Welcome to Home & Away. The election is now ten days behind us, and the outcome is clear. The Republicans—and more accurately Donald Trump—have run the table. They and he will control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Thanks to Trump’s first term appointments and the machinations of Mitch McConnell, they also inherit a rightward-leaning, pro-Trump Supreme Court that recently granted presidents broad immunity for their acts in office. For at least the next two years we will be, for all intents and purposes, a parliamentary system in which most power is concentrated in the hands of one party, a ruling party beholden to a single individual. Checks and balances will be in short supply.
There have been other times in the last century when one party controlled the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives. What preserved democracy in those instances were several factors: a neutral Supreme Court; independent-minded members of Congress in both parties; an active and free press; individuals of integrity serving in the federal government in high positions; and, above all, the character of the occupant of the Oval Office.
The obvious danger now is that we cannot assume that most of these elements will be present under a second Trump administration. This is particularly relevant as Trump is about to assume control of a unified government but a deeply divided country. Yes, Trump won the popular vote with 76 million votes, just over half the votes cast, but 73 million Americans preferred Vice President Harris. Trump’s Electoral College win was significant (312-226) but a shift of as few as 250,000 votes (out of 150 million) in three swing states would have tilted the result in the other direction. Yes, it was a clear-cut win, but despite Trump’s repeated assertions, it was not a landslide or a mandate.
The start of the week provided a modicum of reassurance that perhaps Trump would not govern as he campaigned, as he selected Marco Rubio for Secretary of State and Mike Waltz for National Security Advisor. Both are internationalists rather than the isolationists whom many feared Trump would appoint. Rubio has a good deal of experience from his time in the Senate, including as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, while Waltz sat on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and is a veteran who has served in the Pentagon and White House. As best I can tell, their views on the critical foreign policy issues, even if I don’t agree with all of them, fall well within the confines of what might be termed serious debate, although where they stand on Ukraine is uncertain as they both voted against the most recent tranche of military aid proposed by the Biden administration and opposed by Trump.
Several of the other nominations are anything but reassuring, to put it mildly. Indeed, alarming would not be too strong a word. The choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer in the country, is outrageous. Gaetz just resigned his congressional seat, almost certainly to preempt the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report deeply critical of him on claims ranging from sexual misconduct with a minor to drug use. It is possible Trump nominated him to pose a loyalty test to Republican senators.
It is also possible he figured Gaetz would be rejected as a sacrificial lamb that would distract attention and increase the odds other controversial nominees can get through. Or it may have been what the nomination appears to be on the surface, an attempt to put someone in charge of the Justice Department to weaponize the legal system against so-called “enemies within.” Whatever the motive, how the Senate handles his nomination will tell us a lot about whether Republican senators and new Majority Leader John Thune are willing to place country before party and person.
No less outrageous is the choice of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Actually, reckless might be a better word as Kennedy’s opposition to vaccinations along with his embrace of other radical positions and conspiracy theories would cost countless lives. Again, one can only hope Trump did this to make good on a political promise he made in exchange for RFK dropping his presidential bid but figuring the Senate would never actually allow it. If the Senate refuses to confirm him and Gaetz, we’ll see whether Trump carries through with his plan to circumvent the Constitution’s advise and consent process by making recess appointments that would enable them to serve for two years regardless.
There are also serious questions regarding Trump’s choice to head the Department of Defense. For the last seven years, Pete Hegseth has been a host of Fox and Friends. That he is an Army veteran is in principle valuable. The bad news is that he has never managed anything, much less an organization with an $800 billion budget and close to 3 million employees. Hegseth seems primarily obsessed with curing the military of what he sees as a “pro-woke” bias at a time when the focus ought to be on introducing new technology into the forces, expanding the military industrial base, and making sure the military is capable of deterring multiple adversaries and, if need be, fighting multiple wars.
In addition, there is nothing in his background to suggest he would push back against Trump’s inclination to use the U.S. military to put down domestic protests that could arise over mass deportations or any number of other policies. There are also reports that Trump is planning to purge the military of “woke generals” by establishing a new board of military personnel that could bypass the Pentagon’s regular promotion system to remove generals and admirals. It is hard to imagine Hegseth opposing such an effort. The risk in all this is that the military, one of this country’s most successful institutions and essential to our national security, could lose the trust of the American people along with its professionalism and unity.
Two choices that would affect Middle East policy in particular also raise serious issues. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is Trump’s choice to be the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Yet he is on the record as saying, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” and that, “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities.” And also, “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria” as well as “There’s no such thing as an occupation.” If his comments read like a U.S. green light for Israel to annex Gaza and the West Bank, it is because they would be, and the Israeli government clearly recognizes this, nominating a new ambassador to the United States who is a settlement activist and supports annexing the entire West Bank.
If the Trump administration allows Israel to pursue such a policy, what little chance of peace between Israelis and Palestinians that still exists (or further normalization of relations between Israel and Arab governments) would disappear. Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state would be put in jeopardy. It is difficult to see how the appointment of Steven Witkoff, a fundraiser and golfing partner of the President-elect who is an uncritical backer of Bibi Netanyahu with no foreign policy experience, would improve matters. What makes all this even more frustrating is that there are opportunities to bring about ceasefires in both Gaza and southern Lebanon that would arguably serve Israel’s interests if only Israel’s government were willing to accept them.
And then there is Elon Musk, something of an unguided missile, if you will pardon the expression. In the last week alone, he has joined a phone call with the president of Ukraine and met with Iran’s UN ambassador. He is to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a new government agency with an acronym that references his preferred cryptocurrency and ostensibly has broad oversight of all government spending, without ever having served in government. I somehow expect Musk is unfamiliar with Harry Truman’s warning, that “Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.” Rarely has someone so unaccountable and with so many conflicts of interest come to hold such influence.
Let me make one final point. With the exception of Rubio and Waltz, it is impossible to defend Trump’s choices for senior positions. Gaetz and Kennedy are particularly egregious. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be the Director of National Intelligence, is arguably no better given her professed sympathies for Bashar al-Assad and her tendency to channel the views of Vladimir Putin. Missing in all these decisions is any sense that Trump sees himself as the steward of something larger than himself, of a society that happens to be the world’s oldest democracy, one that confronts a far more dangerous world than the one that greeted him eight years ago. Instead of seriousness there is radicalism. Elections, as they say, have consequences.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Friday, November 8: France 24
Tuesday, November 12: Andrea Mitchell Reports
Wednesday, November 13: Amanpour
Wednesday, November 13: Bloomberg Surveillance
Wednesday, November 13: Bloomberg Talks
Wednesday, November 13: Katy Tur Reports
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens