You Know Who Meant Every Ignorant Word He Said...

The Independent - A Fox News host who lobbied Donald Trump to pardon troops accused of war crimes and doesn’t want women serving in combat could be leading the nation’s military. An accused sexual predator who has taken up Trump’s promise to destroy his political rivals could be the nation’s top law enforcement officer. A prolific conspiracy theorist who doesn’t hold a single medical or public health degree but plans to immediately halt vaccine development could be in charge of the nation’s health agencies.

An Evangelical preacher who espouses end-times theology and has said “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian” could be the nation’s ambassador to Israel. A former congresswoman who secretly met with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and has blamed US and NATO for Russia’s assault in Ukraine could direct the nation’s intelligence. The world’s wealthiest man will recommend drastic cuts to the government’s budget in a made-up “efficiency” agency.

Two of his attorneys who are actively overseeing his hush money case, which led to Trump’s 34 criminal convictions, have been nominated for top roles at the Department of Justice. The lawyer who got him “immunity” at the Supreme Court will be solicitor general.

Trump’s first wave of cabinet nominations and White House appointments, within the week after he won the 2024 presidential election, have stunned members of Congress, veterans and active-duty service members, public health advocates and democratic advocates, who have warned for years that he is building a government of loyalists to fulfill his campaign-trail promises to deliver “retribution” by destroying the “deep state.”

They’re shocking choices, but they shouldn’t be surprising. When Trump formally launched his 2024 campaign from Waco, Texas, he declared himself a “warrior” and the election a “final battle.”

“To those who have been wronged and betrayed, of which there are many people out there, I will be your retribution,” he said.

There is no secret plan or conspiracy theory at work; putting an enemy of the “deep state” in charge of it, creating an agency named after a meme, naming widely loathed congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general — it’s the trolling as politics that Trump’s movement inspired. It’s an absurd attack on the institutions that Trump despises, and they’re laughing all the way to the White House. It’s what he campaigned on, and he’s fulfilling his campaign promises.

He has repeatedly pledged to “drain the swamp” in Washington, and he’s filling it with an army of loyalists left in its wake. But the punchlines will have consequences.

Tulsi Gabbard, who is nominated as director of national intelligence, said Trump’s election was a “mandate for change.”

“Of course there’s going to be resistance from the swamp in Washington — I think that’s kind of the point,” he told Fox News on November 14. “The American people are saying, Hey, stop looking at yourselves, stop focusing on your own power, your own positions, your own bank accounts. How about we have leaders in Washington who are actually looking out for the American people?”

Olivia Troye, a former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, said Gabbard’s nomination is a “slap in the face to intel officers, but that’s the point given Trump’s disdain for our national security community.”

“Having a Russian propagandist who spreads fringe conspiracies at the helm will likely lead to our allies refraining from sharing intel with us,” she said. “It will weaken our security posture [and] make us more susceptible to terrorist attacks on our homeland.”

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Gabbard will “demoralize the hell out of everyone” in national intelligence and the active duty service members and federal law enforcement officers relying on her leadership, according to Kris Goldsmith, CEO of veterans’ anti-extremism group Task Force Butler and its Vets Fighting Fascism project.

“They’re not going to be able to trust their own boss,” he told The Independent. “She is a danger, and she’s more likely to side with Assad and Putin than she is with the people of the United States.”

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Well, anyone who managed to convince themselves to hold their nose and vote for You Know Who, thinking his ignorant ramblings were simply empty rhetoric, now ya know. Too late for hand wringing or wishing it were different. Now we are ALL stuck with the malignant narcissist on a mission for revenge against those who opposed him as well as taking America down in the effort to cozy up to tyrants.