US president-elect Donald Trump has been pre-announcing his choices for top government posts. It reads like a circus programme.
The modern circus was invented by Englishman Phillip Astley around 1770, when he combined his show of equestrian tricks with clowns, harlequins, acrobats, jugglers and other visual entertainers that were once associated with the theatre business. The entertainments were performed inside a 42-foot diameter ring, which remains the standard for circuses today.
By the mid-19th century, circuses had become travelling entertainments, usually held under a big top tent.
In 1872, a trio of American circus entrepreneurs, Dan Castello, William Cameron Coup, and Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum, launched P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Exposition and World’s Fair.
This show travelled by rail, and comprised six tents spread over five acres. It was the first to introduce a second ring, which doubled both the number of performances and seating capacity.
In 1881, Barnum’s circus show merged with the Cooper and Bailey Circus run by his main rival, James Bailey. Out of this merger came P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth.
A year later, Barnum added a third ring, which gave the world not only its first three-ring circus, but also an idiom meaning pandemonium.
Trump’s clowns
What brought a three-ring circus to mind was watching US president-elect Donald Trump pre-announce his nominees for various government positions. They’d be hilarious if running the most influential country in the free world wasn’t such a serious business.
It’s hard to know where to start. There are so many headline acts in Trump’s prospective lineup of clowns.
Some of the nominees, notably those for cabinet positions, may need to be confirmed by a vote in the Senate, but Trump will – with the support of the incoming Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota – push the Republican-controlled upper house to declare a recess, which would permit Trump to make appointments without Senate oversight.
Once you see the sort of characters Trump is picking, you’ll see why this stratagem to subvert normal checks and balances will be required.
Wrestling with education
There’s Linda McMahon, who Trump has proposed as Secretary of Education. Her qualifications for this exalted position? None, other than a degree in French.
McMahon, along with Vince, the husband she married when she was 17, co-founded the company that would go on to control World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
She headed the US Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, and is a co-chair of his transition team.
Not so long ago, Trump vowed to close the Department of Education altogether. That isn’t a crazy idea, of course. Government-run education – like government-run anything – is notoriously bad. Devolving education to the States would be a good move, and expanding school choice, charter schools and education voucher systems, would be a welcome improvement for many (even if many of its fiercest proponents are not classical liberals, but religious conservatives).
Yet somehow, Trump has found a way to create the worst of all possible worlds: turning education over not to the States, nor to parents, but to the corporate founder of the most anti-intellectual idiot-fest on the planet.
Pro wrestling has roots in circus sideshows. The modern version continues the tradition. It is entirely fake, mostly scripted and heavily choreographed. It features performers that rev up audiences with over-the-top aggression and violence, and clashes between hyperbolic egos. It rivals monster truck rallies for showcasing the worst of America’s vacuous, lowest-common-denominator canned excess.
McMahon’s record is chequered. She was in charge of WWE when a steroid abuse scandal broke out after wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife, his son, and himself in 2007. Although an investigation was requested by congressman Henry Waxman in 2009, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy never followed through, letting McMahon and her company off the hook. Years earlier, her husband was acquitted of charges of supplying steroids to performers.
The WWE company was also embroiled in a child sex scandal, with allegations that it allowed a ring announcer to continue his work even though he exploited teenage boys who worked as ring boys. The investigation went nowhere, as none of the 10 alleged victims were willing to testify. The first of the victims to come forward, Tom Cole, went on to commit suicide at the age of 50.
McMahon’s husband, Vince, has himself been accused of rape, sexual assault and sex trafficking on multiple occasions by multiple women. One such lawsuit, which alleges a coverup by McMahon and the WWE, is still ongoing.
The idea of Linda McMahon being in charge of educating children is, well, perverse.
Celebrity quack
Then there’s Dr. Oz. Yep, the daytime TV quack made famous by talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.
Trump has nominated Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which includes Medicare (government health insurance for the elderly), Medicaid (government health insurance for the poor), children’s health insurance and the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.” These programmes cover more than 130 million people, from newborns to nursing home residents, according to the Associated Press.
Dr Mehmet Cengiz Öz is the son of Turkish immigrants, and became a cardiothoracic surgeon. He is far better known as a television doctor who promoted products with which he was closely associated, companies by which he was paid, and quack remedies of dubious value that he routinely describes as “miracles” or “magic”.
As a qualified doctor, he should know better, but the lure of fame and money (he’s a hectomillionaire) evidently got the better of him.
He prominently promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, despite trials finding that it was not effective, but what can you do when you’re heavily invested in two hydroxychloroquine manufacturers?
He once went on TV to say that opening schools during the pandemic was an “appetising opportunity”, because it might only kill 2% to 3% more people. What’s a few million dead bodies between friends?
Besides bogus weight-loss cures, for which he was hauled over the coals in front of Congress, Oz has also promoted faith healing and psychic mediums. He made false claims about supposed links between cell phone use and cancer. He recommends homeopathy as a cure-all, and has hosted a range of charlatans, including “Health Ranger” and self-styled scientist Mike Adams, and superquack Joseph Mercola.
(I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mercola get a job, perhaps as Surgeon General or head of the Centers for Disease Control.)
The “Dr. Oz effect” refers to the massive boost in sales that any product mentioned on his television show can expect, but it has often been denounced as consisting of “lies, fraud, conflicts of interest, and bogus science”.
A paper by 14 authors in the British Medical Journal assessed the evidence for 80 randomly selected recommendations from each of two television doctor shows, one of which was Dr. Oz. It found that evidence supported 46%, contradicted 15%, and was not found for 39% of the recommendations Oz made on the show.
It concluded: “Recommendations made on medical talk shows often lack adequate information on specific benefits or the magnitude of the effects of these benefits. Approximately half of the recommendations have either no evidence or are contradicted by the best available evidence. Potential conflicts of interest are rarely addressed. The public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows.”
Oz is a celebrity. He’s an entertainer. He fits perfectly in Trump’s three-ring circus.
Axe to grind
To destroy the Department of Justice, Trump nominated Matt Gaetz* for the position of Attorney General (AG). The AG is the head of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States
Gaetz was a Florida congressman who was the subject of a years-long House investigation over sexual misconduct with a minor, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts, and seeking to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.
An earlier DOJ investigation into whether Gaetz and a political ally, Joel Greenberg, paid underage girls and escorts or offered them gifts in exchange for sex, did not lead to criminal prosecutions. This despite the fact that Greenberg entered into a plea deal in which he admitted that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men.
Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and other offences, including identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official.
Gaetz resigned from his position in Congress as soon as Trump tapped him as nominee to be AG. It now looks like the ethics panel report will not be released after all, despite having heard evidence from a victim who claims Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17, and having obtained records that show Gaetz paid over $10 000 to women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department.
Like Trump, one may suppose that Gaetz has an axe to grind against the Justice Department. Gaetz has claimed the department is “corrupt and highly political”, has promised to go after the “deep state”, and has suggested abolishing both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. (I’d agree with the latter, but not the former.)
Insiders have expressed “anxiety” and “dismay” at the nomination.
Some observers have speculated that America’s institutions are strong enough to survive a presidency by a convicted felon, would-be dictator and pathological liar. Trump’s appointment of Gaetz to dismantle a key institution suggests otherwise.
Russian asset
Next on the circus programme is Tulsi Gabbard, as Director of National Intelligence. Four years ago, Gabbard ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, but has swung hard right since.
She is controversial over a 2017 meeting with Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of both Russia and Iran, after which she claimed he was not an enemy of the US. She opposes Japan’s remilitarisation in response to the strategic threat posed by China, and has endorsed a number of Russia’s pretexts for its invasion of Ukraine.
“Good lord,” posted Phillips O’Brien, a historian and professor of strategic studies, “an outright Putin apologist is named to be head of US national intelligence.”
Economist Anders Åslund, a former economic advisor to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, replied: “Tulsi Gabbard appears a pure Russian asset. How can she become Director of US National Intelligence? How could she possibly pass a normal security clearance?”
In another post, Åslund said: “If Tulsi Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence, it would be better for US national security to close down all intelligence.”
Dave Troy, an investigative journalist at the Washington Spectator,with expertise on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, weighed in: “This is the reality. This can’t happen. The other Five Eyes countries [an intelligence alliance between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand], will cut us off. This is a decapitation strike.”
Craig Unger, journalist and best-selling author of books about 9/11, the Bush family and Trump’s relationship with Putin, wrote: “As of now, NATO is effectively over. Why would any of our allies share intelligence with us when the head of National Intelligence is effectively in bed with Putin.”
Insider threat
Pete Hegseth, who Trump tapped to be Secretary of Defence, is a political commentator for Fox News. He has a degree in politics and a master’s degree in public policy, and was a major in the Minnesota National Guard. He deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two medals.
While in the National Guard, he was flagged as a potential “insider threat” because of a tattoo on his arm that reads “Deus Vult”.
Deus vult is a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it”. It originates among Catholics in the First Crusade of 1096, and is today widely associated with alt-right, far right, white supremacist and Christian nationalist extremist groups. It represents a world view which seeks a clash of civilisations between the Christian and Muslim worlds.
Hegseth claims questioning the tattoo is simply a matter of prejudice against Christians.
He has also been under investigation for sexual assault, in which he offered the victim a financial settlement. No charges were brought because the victim who made the allegation was intoxicated and did not have a coherent recollection of the events. Hegseth denies the accusations.
Clown show
These are probably the worst of the clowns, but they’re not the only ones to line up in Trump’s clown show, alongside Elon Musk, who will get to make the agencies that regulate his companies “more efficient”, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the lawyer who thinks it is the government’s job to make everyone live healthy lifestyles and has harebrained ideas on how this can be achieved.
The Trump 2.0 administration will be the world’s grandest, largest, best amusement institution, to quote Barnum’s advertisements. As a columnist, I will find it marvellously entertaining to watch.
As someone who might be affected by US economic performance, foreign policy, or the collapse of its institutions, however, I can’t help but have a deep sense of foreboding about the future of America and the world.
* Postscript: Yesterday evening, after this column was filed, Matt Gaetz announced that he would withdraw his name from consideration for the post of Attorney General. One clown down, but no doubt there will be more to add in the coming days.
[Image: An advertising poster for Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, which pioneered the three-ring circus]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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