As news-and-information comes out describing the Cabinet choices of President-Elect Trump, the reflections in my mind travel back and forth between two, or maybe three theories....
1. Maybe this person (latest Cabinet appointee) only doesn't seem like they would be very good for that job, in fact Opposite; but maybe -- maybe there's benefit and good sense to this appointment that I'm just not seeing, yet...
Or
2. Mr. Trump never wanted the job of President (my original theory), and never thought he would win.
He was a "Trojan horse" for Mrs. Clinton, snatching away the Republican nomination and then purposely acting so outrageously that Hillary would surely have to win (...went the plan...).
Now he's expressing, with rather outrageous choices for Cabinet posts, his unwillingness to do the job. ("Someone get me out of this, please! This isn't the way it was supposed to go!")
Or
3. Mr. Trump is crazy
And I don't mean #3 in a mean way. Am just wondering...
One Reader Comemnting on the NY Times' Puzder article today said he thinks Trump is just sitting back and letting Vice President-Elect Mike Pence select these people. (And -- What is a Mike Pence?)
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(Reader Comments, New York Times)
Chevalier O'Keefe Connecticut
Yet again Trump outdoes Orwell. The Department of Labor is anti-labor, the Environmental Protection Agency is anti-environment, the Department of Education is against public education...
Montreal
...like something out of a bad novel.
Andy Sandfoss Cincinnati, Ohio
This is a joke, right? You guys found this in the Onion and decided to post it here. It has to be.
Nothing could be more stereotypically Republican than having a fast food CEO run the Labor Department. Nothing could so clearly show the utter contempt that [swine] trump and his crew have for real American workers.
Virginia
Yup, another cabinet member who is really going to help out those blue collar workers in the upper Midwest who voted for Trump. Let the good times roll.
Observer New York
I thought it was going to be bad with Trump. I was wrong. It's going to be worse.
Julie
Populist talk, corporate capitalist walk.
KimMarie Minneapolis
Buyers remorse for all those minimum wage Trump voters? Seems like it's about to get a lot worse for all the "little guys" trying to earn a living wage. But wait - Trump was going to help those guys, right?
Deb Connecticut
For reference (from Robert Reich) Last year, Puzder made more in one day ($17,192) than his typical full-time minimum wage worker made all year ($15,130).
At that rate his employees can't even afford to eat at one of his awful fast food joints---
And another note, the Mission of the Department of Labor:
To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States;
improve working conditions;
advance opportunities for profitable employment;
and assure work-related benefits and rights.
Trump is appointing heads of agencies that seem to have one purpose--to invalidate the purpose of the agency.
Coyotefred Great American Desert
EPA = anti-EPA
Housing = anti-Housing
Labor = anti-Labor
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all.'
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Gillian-b40 NY
Here he goes again ... putting another fox in charge of another hen house! Just what the department needs ... a "boss" who has never been -- or seen -- a working-class person. So typical. Sad ... and nasty.
MC California
Let's just hope that the Country is strong enough to survive the damage done to our social, environmental, civil and even moral fabric in the next 4 years.
Reject, Stall and Resist.
New Jersey
This guy would like to eliminate the minimum wage along with overtime. We tax payers foot the bill for his workers' Medicaid, food stamps and section 8 subsidies while he pays a lower tax rate than I do and takes home 300 times what I earn
He is not a job creator but a slaver
How again is Donald trump our voice?
JerryV NYC
I don't agree with Mr. Trump but I admire his consistencies. I understand that Dracula had been on the short list for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
MRO New York, N.Y.
So let's see -- Trump gets to continue making millions of dollars for his companies using the office of the president as leverage, but people who make minimum wage can't get an increase.
So as a result they have to go on public assistance in order to provide for themselves and their children, and we all pay for that. Is this really what the people who voted for Trump wanted to buy? ...
I feel that with these new appointments something has changed. It's no longer Trump taking shots in the dark, choosing these people because he doesn't know any better. It now feels malicious to me, like he's telling us just go to hell!
Richard Schumacher U.S.
Maybe Trump really is a Democrat mole; maybe his agenda is to thoroughly rub our noses in all of the foulness which is modern Republican conservatism to teach us a lesson we'll never forget. Or maybe he's just nuts.
L S Herman Massachusetts
Reverse is the direction we are heading.
Safety, health, equitable treatment, environmental protections, the right to choose, good foreign relations, laudable public education...Backing away from PROGRESS
G.I. Los Angeles
There is something very sinister going on with Trump.
His cabinet picks are scary. There are three billionaires, three generals, and three horrible and illogical choices, especially the last two -- the latter, who is against the minimum wage, and the other who is anti environment.
And then there is Dr. Carson in charge of HUD.
I may sound paranoid but it seems as if Trump and Bannon are trying to change the presidency into a Trumpocracy.
And even more egregious is that he has the gall to act like he's doing the country a big favor.
He needs to be stopped....He acts as if he has carte blanche to do what he wants.
He's like that character in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. "Income taxes? I don't have to show no stinkin' income taxes!"...
["Badges? Badges?! We don't need no stinkin' badges!"]
... His racist, misogynistic, and offensive Twitter remarks are not the demeanor of a president....Something is rotten in Trump Towers.
R Mandl Canoga Park, California
I can't help noticing one common denominator to everyone from Trump on down in the imminent administration: Not one of them is happy.
Trump appoints people who hate the departments they're supposed to invigorate and protect. They never laugh, they show no joy.
They are motivated by fear.
They have everything, yet they are grateful for nothing. They are not happy people. They are bitter, resentful, and humorless, every one of them.
It makes me think of a line from "The American President": "How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can't stand Americans?"
New Jersey
Trump seems to have a consistent philosophy, put multiple foxes into multiple hen houses and enjoy the carnage.
How many Trojan Horse Cabinet officers can he put into agencies that they will eventually decimate.
All those blue collar workers in the Mid west who placed their futures and confidence in Trump are now watching a rogues gallery of CEOs who made fortunes off their backs during the last decades now swoop in on Trump's plane to administer the crippling or killing blow to unions.
Wall Street has been celebrating with a large rally.
The wolves are howling.
Barbarians are no longer at the gate they have broken through and now sit at the citadels of power.
And blue collar guys at Christmas dream of jobs that will not return and 1K tax breaks....Trump is the pied piper who is leading them with their eyes wide open into the machinery that will crush them.
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One thought I have: the one Comment that says, "He acts as if he has carte blanche to do what he wants" -- personally, I'm further confused and mystified because I honestly do not think Mr. Trump knows what he wants...I don't know that he "wants" anything. Least of all the job we seem to have bestowed on him...
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