From Tengrain:
This is the thing to note about the staffing of Hair Füror's new 4th Reich: these already announced buffoons have no domain expertise. This is alarming at a high level, but beneath that these bums need to know how stuff works and who to talk to to find out how stuff works. Instead of boning up, they are likely to be boned by their own incompetence and hubris.
These jamokes are the people who are going to still be looking for the light switches weeks later.
All that said, I think this take is just about right:
"If anyone believed the nonsense about Donald Trump's second term shifting away from chaos and towards ruthless efficiency his initial personnel rollout is putting that to rest. We're going to have four more years of chaos and inept presidenting. Keeping in mind that incompetence is at least and probably more dangerous than ruthless efficiency."
"A few things spark this. One is that he's rolling out his picks in a totally arbitrary, willy-nilly fashion; presidents-elect who know what they're doing don't start with the UN ambassador and the head of the EPA before they get around Secretaries of Treasury and State (which is now to go to Marco Rubio, unless it doesn't). And also neither of those selections, Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin, have subject-matter experience. Which isn't the end of the world for a cabinet-level pick, but it's not exactly a plus, either."
"Oh, also, Trump has already selected two sitting Members of the House (Stefanik and National Security Advisor designate Micahel Waltz) for his administration despite the ongoing vote-counting still leaving the size of what appears to be a tiny Republican House majority up for grabs, with the most likely outcome a tiny 220-215 majority and a possibility of a more tiny 219-216 or even 218-217."
"[…] Sure, Trumpists put in place might be eager to carry out what the president wants…but they may also have their own creative, or self-serving, or just wacky interpretations of what Trump may want about this or that issue that the president hasn't actually spent a minute of his life thinking about (and while Trump is an extreme case, no president is expert or even has vague opinions about many of the things that government does; there are just too many of them). Or they may only have pretended to be Trumpists, and really be out after their own interests (including self-interest) in mind. One of the whole points of having a large, organized, disciplined White House staff is to fight for the president's agenda in all of those departments and agencies — and to solve problems before they harm the president. Presidents simply can't do it themselves."
Firing the bureaucrats and replacing them with loyal idiots will not make an efficient and ruthless killing machine, as we all feared, it will make a clown show. That's not to say that the 4th Reich will not seriously damage the country —they will— but it won't be strategic, it will be as a side product of their complete incompetence.
So yeah, for now at least, point and laugh at them, it makes them nuts.
I've long maintained that the only thing that may save us from the worst of his intentions is the gross incompetence of the people the Orange Russian Wig Stand surrounds himself with.
The grift begins!