We’ve gone through the looking glass and beyond with Trump’s irresponsible, dangerous, and, in one case, brain-worm crazy cabinet picks. But hey, this is what the people voted for, right?
We've seen some troubling Trump picks for his new cabinet, including Matt Gaetz, the accused underage sex offender for attorney general.
Gaetz is perhaps the sleaziest person on Capitol Hill, which, by my metrics, is about the worst insult you can hurl. And I’ve known my share of DC pervs. Almost 20 years ago, I covered for Newsweek a scandal involving then-GOP Florida Rep. Mark Foley, who was caught being really inappropriate with some teenage boys who’d been congressional pages.
As gross as Foley was with those boys, his fellow Floridian is loads nastier, having been credibly accused of sexual impropriety with underage girls and a host of other despicable acts that will conveniently go away were he confirmed as attorney general.
Gaetz’s crimes will disappear, just like Trump’s have, because that’s what the majority of the people voted for.
We Americans chose lawlessness and unaccountability over tempered use of government for the greater good. This is who we are now.
Now, I know many of you are saying: “Not me! He’s not my president!”
Sorry to say, he is. And Trump will be America’s president for the next four years, barring his stepping down before 2028, which I’m guessing he will following a full pardon and a guaranteed chance to be a “shadow president” from the links near Mar-a-Lago.
This type of overt corruption most Americans now embrace is not unfamiliar to me. Before starting Postindustrial in 2018, I spent more than two decades living and working in other countries troubled by conflict, corruption, and rampant incompetence.
Take the Taliban in Afghanistan, for example.
After 20 years of fighting to reclaim authority over the most broken of countries, the Taliban have driven Afghanistan into an even deeper pit of despair with them at the helm.
They spent decades pursuing power, but when the time came to take control of the country after the United States left (I’ll never forgive Biden or Trump for how that all went down), their utter incompetence and disregard for basic human needs became quite apparent.
Everything from infrastructure to sewage (what little infrastructure and few sewage systems Afghanistan has) has completely gone to shit.
You think anyone in the ranks of the Taliban is a public works expert? Most likely not, hence Afghanistan’s slide from failed states to clusterfuck.
And now we find ourselves in a similar predicament. The “American Taliban,” a coalition of the corrupt, misogynistic, wealthy, faux religious, and the uninformed, are set to run roughshod over our rights and test the very foundation on which our constitutional republic rests.
But hey, think about the upside. Trump’s likely to also find a place for Hulk Hogan in his administration. That’ll be fun, right? I think “Department of Greased Pecs and Tearaway T-shirts” has a nice ring to it. Don't you?
And in RFK, Jr.'s Department of Health, surely Trump could find a place for Joe Rogan as the undersecretary of cold plunges and other wellness remedies co-opted by d-bags and bros.
How does all this sound to you?
You know, all of this could have been avoided if folks in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, who showed up for Biden in 2020, returned to the polls for Kamala (There are loads of other reasons she lost, but those three states are foremost on our minds at Postindustrial).
But then we wouldn't have Mr. Worm Brain running point on our health and well-being for the next four years.
And after all, that's what the people chose with their votes (and by staying home)!
You cool with that?
I know you’re not. However, I ask because it's what we should be asking ourselves every day for the foreseeable future as we navigate the incompetence and criminality to come.
