Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
When the donor class speaks, Democrats and Old Guard GOP whores alike perk their ears up like Pavlov’s dogs at feeding time.
They nod their heads.
They fall in line.
Words implanted in their craven brains, not their own, escape their lips. They cast pre-decided votes, not of their own conscience.
This is not politics; it’s ventriloquism with ugly dolls.
We needn’t cover the waterfront of Democrats smearing RFK Jr., Matt Gaetz, and Tulsi Gabbard; that’s par for the course.
What’s not par for the course, and is a new phenomenon since 2016, is members of the GOP eager to denounce their own president-elect’s cabinet picks in full view of the public.
Via The Daily Beast (emphasis added):
“When it comes to Donald Trump’s new Cabinet picks, there’s at least one that his former second-in-command doesn’t approve of: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary.
“If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history,” former Vice President Mike Pence said in a statement touting the “pro-life” record of the first Trump administration…
He pleaded with Republican lawmakers to shoot down Trump’s HHS choice.
“I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services,” Pence said.”
Related: ‘Dangerous’ RFK Jr. as Public Health Sheriff Terrorizes Legacy Media, Big Pharma
Republican and The Atlantic writer Tom Nichols is highly upset about what Tulsi Gabbard might be allowed to do at the helm of the intel community.
Matt Gaetz, potential future Attorney General, is also getting piled on by his own party to a degree that perhaps hasn’t been seen ever.
Via Associated Press (emphasis added):
“Gaetz is unpopular with many fellow House Republicans…
Here are what Republicans are saying about him:…
JOHN BOLTON, former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser:
“It must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet secretary in American history. I think this is something that falls well outside the scope of deference that should be given to a president in nominating members of the senior team. Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude.””
The rub here is that a specific breed of Trump appointee in the vein of longtime Swamp Latinx boy-toy Marco Rubio appears to get a very generous pass from both RINOs and Democrats.
Related: Incoming Trump Border Czar Pledges to Deport ‘Nine Out of Ten’ Migrants
Why is it, one might ask, that “Republican strategist” and The View co-host Ana Navarro — who has been trashing Trump for years as a fascist — and many of her ilk would be so giddy over the Rubio nomination that she would go out of her way to praise him on television?
Via Entertainment Weekly (emphasis added):
“After months of sounding alarms over the dangers of a second-term Donald Trump presidency, The View cohost Ana Navarro has praised the president-elect after speculation arose indicating that he might appoint conservative senator Marco Rubio to his cabinet.
In a rare on-air move, the 52-year-old Republican panelist praised a member of her own political party on Tuesday’s live show, admitting that she’s known Rubio for a long time, though the pair haven’t “spoken in years” on a personal level, she said.
“I will say this, Marco is qualified, he’s been on foreign relations in the senate for many years. I’m happy because he knows Latin America, which, for me, is a region that’s often forgotten. He speaks Spanish, he knows who these leaders are, he knows what the issues are,” Navarro said, after speculation mounted that Trump would name Rubio as Secretary of State. “I think he’s going to come in hot on places like Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, which I care about enormously.””
The TL;DR takeaway
“Right” vs. “left” is increasingly anachronistic nonsense.
The cabinet war shows us that the real conflict now is establishment vs. populist, and the battlefield at this moment in history is for the president’s ear at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. come January.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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