The NYT reports: Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.
The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question.
While so many in mainstream American politics seem to keep trying to memory-hole J6, the incoming Trump administration understands its significance. Looking to filter administration personnel via sympathy for an insurrection intended to overturn an election and obeisance to a lie about the election is a very, very bad sign. And it underscores, yet again, how the cowardice and love of power displayed by Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP in the aftermath of J6 will continue to haunt us.
And when I say that many seem to want to ignore J6, I would note that many, many people dismiss concerns about a second Trump administration with some version of, “What was it that he did last time that was so bad?” This is usually from pro-Trump types, but even Trump opponents who lean into the “incompetence will blunt the damage” thesis seem to forget the way the whole thing ended last time.
Trump and his allies are crafting and shaping this administration very specifically.
Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist and pro-MAGA podcaster, is among those conducting the loyalty tests, along with members of the personnel team. That team is led by Sergio Gor, who has helped run the publishing company that produces the president-elect’s books and ran a multimillion-dollar super PAC that supported Mr. Trump.
The more policy-focused interviews have been conducted by members of the transition staff and by potential agency heads, such as Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the F.B.I., and Tulsi Gabbard, his pick to be director of national intelligence.
This is a process designed and guided by cranks and ideologues. This is like having a bombastic host of a sports podcast pick the next coaching staff for an NFL team. It is a very bad way to assemble a group of people to govern. But, it is a pretty good way to put together a cadre of loyalists who won’t let the norms get in the way of what Trump and his friends want to do.
Mr. Trump has told advisers that his biggest regret from his first term was appointing “traitors,” some of whom came to view him as a threat to democracy. He has singled out for especially harsh attacks his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who has called Mr. Trump a fascist; his defense secretaries, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper; and his attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and William P. Barr.
That Jeff Sessions would be far and away a preferable AG says something about where we are headed.
And if anyone is missing the point: it is perfectly fine for the incoming administration to want to make sure that appointees and hires are on board with the policy goals of said administration. But it is wholly another for personal loyalty to the president, as tested by the willingness to accept lies. Moreover, when one of the governmental outcomes that an incoming administration is testing you on is an insurrection, then that is unacceptable.
Put another way: if the test is acceptance of J6 and the Big Lie about the election, then anyone who can pass the test should not be allowed in government. And yet, here we are.
It would be as if in the 1870s the only way to get a federal job was to have been pro-CSA.
