Corporate cronies in the cabinet, revolver driven rollbacks in the courts, and a failure from Democrats and media to meet the moment.
This newsletter was originally published on our Substack. Read it here.
It’s only been two weeks since Donald Trump was re-elected President and the tenor of the next four years is already taking shape. The speed with which Trump’s transition team is announcing executive branch appointments is matched only by the swiftness with which those appointees will decimate the government’s capacity to serve the American people. The question now is whether Democrats and media understand the gravity of the situation and will act accordingly.
Trump’s Cabinet Of Cronies
Barring any failed nominations in the Senate, Trump’s Cabinet will feature such starling picks as a brain-worm riddled anti-vaxxer in charge of the nation’s health and an accused child sex trafficker as the nation’s top law enforcer. The top qualifications seem to be: “Are you fundamentally opposed to carrying out the mission of the agencies you oversee?,” followed quickly by, “Do you have zero expertise in this area?” I can’t get into all of the appointees here and now, but Trump’s pick to head the Department of Energy (DoE), fracking executive Chris Wright, is indicative of this dynamic.
The Department of Energy is principally responsible for “maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent and reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation [and] overseeing the United States’ energy supply.” In recent years, the DoE has also been involved in the transition away from oil and gas and towards clean, renewable energy sources. Chris Wright, meanwhile, has no experience with nuclear weapons issues and has made a living from extracting fossil fuels while pretending that climate change is no big deal. His fracking company, Liberty Energy, has a history of fighting the regulatory state. Liberty previously sued the Securities and Exchange Commission for a climate risk disclosure rule and the Labor Department for a rule that permitted retirement fund managers to consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions. We can only expect that an Energy Secretary Wright will be similarly inclined to slash any DoE regulations that move the country towards a cleaner, safer future.
BigLaw Revolvers Continue To Shield Corporations From Accountability
Meanwhile, BigLaw revolvers are not waiting for the start of a second Trump administration to make life easier for the country’s most powerful corporations. In January, I wrote about the revolvers at Morgan Lewis & Bockius who—on behalf of SpaceX and Trader Joe’s—are trying to convince the courts that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional. Well, they are still at it! Earlier this week, corporate lawyers at the firm argued for SpaceX before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hoping to fast-track those arguments past the district court level. Thankfully, the appeals panel reportedly seemed inclined to send the case back to the district court. But, given the agency’s laudable willingness to stand up to labor abuses at his company, Musk’s SpaceX will continue the legal fights and the NLRB will likely draw the ire of Musk himself when he helms the Department of Government Efficiency.
It’s not only Republican revolvers who are in court protecting corporation interests. Neal Katyal, former Solicitor General under President Obama, is back in the news for his latest attempt to ensure that corporations do not face accountability for their actions. In this instance, Katyal is defending Nvidia in a securities fraud lawsuit where the company is accused of misrepresenting its reliance upon sales of computer chips to crypto miners. We’ve kept an eye on Katyal’s long history of selling his credibility to pernicious corporations for an outrageous fee and will continue to track his career as he sets a distressing example for other BigLaw revolvers.
Lame-Duck Slow Rolling And Preemptive Appeasement
Just two months out from Trump’s inauguration, Democrats have an ever dwindling lame-duck to protect Biden’s legacy. The administration is rapidly approving infrastructure and environmental spending, but other priorities like judicial appointments and student loans forgiveness are in jeopardy. The Education Department is finalizing a rule to cancel loans for students with financial hardship, but the snail-paced rollout and inaction that has characterized Secretary Cardona’s tenure puts relief at risk.
This lack of urgency seems to be permeating throughout the party and the media. With the next administration already taking shape, Democratic leaders need to be preemptively spinning a narrative to make sure Americans know how dangerous Trump’s executive branch will be. Instead, they seem wholly unprepared for the moment.
Last week, Politico reported that Democrats’ strategy will be “playing nice” with Trump and Republicans as Democratic Governors are seeking to find areas to work with the next president. In Congress, Speaker Hakeem Jeffries called Trump’s outlandish appointees a “distraction,” vowing not to get bogged down responding to questions about them for the four years. (From Elizabeth Warren’s “personnel is policy” to Hakeem Jeffries’ “personnel is distraction,” the Democratic Party Big Tent contains a serious variety of views.) Mainstream media is also quickly turning to normalization over confrontation as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to “restart communications” and find “common ground.”
We’ve been highly critical of Democrats for failing to bury Trump’s political career once and for all, and this dedication to civility and cooperation is exactly how it happened.
Trump’s litany of crimes and disastrous stewardship of the executive branch ought to have been disqualifying. But a lack of Congressional oversight, slow moving investigations, and an insistence on looking forward not backwards allowed Trump to become rehabilitated in the eyes of the public. As my colleague Emma Marsano wrote on our blog yesterday, the failure of Biden’s DOJ to tackle white collar crime made it impossible for Democrats to effectively center Trump’s own criminality in their campaign. If Democrats once again fail to tell the story that Trump and his appointees are villains—rather than somewhat sensible partners to govern with—the public will not see his administration as the threat to democracy, the economy, and public health that they are.
These are concerning signs, but there is plenty of time to choose a different path. As Brian Beutler noted in his Off Message newsletter, Congressional Democrats should begin immediately scrutinizing Trump appointees in high profile ways: publicize the Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz, release any counterintelligence files on Tulsi Gabbard, and bring RFK Jr. before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee. It may not tank their nominations, but it will help the public be more informed about who Trump has chosen to staff his government. His appointees will be hellbent on dismantling the federal government as we know it and it will be an uphill battle to limit the damage. But it’s up to the Democratic Party to use every resource at its disposal to fight back and become a party that is fundamentally and actively opposed to corruption and cronyism.
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Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
The Campaign That Could Have Been
Neal Katyal: Corporate America’s Staunchest Defender
The Department of Government Efficiency Is Inefficient
Trump tried to limit financial conflicts in 2017. This time could be different.