Tom Nichols
Donald Trump has been releasing names of his nominees for the Cabinet and other senior posts in waves. He began with some relatively conventional choices, and then unloaded one bombshell after another, perhaps in an attempt to paralyze opposition in the Senate with a flood of bad nominees or to overwhelm the public’s already limited political attention span. He’s chosen a Fox News host with a sordid personal history to lead the Pentagon, an apologist for dictators in Russia and Syria to be the director of national intelligence, and an anti-vax, anti-science activist to be the nation’s top health official.
Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlantic—including every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more.Become a Subscriber
Trump has now added yet another dangerous nomination to this list. In a Saturday-night post on his social-media site, Truth Social, he announced that he is nominating Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor, to serve as the director of the FBI. A Patel nomination to some position in the law-enforcement or intelligence spheres has always been lurking out there as a possibility, and Trump may have held off announcing it until he felt he had protracted enough outrage (and exhaustion) with his other nominations.
Patel’s nomination is shocking in many ways, not least because the FBI already has a director, Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed to a 10-year term only seven years ago and whom he would have to fire almost immediately to make way for Patel. Worse, Patel is a conspiracy theorist even by the standards of MAGA world. Like other senior Trump nominees, his primary qualification for the job appears to be his willingness to do Trump’s bidding without hesitation. Patel will likely face a difficult path to confirmation in the Senate.
For Trump, naming Patel to the post serves several purposes. First, Trump is taking his razor-thin election win as a mandate to rule as he pleases, and Patel is the perfect nominee to prove that he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Even knowing what they know, Americans chose to return Trump to office, and he has taken their decision as a license to do whatever he wants—including giving immense power to someone like Patel.
No comments:
Post a Comment