When the U.S. Senate caves, as I expect it will, to give President-elect Trump whatever nominations he wants, yet another new standard will be set. Or the bar will be lowered, if you prefer.
Trump administration picks have faced sexual misconduct allegations
Four picks for Donald Trump’s administration, Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk, have faced sexual misconduct allegations.
We can find a famous lesson for life in the gospel of Matthew that should sound familiar to you, known as the Golden Rule: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” I’ve learned this is a difficult lesson to teach and see consistently practiced between adolescent siblings. Unsurprisingly, this is also pretty difficult to practice as adults. Even if you’re not a believer, or reader of the Bible, the lesson is straightforward and good. Treat other people the way you’d want to be treated.
Why am I writing about the golden rule? Because our collective use of it is about to be tested mightily once again. To be specific, the Democrats’ collective use of it is about to be tested mightily. Donald Trump has won the election, and while there’s no such thing as a mandate — regardless of what the talking heads tell you on whatever screen you’re watching, a president-elect’s only mandate is his or her oath of office — he is engaging in the routine work of transition. A handful of his nominations, however, are anything but routine.
Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated to the fairly significant post of director of National Intelligence. She’s demonstrated a coziness and comfort with enemy nation dictators and shares Russian propaganda. I don’t know, maybe DNI isn’t the right spot for someone like that.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a liberal until a couple minutes ago, has been chosen to lead Health and Human Services, a tiny agency of government with a budget of approximately $1.844 trillion (the entire Department of Defense comes in at meager $842 billion, by comparison). Aside from his lack of executive experience, he’s no friend of vaccines, even the ones that have been around for many decades saving countless lives (and he’s no friend of bears, which should alone be disqualifying). I didn’t even mention the brain worm.
Newly former Congressman Matt Gaetz, a white nationalist sympathizer and accused sexual predator against whom a House committee investigative report, as of this writing, remains sealed from the public or even the senators who were weighing his confirmation to be U.S. attorney general, the nation’s highest ranking law enforcement official. Mercifully, the Gaetz nomination has been withdrawn. We aren’t so lucky with his pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who in addition to facing sexual misconduct allegations himself, is staggeringly unprepared to manage the entire armed forces. We’re even less lucky with his pick to be FBI director.
US Senate will cave to Trump’s cabinet picks
What does this have to do with Democrats, you may be asking? Well, when the U.S. Senate caves, as I expect it will, to give President-elect Trump whatever nominations he wants, yet another new standard will be set. Or the bar will be lowered, if you prefer. I was tempted to write a scathing rebuke of the spineless senators already declaring they’ll give the president-elect whatever he wants, completely abdicating their independent, constitutional duty of advice and consent.
I could write another piece on the constitutional dangers of Speaker Mike Johnson and Leader John Thune accommodating a slew of recess appointments, but I’ll point you instead to a recent episode of Advisory Opinions for that. No, the Senate die is likely already cast and too many of those serving have shown themselves cowards when it comes to acting as a constitutional guard rail against Trump.
The senators should read James Madison in Federalist 62: “The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions…. a body which is to correct this infirmity, ought itself to be free from it…”. So much for that. I just hope the filibuster holds. The silence of those clamoring for its elimination until the polls closed speaks volumes about where their priorities lie.
The temptation for retribution will be great for Democrats
No, I’m appealing primarily to the Democrats reading this: Don’t do it. When the pendulum inevitably swings back in Congress or the White House down the road, don’t use this nonsense to justify nonsense of your own. The temptation will be great. Already I suspect there are voices in the party at all levels calling for retribution in kind. Do not amplify those voices, and do not heed their counsel.
For people of all parties, the work of calming our neighbors and constituents, not to mention ourselves, from outrage and anger is difficult, made more so when we see an incoming administration or Congress take actions with which we so strongly disagree. But for the good of the nation, be the one to turn the temperature down first, in your words and deeds. Remember, in the heat of frustration or anger about what you’re witnessing, to do unto others as you’d have done to you.
Use civil outreach to your elected officials and use your voice at the ballot box when you disagree with policies and decisions, but always try to remember, before you pledge to repay norm-breaking conduct from the other side with norm-breaking conduct from yours, what it feels like when the shoe is on the other foot.
I would occasionally remind my caucus of this rule, whenever the temptation to proceed otherwise would creep up. I wasn’t always successful, but I kept trying. Collectively, we won’t always be successful either, but we must, for the sake of the nation’s moral fabric, keep trying.
Whitney Westerfield is an evangelical Christian, a three-term Republican state senator and attorney from Christian County. He and his wife live in Western Kentucky and have five children.
