Anti-Trump Republican Senators will face difficult primaries

The effort to ensure that Donald Trump gets a Cabinet which would sabotage rather than carry forward the agenda for which he was elected is clear.

The principal Cabinet picks chosen by President-elect Trump are each in the same mode as the incoming 47th President of the US. They seek not to tinker around at the edges of present policies and support structures, but to replace them with versions which they believe better meet the needs of the citizens of the US. What is named the establishment or the status quo has not remained so for decades without cause. The status quo has delivered substantial benefits to its principal backers, while discriminating against the rest. Those championing the rights of the rest, which constitute the overwhelming majority of citizens, have been dismissed as “fringe” elements. Robert F. Kennedy Jr would like to end the dominance of hyper-processed foods in US supermarkets, a change that would boost public health significantly. He has raised questions about the efficacy, not of all vaccines (as his detractors falsely claim) but of the Covid-19 vaccines that were developed in a great hurry. The longer-term effects of such vaccines are only now becoming clearer, effects such as an otherwise unexplained rise in the incidence of pulmonary or cardiac complications, and yet RFK Jr is derided as a “conspiracy theorist” who is only a short step away from being qualified to enter a lunatic asylum as an inmate. Tulsi Gabbard was the only public official to resign and opt to serve in the military on active duty, in the challenging circumstances of Iraq during the chaos witnessed since the defeat of the much weakened conventional forces of Saddam Hussein. She warned against the ultimately disastrous strategy of arming extremist radicals to fight Bashar Assad in Syria in 2011, in a repeat of what took place in Afghanistan, where large numbers of radical rather than moderate Afghans were equipped to fight the Soviet invaders. Gabbard was correct in her forecast that efforts at dislodging Assad would fail, as it has. Her truth telling has been met by ridiculous accusations that she is an admirer of Assad. Later, in 2022, Gabbard warned that backing Zelenskyy against a much stronger Russian force boosted by Chinese assistance was futile. Even though she has been shown to be right on that count, she is being accused of being a Putin and Xi lapdog, in the way that Donald Trump was accused of being a Kremlin stooge by Hillary Clinton in 2016. As for Peter Hegsheth, he has been sought to deny getting nominated for sexual escapades that he has denied and not been charged with. Other disruptors of the status quo are being given the same treatment, with ever wilder charges getting flung in their direction, all meant to prevent their nominations from getting passed by the US Senate. As a consequence of his encounters with “lawfare” during the Biden administration, Trump has bypassed the FBI in vetting his picks. It would have been better for him to ensure the FBI gave its own opinion on his Cabinet picks, as by not doing so, he has opened the door to future attacks on them for not being vetted by the FBI, which remains overall a professional organisation where politics plays little part. Of course, the final word has to be that of the US Senate, given that each nominee would face intense questioning, especially by Democrats out to destroy their reputation. After coming through that, US citizens would be able to reach their own conclusions about the nominees, who would be certain to push back against any charge that gets made against them.
The effort to ensure that Donald Trump gets a Cabinet which would sabotage rather than carry forward the agenda for which he was elected is clear. Trump has his faults, but lack of clarity in what the objectives are that he pursues is not in such a list. After he lost the 2020 Presidential contest to Joe Biden, a host of notables who either had to leave their posts because Trump was unhappy with them, or were still

continuing in his administration, believed that his political career was finished and that his next official residence would be a federal prison. They boasted in public about how they were able to stymie and sabotage President Trump during his earlier term in office. The Democrats may be excused for seeking to ensure that such a situation happens during his new tenure as well, but why some Republicans seek to join them is explainable only in terms of their attachment to the very status quo that enough voters sought to change by getting Trump elected. Those Republican Senators who vote against any of those comprising the Cabinet picks of Trump are likely to face the ire of Republican voters in the primaries, when the time comes for them to seek re-election to the US Senate. As the fate of Republican foes of Trump such as Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney has shown, many in their own party would not forgive such apostasy. Mitch McConnell is unlikely to seek a fresh term as Senator, so he is immune to a primary challenge, but other Senators may not be similarly placed. Those whom Trump chose have a common thread running through them, which is the way in which they supported Trump during the period when the US Department of Justice appears to have been active in seeking to send the 45th President of the US to prison. Given the personality of Trump, it is unlikely that he would give up on such people because of a few Senators who are at present recalcitrant. It is unreal to expect Trump to repeat his earlier decision to surround himself with those who were opposed to several of his stated policies. He will want a team composed of those who believe in his leadership, and given his election victory, it is not an unreasonable ask.