Forgive me for indulging in giving myself a pat on the back, but if I don't do it no-one else is likely to. When I wrote my last post here a few days ago, I was tempted to speculate that Pussygrabber's singular focus on personal loyalty to himself as the sole important qualification for high level government office might lead him to neglect or even to omit entirely the process of vetting nominees for such positions. But no, I said to myself, that's maybe going a step too far; one shouldn't conjecture too far in advance of the evidence. Imagine my amusement, then, when the next day I read in the latest installment of Heather Cox Richardson's excellent series Letters From An American that such is exactly the case, resulting, for example, in the naming of Tulsi Gabbard, whose ties to Putin are such that she probably would be ineligible for a security clearance, to be in charge of all U.S. intelligence operations. You can't make this shit up. There's also Peter Hegseth, Pussygrabber's nominee for Secretary of Defense, a Fox News personality whose military career saw him rise to the rank of
captain and then resign when his superiors determined that his extremism rendered him unfit to participate in protecting the president at Biden's inauguration. Hegseth, it turns out, settled a woman's sexual assault allegations for money and a nondisclosure agreement. The Pussygrabber administration's senior level isn't going to "look like America." Considering Pussygrabber himself, Matt Gaetz, Hegseth, and who knows else, its going to look like a support group for sex offenders. Watch out, Tulsi Gabbard: if you drop a pen on the floor at a cabinet meeting, don't bend over to pick it up.
So I'm going to permit myself another wild flight of fancy. My last post described the limited pool of applicants that Pussygrabber has to choose from for high level appointments. Given that his criterion of a demonstrated high level of personal loyalty to himself excludes nearly anyone who is not an idiot, sycophant, ambitious psychopath, or zealot, a large part of the pool consists of elected Republicans. So far, the governorships of both Dakotas, several seats in the House of Representatives, and a Senate seat are up for grabs due to their incumbents being recruited for the administration. Perhaps Democrats may find a way to profit from the process of replacing them. It is very unlikely that the balance of power will be impacted substantially, but with government so narrowly split between the parties, any shift could be incrementally significant.
At such straws is one inclined to grasp. Having said that I administer to myself the salutary reminder that people don't come out to vote for parties who don't give them something to vote for. For decades, the Democrats have run on little more than "vote for us because the other guy sucks so bad." Although that is based on a factually accurate description of the choice in most races, it may no longer be an effective electoral or governing strategy. Until the party is reconstituted so that its leadership is genuinely interested in and capable of producing actual, tangible results for women, non-whites, and most importantly the poor, lower middle, and working classes, well, we've seen what happens.
