By Ben Steutermann
On the day of the inauguration, I was talking with a Political Science major friend about President Donald Trump and his cabinet picks. He expressed disdain that President Trump was picking people that only fell within his “far right ideology,” and that he thought America was a land of “Diversity of opinion.” Now the second point is surely true, as the University of Louisville and other higher education institutions welcome groups of diverse thoughts from Democratic Socialists of America to Charlie Kirk and TPUSA.
What stuck with me, however, was that he accused the newly elected president of some sort of malpractice. That Donald Trump, by picking those ideologically aligned with him like Tom Homan and Kristi Noam, was committing some sort of foul. Let us not lie to ourselves that had Kamala Harris won the election, she would have picked Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense out of some spirit of ideological diversity. It’s an argument that makes no sense. No president leading in the modern day would pick someone that will fight them every step of the way. It’s akin to stepping on a nail before running a marathon.
Let’s say that you are leading the group work on a final project for a class. You pick your group members, four fellow students, and get to work. Two of them are fine. They listen to your ideas, they do what you ask, and they deliver what you need. But John, he never wants to do the work. He shows up to meetings late and he only works in half measures. And Kristen, she has a totally different idea of what the project should be in the first place. In the end, the project is not as successful as it could be.
Now let’s pretend you get a second shot. Your professor lets you start over from scratch. Would you still pick John and Kristen? Of course not. You’re not an idiot, and neither is the 47th president, who is in essence doing the same exact thing. It is not an evil act to work with your allies towards a common goal. Trump is not some sort of modern-day Hitler enacting his own Night of the Long Knives. It is well-known that Trump’s 2016 cabinet did not play ball with him, taking advantage of his infancy in politics. Now, with a full term and four years of strategy on his side, he has picked his friends and allies much more carefully, just as you did in your project.
As someone who pays attention to politics, after the president’s inauguration, I expect him to hit the ground running. He has promised over and over to close the border, begin deportations of illegal immigrants, and strengthen the American economy. These were all things he promised in 2016 to varying success, but the difference is that this time he has the political know-how to find and support his allies and the majority of the American people asking him to get it done.