The new Know Nothing Party

In my view, perhaps the most underreported aspect of Trump 2 is the sheer incompetence of his appointees. Yes - it’s been reported, but it is actually the defining feature of his Administration. But, of course, this is what autocrats want. As Hannah Arendt wrote, “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Paul Krugman put it perfectly: “Let me call this Arendt’s Law: Totalitarian and wannabe totalitarian regimes only hire incompetent hacks.” Actually, it’s worth reading his whole column on this subject.

A few examples:

• RFK, Jr. at HHS. A quack and anti-vaxx nut with absolutely zero medical qualifications

• Linda McMahon at Dept. of Education. Her strongest “qualification” is the spouse of the Founder and CEO of the WWE

• Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at the FBI. Absolutely zero managerial or true law enforcement oversight experience (yes, Bongino was a Secret Service Agent) other than promoting insane conspiracy theories

• Pete Hegseth at Defense. His best “qualification” was being a Fox News Talking Head (forget about the fact he’s an accused sexual molester and alcoholic)

So many more…

Enter E.J. Antoni, Trump’s new nominee for the Director of the BLS (Bureau of Labor Standards). you may recall Trump fired the last Director after he didn’t like the most recent job numbers release.

If you wanted to hire an inept and unqualified economist to be part of the New Know Nothing Party, he’s your guy. Antoni comes from the Heritage Foundation, is a strong supporter of Project 2025 and even wants to get rid of Social Security. He’s so unqualified even the notoriously conservative (can you say “reactionary”) WSJ Opinion Page believes he’s too partisan and implied he is unqualified.

We know that Republican Senators are political cowards, but there’s still time to contact them to let them know there are many conservative economists qualified to head BLS.

But, of course, Trump doesn’t want that. He wants his own numbers.

So, let’s start calling Republicans what/who they really are: The New Know Nothing Party.