sell dubious health and weight-loss supplements online. The future FBI director promotes a supplement to reverse the effects of the Covid vaccine.
The future deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism is the spokesperson for a fish oil supplement. The future secretary of homeland security stars in an ad for a cosmetic dentistry company, in which she exclaims, “I love my new family.” Smile Texas! "
The future education secretary opposes the Department of Education. Co-founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment, donated $21 million to the future president's campaign. She is currently being sued for allowing the sexual abuse of children recruited to be “ring boys” at wrestling events.
The future Environmental Protection Agency administrator opposes clean air and clean water legislation and doesn't believe the world's climate is changing. The future energy secretary, head of a fracking, insists that “there is no climate crisis and we are not in the middle of an energy transition either.”
The future secretary of health and human services and the future director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe that vaccines cause autism. The future commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration, a regular at Fox News, and the future director of the National Institutes of Health do not believe that vaccines cause autism, but have opposed mass vaccination against Covid.
The incoming health and human services secretary has promised to lay off 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health to shift the focus away from infectious diseases and toward healthy diets. He opposes water fluoridation and milk pasteurization, and believes that horse deworming pills are more effective against Covid than vaccination.
The future attorney general, a regular visitor to Fox News, was part of the future president's legal team in his first trial impeachment. As Florida’s attorney general, she championed a ban on same-sex marriage and tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions. She dropped a fraud case against a future president’s online college after receiving a donation from him, and once persuaded Florida’s governor to delay an execution because it conflicted with his fundraising event. She was active in denying the 2020 election results and was a registered lobbyist for Qatar.
The future deputy attorney general, the future U.S. solicitor general, and the future principal associate deputy attorney general were part of the future president's legal team in his recent court cases. The team will now continue as the Department of Justice.
The future US attorney general, defending the future president before the Supreme Court, said there are cases in which it would be legal for a president to assassinate a domestic political rival.
The future CIA director is best known for promoting conspiracy theories and spreading false information in defense of the future president in his various scandals. He has claimed that there is a “secret society” within the Justice Department and the FBI “working against” the future president. The future FBI director wants to turn the Washington headquarters into a museum of deep state horrors.
The future director of national intelligence, a regular at Fox News, is known as “our girlfriend” when she appears on Russian television expressing support for Putin and Bashar al-Assad and condemning NATO. She was raised, and remains linked to Science of Identity Foundation, a sect derived from Hinduism, known for its Islamophobia and homophobia, whose leader lives in a house covered in aluminum foil.
The future deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism is a former attendee of the Fox News and is banned from YouTube. He believes that violence is intrinsic to Islam. He wears the medal of the neo-Nazi Hungarian Order of Vitéz and has supported the Magyar Gárda, a paramilitary group.
The future Navy secretary was never a military man, but he raised $12 million for the future president's campaign at an event at his Aspen home, where the future president warned that this "may be the last election we have" if the "radical left lunatics" win.
The future ambassador to Israel is a Baptist minister and former TV presenter Fox News. He claimed that “the Palestinians don’t really exist.” The future senior adviser for Arab and Middle Eastern affairs is the father-in-law of the future president’s daughter.
The future special envoy for the Middle East is a frequent golfing partner of the future president and has donated nearly $2 million to his campaigns. He has close ties to Qatar.
The future ambassador to France, father-in-law of another daughter of the future president, also donated $2 million to the campaign. He spent two years in prison for various crimes, including hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and videotape them, who would testify against him. He will live in the luxurious Hôtel de Pontalba in Paris.
The future ambassador to Greece is the now presumed ex-girlfriend of the future president's son. On the day of his appointment, the tabloids revealed that the son had found a new partner. The future national security adviser, a regular at the Fox News, opposes more aid to Ukraine but supports sending troops to Mexico to fight drug cartels.
The future special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a regular at the Fox News, warned against putting “the idealistic agendas of the global elite ahead of a working relationship with Russia.”
The future Secretary of State is the author of Decades of Decadence: How Our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity.
The future secretary of homeland security, governor of South Dakota, is banned from entering indigenous lands by the state’s nine tribes. During the Covid epidemic, she has opposed all forms of protection, including masks and mandatory vaccinations. She opposes abortion under any circumstances, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, high-speed rail, property taxes, same-sex marriage and any form of gun control. During her last campaign, she offered the future president a $1.100 bust of Mount Rushmore, with her face carved alongside those of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
The future commerce secretary has personally donated $10 million — and raised another $75 million — to the future president’s campaign. He believes we can “make America great again” by going back to 1900, when there were high tariffs and no income tax.
The future secretary of transport, presenter of Fox Business and former star of reality shows, supported the Muslim ban and, as a congressman, introduced legislation to end the protection of gray wolves as an endangered species.
The future secretary of housing and urban development is a former professional football player, a former member of the Texas State Legislature, a former chief inspirational officer for a software company, a former chief visionary officer for a real estate developer, and a former owner of a menswear company. He is the only Black person on the future president's staff.
The future agriculture secretary promotes fossil fuels and campaigns against wind and solar power. She doesn't believe in climate change. She is the executive director of the America First Policy Institute, from which a dozen members of the future president's team and his ideological base come. The AFPI has already drafted about three hundred executive orders for the future president to sign on his first day in office.
The future director of the Office of Management and Budget wrote that “Muslims do not simply have defective theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they are condemned.” He is the founder of Center for Renewing America, which is largely dedicated to combating “critical race theory” and the “wave Woke”. He intends to destroy the FBI, eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, fire tens of thousands of public employees for lack of loyalty to the future president, use the military against protesters and institute a Christian-based “radical constitutionalism” that will give more power to the future president.
The future White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser is allied with several white supremacist groups and is the most vocal and anti-immigration member of the team. He believes that “America is for Americans and Americans alone,” which means banning, among others, Muslims, refugees and Chinese college students, as well as deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants.
He was the architect of the policy of separating migrant children from their parents and was seen gloating over photographs of children in cages. He claimed that Emma Lazarus' poem (“Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) at the base of the Statue of Liberty was an addition “Woke” later that has nothing to do with American freedom. He considers the future president “a political genius.”
The future border tsar, a regular visitor to the Fox News, implemented the family separation policy during the former administration of the future president. He started a project called “Defend the Border and Save Lives” in collaboration with an anti-Muslim group, the United WestHe said: “I will lead the largest deportation force this country has ever seen. They ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait until 2025.”
The future secretary of defense, presenter of Fox News, has called for an “American crusade,” “a holy war for the just cause of human freedom,” because the “irreconcilable differences between the left and the right in America…cannot be resolved through the political process.” He claims that there is a “Marxist cultural revolution sweeping the Pentagon,” epitomized by the U.S. military slogan “Our diversity is our strength,” which he says is the “stupidest phrase on planet Earth.” He warns that the invasion of Ukraine “is insignificant in comparison” to the threat of the “wave of Woke”, because “this unholy alliance of political ideologues and Pentagon sissies has left our warriors without true defenders in Washington.”
“The next president of the United States needs to fire everyone.” He opposes NATO and the United Nations. He is known for his drunken rants against Muslims. When accused of rape, he paid the victim to keep quiet. His mother once sent him an email calling him “vile and abusive” and asking, “Is there any sense of decency left in you?”
The future White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser wrote in a speech to the future president that “the fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive… Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
The future president currently sells baseball caps, wrapping paper, blankets, soccer uniforms, boat flags, pickleball paddles, necklaces, earrings, silk ties, cutting boards, Christmas decorations, slippers, tie clips, rugs, aprons, pajamas, socks, Advent calendars, Christmas stockings, mugs, key chains, sweaters, notepads, bracelets, scented candles, beach bags, flip-flops, bathrobes, towels, sunglasses, corkscrews, water bottles, stickers, jogging pants, wine and champagne glasses, headphones, coats, candy, cookies, chocolates, honey, jewelry boxes, whiskey decanters, trays, wallets, flasks, wine, coasters, umbrellas, golf bags, plates, ashtrays, sports bras, and dog leashes—all with his name on them.
Also available are a gold watch for $100.000, an autographed guitar for $11.000, digital NFT cards featuring the future president in heroic historical scenes, Bibles “God Bless the USA”[God bless the USA],” high-top sneakers.”Never Surrender” [“Never Surrender”], cologne for men “Fight Fight Fight” [“Fight, fight, fight”] (“For patriots who never retreat”) and a commemorative colony “Victory Cologne” [“Victory Cologne”], which comes in a bottle shaped like the future president’s head.
The future secretary of state had previously called the future president a “con man,” a “Third World strongman,” “the most vulgar person who ever aspired to the presidency,” “a person who has no ideas of any substance,” and a “guy with the worst spray tan in America” who wets his pants. He now says, “I didn’t know him as a person.”
*Eliot Weinberger is a writer, editor and translator. Author, among other books, Angels & Saints (New Directions).
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
Originally published on London Review of Books.
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