Trump’s Real Goal With These Disastrous Cabinet Picks Exposed
An authoritarianism scholar sounded alarm bells that Donald Trump’s incoming Cabinet nominees will do far more than usher a new conservatism into the federal government. Instead, they’ll challenge the system to the point of rendering federal agencies practically ineffective and vulnerable to complete dismantling. In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder insisted that Trump’s nominees to lead the executive branch aren’t just “poor choices in the traditional sense.”“Each of them individually is historically bad,” said Snyder. “But taken together, these are not people who are going to be bad at their jobs in some sort of normal sense. Taken together, these appointments suggest an attempt to actually make the American government dysfunctional, to make it fall apart, to pervert it, to have it do things that it’s not supposed to do until it’s not capable of doing anything at all.”For instance, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, regularly amplifies Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Her role would have her oversee 18 intelligence agencies, but critics—even in the House Intelligence Committee—have drawn attention to the danger of her nomination considering her particular affinity for foreign dictators such as Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.Responding to a clip of Gabbard from February 2022—shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine—in which the former Democrat claimed that Ukraine should “embrace the spirit of Aloha” and relinquish any military alliances with NATO or Russia, Snyder argued that “it’s not just that these people are not qualified enough.” “It’s not just that they’re totally unqualified, it’s that they’re anti-qualified. They are qualified to do the opposite of the thing that they are supposed to do,” Snyder said.“Tulsi Gabbard is talking about a moment when Russian forces are approaching the Ukrainian capital. When Russian assassination squads are attempting to kill the Ukrainian head of state, and she’s advising people that all we have to do is summon up a magic word, and in effect surrender all of Ukraine to Russia,” Snyder continued. “And it’s not naïve. It sounds naïve but it’s not. What it’s doing is trying to prepare the way for more Ukrainian suffering. It’s saying, he who invades is right.”
An authoritarianism scholar sounded alarm bells that Donald Trump’s incoming Cabinet nominees will do far more than usher a new conservatism into the federal government. Instead, they’ll challenge the system to the point of rendering federal agencies practically ineffective and vulnerable to complete dismantling.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder insisted that Trump’s nominees to lead the executive branch aren’t just “poor choices in the traditional sense.”
“Each of them individually is historically bad,” said Snyder. “But taken together, these are not people who are going to be bad at their jobs in some sort of normal sense. Taken together, these appointments suggest an attempt to actually make the American government dysfunctional, to make it fall apart, to pervert it, to have it do things that it’s not supposed to do until it’s not capable of doing anything at all.”
For instance, Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, regularly amplifies Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Her role would have her oversee 18 intelligence agencies, but critics—even in the House Intelligence Committee—have drawn attention to the danger of her nomination considering her particular affinity for foreign dictators such as Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Responding to a clip of Gabbard from February 2022—shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine—in which the former Democrat claimed that Ukraine should “embrace the spirit of Aloha” and relinquish any military alliances with NATO or Russia, Snyder argued that “it’s not just that these people are not qualified enough.”
“It’s not just that they’re totally unqualified, it’s that they’re anti-qualified. They are qualified to do the opposite of the thing that they are supposed to do,” Snyder said.
“Tulsi Gabbard is talking about a moment when Russian forces are approaching the Ukrainian capital. When Russian assassination squads are attempting to kill the Ukrainian head of state, and she’s advising people that all we have to do is summon up a magic word, and in effect surrender all of Ukraine to Russia,” Snyder continued. “And it’s not naïve. It sounds naïve but it’s not. What it’s doing is trying to prepare the way for more Ukrainian suffering. It’s saying, he who invades is right.”
