By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
We’re past the point where dactylonomy can account for the billionaires Donald Trump has selected for positions of authority in his impending kakistocracy (U.S. News & World Report: tinyurl.com/billions4u).
Megadonors all, it’s likely they’ll execute the offices they bought to their own benefit, not ours. From this team of benefactors, unprecedented corruption is more likely than not. (New Republic: tinyurl.com/2corrupt4u). Role-modeling even as he ascends to Earth’s reportedly most powerful position, Trump keeps hawking eponymous, overpriced junk. The latest is cologne (Fragrantica: tinyurl.com/trumpsmells4u). Grifters gotta grift.
Consider Stephen Feinberg, billionaire investor who’s donated tons to Trump, as deputy defense secretary. He’s invested in several companies that have Defense Department contracts. Then there’s Jared Isaacman, selected as NASA administrator. Described by Trump as an “astronaut” because he bought his way onto a couple of civilian space flights on an Elon Musk SpaceX capsule, he has millions in investments in SpaceX. It’s a lidless cookie jar.
Topping the list, of course, is Elon himself, the world’s richest humanoid, who spent close to $300 million on the campaigns of Trump and other Republicans. His companies are, collectively, the greatest recipients of government money. We await the scrutiny he and also-billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy will apply to those corporations as they erase $2 trillion from the national budget as promised. What cuts are more likely: your Medicare or Musk’s contracts?
One thing Musk will do for sure is strong-arm any senatorial dissenters from Trump’s proposed collection of incompetents. When Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., pushed back mildly on Trump’s plan to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray in order to install subservient, revenge-promising Kash Patel, he heard from front-line right-wing icons like Charlie Kirk, who said, “Senator Rounds, you are up for reelection in 2026. If you vote against any of Trump’s nominees a primary challenge wouldn’t be hard. Just a reminder.” To which Capo di tutti capi Musk added, “Those who oppose reform will lose their primary/election. Period.” He can find another $300 million in his couch cushions. It seems to have worked on Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, too. (Esquire: tinyurl.com/got2joni). It’s government by cement overshoes.
Not all of Trump’s picks are billionaires, but they have in common a wealth of inadequacy and/or inexperience: Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Patel, and more. Where checks are balanced, none ought to gain Senate approval. However, given the threats and intimidation Republican lawmakers are receiving, and their signature senatorial feebleness, it seems their ascendency is assured.
Also not a billionaire, but more dangerous than any to the lives of every American is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As a formerly practicing physician, husband, father and grandfather, I find his positions on vaccines and other health matters profoundly disturbing. Like Trump — and maybe it’s the attraction — he’s happy to push thoroughly disproven lies. For example, on his festival of untruths and confabulations during his “Meet the Press” appearance this past weekend, Trump spouted off about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, Colo., despite its political leaders and police saying it’s untrue. And, because every day is Opposite Day with him, he later announced, pulled from a sunshine-free anatomic locale, that “Democrats are fighting hard to get rid of the Popular Vote in future Elections.” After which minds surely achieved maximum boggle.
It’s likely Trump knows he’s lying, but because it keeps his voters happy, doesn’t care. With Junior Bobby, though, who can say? Given his years of addiction to various forms of neurophysiological abuse, not to mention his resident brain worm that dined on parts of his brain before dying, of fright, possibly, he may no longer have the brain loci in charge of separating truth from fiction, science from conspiracy. Whatever the reason, if allowed, as Trump promised, to “go wild,” his beliefs about vaccines, fluoride, disease vectors and more become policy, there will follow, without doubt, deaths of many Americans. Children, especially. Having Dr. Oz, a Trump-level-charlatan, quacky pusher of bogus medical “remedies,” in charge of Medicare and Medicaid won’t stanch the death flow, either.
Based on Junior’s global history, deaths are predictable. (New York Times; no paywall: tinyurl.com/heisdanger) His disinformation campaign about measles vaccines led directly to children dying in Samoa. His conspiratorial insanity about covid vaccines was equally deadly (Bulwark: tinyurl.com/samoa2die). And his intention to curtail infectious disease research, given the certainty of another pandemic, is ominous. If his hiring criteria indicate the disconnected world in which he lives, it’ll be worse than we imagine (Slate: tinyurl.com/2quiz4u). The reported interview questions he asks are crazier but no less portentous than Trump’s (New York Times: tinyurl.com/2scary4u).
From his history of business failures as well as how he mishandled covid-19, we know Trump is a terrible manager: impulsive, distractable, uninterested in details. As long as they’ll advance his announced need for vengeance, and unless they interfere with his golf game, he’ll be letting the aforementioned appointees do as they wish. It bodes ill in more ways than one.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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