Back on the Style pages of this Sunday’s The New York Times the Critic’s Notebook noted how many of Donald Trump’s appointments look, well, like TV personalities or models. (Imagine them all in a Hallmark Christmas movie.)
The conclusion seems to be that in Trump World the right person for the job looks more like Ken or Barbie or a kinda movie star than the typical American.
“Mr. Trump has simply gone from ‘paying a version of himself as a star to being the star, the executive director and the showrunner of the country.’” [N Y Times 12/1/24]
Of course, attractive people always get a leg up. Even dive bars hire attractive young women. A good friend worked for many years in sales at a local business products concern. Each year the boss hired a troop of cute cheerleader types (female and male) and sent them out to sell. And, every year my friend and the other veteran (some might say ‘grizzled’) sales folk kept the doors open while most of the youngsters never seemed to last.
Still, governing something as big as the United States ought to require more than good hair and a bright smile. A multi-trillion-dollar enterprise impacting the lives of around 340 million Americans – plus billions about the planet – needs to be professionally run. At least it used to require skilled managers.
Under Trump Too, alas, why seek competence when (per Project 2025) the goal is to knowingly destroy government.
Look at Trump’s proposed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, rabble rouser Kash Patel who brags of emptying the FBI headquarters and prosecuting those he feels overstepped their positions:
Trump is declaring his intention to reinvent the FBI as something it has never been before: an instrument of personal presidential power, which will investigate (or refrain from investigating) and lay charges (or refrain from laying charges) as the president wishes.
The Atlantic (via MSN) 12/1/24
Now, Patel would never be mistaken for a Ken. He easily fits the role of a James Bond megalomaniac villain which reflects another side to Trump Too, using government as a hammer against perceived enemies who tried to hold him accountable for election fraud, inciting an insurrection, illegal business dealings and a myriad of other documented bad stuff.
Expect other appointments to further Trump’s Revenge Tour 2025.
Meanwhile, the Barbies and Kens will represent America at the UN, run Homeland Security, occupy the Attorney General’s job, serve as Secretary of Defense or Treasury or the State Department, as well as being White House Press Secretary and such.
Stay tuned.
Glenn