Disfunción del gabinete

President-elect Donald Trump has quickly named most of his cabinet and White House staff. Instead of the supposedly qualified managers that Democrats claim they would have chosen to run the gigantic departments that make up the empire’s government and state bureaucracy, Trump has chosen a nasty and incompetent collection of inane monsters.

Their common characteristic is that they cater to Trump, or at least they have recently. Those who criticised him after the attempted coup d’état of 6 January 2021 have adapted to the new reality. They are all enemies of the multinational working class. Together they bring so many contradictions to the new administration that late-night comedians joke about who Trump will fire first.

Instead of dwelling on the nightmares behind the jokes, Mundo Obrero suggests that the anti-imperialist movement study the weaknesses of each of the appointees. Especially what their personalities reveal about the current weakness of U.S. imperialism. And that we act on every opening that allows us to mobilize resistance.

Battles can open up if these appointments are approved, battles within their departments, and battles with the new president. Consider two of Trump’s most notorious appointments: Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Hegseth is a former Army National Guard captain who has been a weekend host on “FOX and Friends.” He once urged Trump to pardon three U.S. soldiers who committed war crimes by murdering Iraqi civilians. He attacks some of America’s top generals for being too “woke” and said that Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. got his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff only because he is black.

Generals may not like taking orders from a CEO of industry; They hate taking orders from a captain. Pay close attention to any outbreaks of conflict between this captain and his senior officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And be prepared to mobilize against both sides.

Kennedy’s greatest reputation, besides his family history, is that of a vaccine denier, a skeptic of science and a threat to the already weak American public health system. Kennedy also opposes the food industry’s practice of producing super-processed snacks.

If RFK Jr really tries to carry out his ideas, it will put him in conflict with the pharmaceutical industry. During the Covid-19 crisis, the first Trump administration subsidized the research of pharmaceutical companies, and they flourished. Kennedy will also take on food producers and their processed snacks. This could also lead to an opening of struggle – or Trump could simply fire Kennedy.

Then there’s Elon Musk, who bought his way into Trump’s inner circle. Trump has created a position in the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency” for Musk, currently the richest person in the world.

Musk has reportedly been hanging out at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat with the president-elect. Together with pharmaceutical capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy, himself a billionaire, Musk will recommend cutting government programs they deem unnecessary; It’s easy to imagine which ones.

One wonders, however, how long a society of mutual admiration can last between individuals who each believe themselves to be the greatest. We will see.

Unfortunately, we can’t make plans for this collection of scoundrels to self-destruct. We have to be prepared to mobilize wherever we can to expose their policies and those of the new administration.

But if the new administration unleashes a wave of infighting in the ruling class, we must also be prepared to find a way to use their mutual attacks to build a mass struggle against both sides. And we must mobilize this struggle by maintaining the political and organizational independence of the two factions of the ruling class – MAGA or neoconservative establishment, Republican or Democrat. It will not be easy, but it is possible.