The Week

• Just wait until Hulk Hogan is dispatched to do the whip counts.

• The election results were an extraordinary personal and political vindication for Donald Trump, who overcame his election loss in 2020, his disgraceful conduct in the aftermath, a concerted effort to prosecute him into political oblivion, and unremittingly hostile press coverage. Trump swept the key battleground states and is well positioned to win the popular vote, an achievement that eluded him in 2016. This time, his coalition was broader and more diverse. The necessary predicate of this achievement was the failure of the Biden presidency and the lunacy of contemporary progressivism, as well as the manifest inadequacies of the incumbent’s emergency replacement as nominee, Kamala Harris. Given his remarkable comeback, Trump will surely be even less inclined to heed advice, but he should realize that he still isn’t personally popular and his victory was largely a repudiation of the Democrats. When on his best behavior during the campaign, Trump said that success as president would be the best revenge. The country, and his administration, would be best served if he makes that his rule for the next four years.

• The Constitution gives the president nearly unfettered power to appoint whomever he chooses to the executive branch. Once in office, those appointees are duty-bound to follow every presidential directive within the law. Presidents may fire them at will. Unless Congress abolishes their positions, the only practical check on presidential control of senior executive-branch officers is that the advice and consent of the Senate is required to confirm appointees. As Alexander Hamilton observed, the power to refuse confirmation should be used sparingly but would “prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.” But Congress, before the advent of air travel, often took long recesses between sessions. To prevent the executive branch from being understaffed, presidents may make temporary recess appointments. Presidents have sometimes used them to break deadlocks with the Senate, but Trump is demanding something wholly new: that the Senate put itself into recess rather than meaningfully evaluate his initial cabinet choices. He is also threatening to use a never-unsheathed power to declare the Senate in recess against its will. This is, at best, an affront to the Constitution and, at worst, downright illegal. It is also unnecessary for all but a few of Trump’s choices, and likely to put many key decisions under self-inflicted legal challenge. The Senate should resist.

• Republicans elected Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who began his Senate career by unseating then–majority leader Tom Daschle, as their next majority leader. It was no great surprise. Trump allies promoted Rick Scott of Florida as a supposed antiestablishment alternative and a break from the stewardship of longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, but Scott got only 13 votes on the first ballot. Thune, McConnell’s longtime deputy, then edged out Senator John Cornyn, 29–24. Thune will have some big shoes to fill after McConnell’s historic run as leader. He has promised a more open process than McConnell ran. On the policy agenda, there is little daylight between Thune and the returning president, although tensions will remain over Ukraine aid and tariffs. In remarks after his victory, Thune emphasized the need to support Trump agenda items such as economic deregulation, achieving “energy dominance,” and providing the tools necessary to secure the border. Reassuringly to constitutionalists, Thune emphasized the Senate’s independence. He said there would be no changes to filibuster rules and did not endorse the recess gambit. We wish him the best.

• Matt Gaetz is an egregiously bad choice to be the next attorney general. Gaetz has no relevant experience. Fresh out of law school, he worked at a small Florida firm before diving into electoral politics. He has barely practiced law and has never been a prosecutor at the state or federal level. He has never managed anything bigger than his House office. The same day his nomination was announced, Gaetz resigned from the House to, apparently, force the shutdown of an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, obstruction, and other unsavory conduct — misconduct allegations over which Gaetz narrowly escaped being indicted by the same Justice Department Trump would have him lead. Obnoxious and snide, he’s detested by his colleagues on both right and left, and he was the architect of the asinine maneuver that pushed out Kevin McCarthy as House speaker without any replacement in mind; the House stumbled around for three weeks until Mike Johnson was selected as a replacement. The only asset that Gaetz can bring to the table is blind loyalty to Donald Trump — and that isn’t an asset. Trump should withdraw the nomination — and Gaetz himself should withdraw if he wants to avoid an intense public examination of the subject matter of the ethics investigation. Otherwise, the Senate must do its constitutional duty and deny consent to an unworthy nominee.

• The Senate should also reject the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Conservatives did not elect a Republican president and Senate to put a progressive in charge of the largest department in the federal government, with more than one out of every four dollars — including those tied to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — in the budget flowing through its doors. Nor did Republicans vote for the department to be run by a man who supports abortion at any point in pregnancy, without limits, and who in 2023 said, “My highest ambition would be to have a single-payer program.” Kennedy is perhaps best known for his often erroneous and batty demonization of vaccinations — not just the Covid vaccine but those for measles, mumps, and rubella — and for his insistence that fluoride in drinking water causes cancer, IQ loss, and thyroid disease. He is likely the first nominee to the position of HHS secretary who helped cause an overseas measles outbreak. He wants Trump to declare, on Day One, “a national emergency, but not for infectious disease, but for chronic disease,” to expand his authorities as secretary. On top of all that, Kennedy’s life in recent years has been a cross between Wild Kingdom and a David Lynch movie — the brain worm, dumping the baby bear carcass in Central Park, the alleged beheading of a whale carcass. He’s a walking overflowing fountain of weirdness with no proven capacity to manage a large organization, much less wrangle a stubborn federal bureaucracy.

• Tulsi Gabbard was a member of Congress, a Democrat, from 2013 to 2021. She distinguished herself by sympathy for two dictators: Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. In 2017, she met with Assad in Syria, promoting his version of events over that of the United States. When Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gabbard said that the U.S. had failed to acknowledge his “legitimate security concerns.” Later in the year, she left the Democratic Party, saying that it was “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers.” She joined the Republican Party in 2024, campaigning alongside Trump. She favors pardons for Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. She is the toast of Russia’s state media. It would be hard to imagine a worse choice for director of national intelligence — but she is Trump’s. The Senate should reject her soundly.

• Pete Hegseth is Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of defense. He is an outside-the-box pick. At 44, he would be the youngest defense secretary since Don Rumsfeld’s first tenure during the Ford administration. Hegseth is long on military service, having deployed with the National Guard to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He was awarded two Bronze Stars. He has two Ivy League degrees and has worked on Wall Street, headed veterans’ groups, and hosted Fox & Friends. He is a critic of the military brass, wanting to ditch woke identity politics and to revive recruitment. Many of the criticisms of Hegseth exemplify the problem: His Jerusalem cross tattoo led media voices and some in the Guard to absurdly brand him a white nationalist. But Hegseth is short on executive experience, an odd thing for Trump not to value but nonetheless lacking in several of his cabinet choices. The Pentagon’s legendary bureaucracy is hard to tame even for the most seasoned executive. Hegseth’s personal life is also not sterling, including a record of serial divorce and extramarital dalliance. The Senate should give Hegseth the benefit of doubts, but his nomination is worthy of a careful look first.

• “If Donald Trump says tariffs work, tariffs work. Period. Because Donald Trump is really never wrong.” So said Troy Nehls, a Republican congressman from Texas. He further said, “If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. That’s it.” The congressman’s remarks should leave a person scratching his head. Party unity can be good and helpful — it can also be imbecilic and embarrassing.

• As we go to press, there are reports that Judge Juan Merchan has postponed Trump’s sentencing sine die. This means that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has not reached a final conclusion about whether to go forward with the prosecution — which means, in turn, that Merchan is not yet in a position to rule on Trump’s post-trial motion to vacate the jury’s guilty verdicts. Trump’s motion is largely based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling back in July. That ruling unraveled Biden-Harris special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution of Trump for misconduct after the 2020 election. A court later dismissed Smith’s Mar-a-Lago documents indictment against the president-elect based on the finding that his special-counsel appointment violated the Constitution. The immunity ruling would also likely prove a wrecking ball against the Georgia election-interference case brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis — except the courts can’t even reach that question until they resolve the motions to disqualify her after a scandal that has already forced the disqualification of the lead prosecutor, with whom she was having an affair. Trump has been fortunate in the sweep of the Supreme Court’s decision, but perhaps even more fortunate in the Democratic prosecutors aligned against him.

• There he is, revolutionizing electric cars. No, wait: Now he’s buying Twitter. Try to keep up: He’s launching rockets into space and then directing them to land on a platform. Now he’s creating robots . . . er, improving brain function with technology . . . er, now he endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign . . . er, now he’s in charge of a government agency tasked with improving the federal government’s efficiency? Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is certainly keeping himself busy. Like many of his type, he is both frenetic and eccentric, tending to a variety of pursuits even as he frequently indulges odd hobbies and dives down questionable rabbit holes. Reclusive billionaire, he is not: Over the past year he has become a public and a downright political figure, leading to predictable realignments in his fandom. In his business life, Musk has done a lot of good. Impressive and ubiquitous as he is, he is only human, and should be judged accordingly. He should also remember Mars.

• Trump has announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, which, notwithstanding its name, will not be a government entity but rather an outside advisory group to study the bureaucracy. We welcome the elevation of government waste and poor service to a more prominent place in the national discourse. It harks back to the Grace Commission under President Reagan, when a lengthy report detailing government failures was compiled and published, an idea Reagan first implemented as governor of California. Most of the Grace Commission’s recommendations were, however, ignored. It does not appear that the DOGE’s recommendations will be any more binding. DOGE leaders Musk (the name is a reference to dogecoin, his favorite cryptocurrency) and Vivek Ramaswamy are tweeting up a storm, but it will take more than tweets to disentangle the government-employee unions, territorial politicians, and regulatory superstructure that have made the bureaucracy the sprawling mess that it is.

• A lot of people wasted a lot of breath about how vote tallies on Election Night showed (for Democrat conspiracists) that something was fishy about Trump’s win or (for Republican ones) that Biden had stolen the 2020 election. In both cases, the supposed evidence was that Harris 2024 had fallen so far short of the vote total for Biden 2020. The apparent discrepancy was largely due to the fact that California, where lots of voters live, had hardly reported any of its votes at that point. Now that more votes are in, the difference looks like an ordinary shift in the electorate, which is what this election was. The math-challenged Republicans do not have any plausible theory for how the Democrats, while not holding the White House, stole an election and then, while holding it, lost every battleground state. The simplest explanation for the available evidence? Biden won in 2020 and Trump won in 2024.

• Bob Casey and the Democrats, however, are trying to steal one election. As of this writing, according to the state website, Republican Dave McCormick has 3,385,445 votes and incumbent Democratic senator Bob Casey has 3,373,748. That is a margin of 16,610 votes. Back on November 1, the Pennsylvania supreme court reaffirmed that a state law requiring mail ballots to have handwritten dates on the return envelopes is constitutional. But four counties in Pennsylvania — Bucks, Philadelphia, Centre, and Montgomery — have declared they’re going to count those ballots anyway, in open defiance of the law. And they’re not shy about it; Neil Makhija, the Democratic chairman of the Montgomery County election board, told the New York Times that the date requirement “is immaterial and serves no purpose.” That’s not his call. In a tantrum, Bucks County commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia absurdly contended, “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws any time they want.” She also serves on the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and in her limited defense “on” does not mean “against.”

• CNN’s exit polls suggest that immigration was a more powerful issue than abortion: Roughly as many people rated each issue as the most decisive one, and those who voted on immigration were more lopsided in Trump’s favor than the abortion voters were in Harris’s. (The AP Votecast poll found nearly twice as many voters listing immigration as their top issue.) Some analysts are touting the fact that voters split 56–40 percent in favor of letting most illegal immigrants apply for legal status rather than be deported — and Republicans should indeed be mindful of that fact even as they ramp up enforcement of immigration laws. In 2016, however, the split was 70 to 25 in favor of legal status. And the pro-deportation camp this time was not only larger but a bit more pro-Trump. Among Biden’s inadvertent accomplishments has been to make the public much more hawkish on immigration.

• In 2014, Californians voted to downgrade many felonies to misdemeanors. An initiative to partially reverse that outcome just passed the state handily; at press time, it appears to have carried every county. Los Angeles voted out its progressive prosecutor. The San Francisco mayor lost reelection and the Oakland mayor was ousted in a recall vote, with crime and disorder a top issue in each city. It is vital to ensure that crime doesn’t pay — and the first step is to make clear that it doesn’t win votes, either.

• Election Day was not a great day for pro-lifers, but it at least halted the unbroken string of referendum defeats since Dobbs. Pro-abortion referenda won in Missouri, Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, Maryland, and New York, but lost in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The results differed by the language of the amendments and by the voting rules. In Florida, for example, there was 57 percent support, but 60 percent was needed to pass the amendment. In South Dakota, pro-abortion groups refused to support the proposal because it contained some limits on late-term abortions. Michigan, where Democrats swept the state in 2022 on a pro-abortion platform, saw Republicans retake the state house. That should end Democratic thinking about abortion as a magic wand to summon armies of new female voters from the hills. Exit polls showed that moderately pro-choice voters swung heavily toward Trump compared with 2020, before Dobbs. Trump may have retreated on life issues and nominated a pro-choice head of HHS, but at least his administration won’t interfere directly with pro-life states enforcing their own laws.

• Few Democratic elected officials seem to have internalized the memo that voters sent the party in power on November 5 the way Massachusetts representative Seth Moulton has. He tried to slough off some of the rarefied linguistic and cultural conceits the academy had imposed on the Democratic Party. “I have two little girls,” he said. “I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” That banal restatement of a majority proposition set off a firestorm among far-left Bay Staters. The mayor of Salem, a town in Moulton’s district, joined the Salem School Committee in denouncing the congressman’s remarks, which “do not reflect our values.” Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman Steve Kerrigan insisted that Moulton’s remarks “do not represent the broad view of our party.” A top aide to the congressman, who previously denounced American voters for showing that they “hate immigrants and transgender people more than they fear fascism,” resigned abruptly. But Moulton has not backpedaled. If Democrats are going to repair the divide their novel cultural antagonism has opened up, they will have to stop pretending to be scandalized by the biological realities Moulton highlighted.

• In February, Jackson Green and Donald Zepeda defaced the display cases for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution at the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. The vandals coated the cases in powdered red paint, supposedly to protest climate change. Both had been involved in previous climate-related disturbances, Green at the National Gallery of Art, Zepeda blocking a roadway. They were initially charged with misdemeanors. After the intervention of archivist Colleen Shogan, the DOJ raised the charges to felonies. Then, at Green’s sentencing, Shogan gave a statement in person to the federal court, calling for the maximum sentence, which is ten years. “These attacks on museums, and the unique treasures of our cultural history that we hold in trust for the nation, are not low-level, inconsequential, or victimless crimes,” she said. “Sending a strong message to clearly establish the significance of these crimes and deter future attacks is essential, not only for the National Archives, but for all cultural institutions across the country.” Green was sentenced to 18 months and Zepeda to 24 months, and both were ordered to pay restitution to the National Archives for the full cost of the damage, over $50,000. Though not the maximum, the penalties should deter any future attacks on the National Archives. Shogan’s commitment to her duty to protect our nation’s history is one of the more admirable acts by a public servant in recent memory.

• Democrats passed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act without a single Republican vote through budget reconciliation. Republicans can repeal it without a single Democratic vote through budget reconciliation. And they should. The law expanded the IRS, implemented drug price controls that have slowed innovation, raised prices and reduced options for Medicare Part D, and created an entire new subsector of the economy based on government handouts for green energy. Democrats passed it based on lies: first, that it was about reducing inflation, and second, that it would reduce the deficit. It never had anything to do with inflation, and the Biden administration has interpreted parts of the law such that it will cost more than three times what Democrats promised when it was passed. While Republicans need to keep taxes low, they also need to cut spending. Because most of the IRA money hasn’t gone out yet, repealing it now would enable Republicans to rack up “savings” for budget-scoring purposes without actually having to take stuff away from people — baby steps! — and it would prevent a bevy of future Solyndras. Think of it as a Biden Legacy Reduction Act.

• Ukraine was supposed to fall to Russia in a few days. It has now been a thousand days. Ukraine is still standing — still free and independent — but battered. Recently, Russia has targeted civilians in Sumy and elsewhere. The body count rises. Russia has also attacked Ukraine’s electrical grid, as winter approaches. War crime after war crime. Additional North Korean troops have joined Russians in trying to conquer Ukraine. The United States is scrambling to send aid. Said Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, “President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20.” Also, very late, Biden has authorized Ukraine to use American-supplied weapons to strike certain targets in Russia — launch sites — before the Russians can fire their missiles at Ukraine. Donald Trump Jr. responded: “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives. Gotta lock in those $Trillions. Life be damned!!! Imbeciles!” The peacenik tropes may have moved from left to right, but they remain as dumb as ever.

• They were “terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom,” said Deborah Lipstadt, the historian who has been President Biden’s envoy on the topic of antisemitism. What was she talking about? The attacks on Israelis and Dutch Jews in Amsterdam at the time of a soccer match. The attackers were engaged in what some of them called, frankly, a “Jew hunt.” The hunters were young men of Middle Eastern origin. In the mayhem, no one was killed, but dozens were injured, five of them hospitalized. Dutch police arrested more than 60. In a phone call to Israeli president Isaac Herzog, King Willem-Alexander said, “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.” There was something noble — positively royal — about that acknowledgment. Eternal vigilance is wearying. There is also no substitute for it.

• In a speech to the Knesset, Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that a “specific component” of Iran’s nuclear program was hit as part of Israel’s October 26 air strikes, which were launched in retaliation for Tehran’s October 1 ballistic-missile attack on Israel. It had been widely reported throughout October that the Biden administration was pressuring Netanyahu to avoid Iran’s nuclear sites or its oil infrastructure. When the counter-strike finally came, it at first appeared that Jerusalem had indeed limited its operation to Iranian air defenses and missile-production facilities. But U.S. officials later revealed that a top-secret nuclear-research facility at Parchin had been targeted and destroyed. The site, known as “Taleghan 2,” was not part of Iran’s declared “civilian use” nuclear program. The mullahs and their henchmen have been so far reluctant to acknowledge the strikes and their significance, because it would reveal that they had been violating Tehran’s commitments, such as they are, to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi insisted in a statement that “Iran is not after nuclear weapons, period,” and the Israelis seem determined to help it keep this resolution.

• Masih Alinejad is a journalist and human-rights activist from Iran. She has lived in America since 2014 and is a U.S. citizen. She is a brave, irrepressible woman, who often has to live in safehouses. National Review published a profile of her by Jay Nordlinger in 2021. The Department of Justice has revealed a murder plot against her by the Iranian regime — another one. This is the third such plot in three years. Our government ought to do all it can to protect such people as Alinejad, and should be applauded, and thanked, for doing so. And Iran’s dictatorship, which has been a curse on Iran and the entire world for 45 years, cannot fall too soon.

• The eight bronze bells in the northern belfry of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris tolled in unison on November 8, for the first time since the fire that tore through the most iconic specimen of Gothic architecture left it half in ruins in 2019. The peal was a proclamation: Nous revivons! “We all felt an intense emotion,” said Guillaume Normand, the cathedral’s vice rector. “Notre-Dame is telling us: ‘I’m here, waiting for you.’” The “signal of joy,” as he called it, was also a throat-clearing before Notre-Dame officially reopens to the public on December 8 — in the Catholic calendar, a holiday in honor of the lady who lends her name to the magnificent building. Merci to the French people and government for rolling up their sleeves after the catastrophic fire and restoring not only for themselves but for the world a monument to faith, a symbol of French culture, and an irreplaceable work of inspired beauty.

• Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, 58, fought Jake Paul, an influencer three decades his junior. It was a stunt for a payday, like some of the late antics of Muhammad Ali. Beforehand, Tyson gave an interview to a 14-year-old journalist, Jazlyn Guerra. After saying what a thrill it was for her generation to see him in the ring, Guerra asked Tyson what he hoped his legacy would be. “I don’t believe in the word ‘legacy,’” said the champ. “I’m just passing through. I’m gonna die and it’s gonna be over. . . . We’re just dead. We’re dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.” “Well, thank you so much for sharing that,” said the cub reporter, gamely. Tyson expressed a long-held view: that of Epicurus. It is half the Christian view: ashes to ashes and dust to dust, as the burial service has it, though Christians also look forward to a resurrection. But even the unbeliever, with children, wishes to leave something good for the next generation. The generous man would wish it for friends and neighbors. Tyson came from nothing, briefly ruled the world, crashed, and then read and thought. May he, and we, continue on that path.

• Ted Olson had a monumental career in the conservative legal movement, serving as solicitor general, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Federalist Society organizer, and appellate advocate in private practice, arguing dozens of Supreme Court cases. He was at the center of a great many storms, winning respect for his legal acumen, his devotion to the separation of powers, his courage, and his gentlemanliness. Held in contempt for resisting a Reagan-era independent counsel, he challenged the statute in Morrison v. Olson, even when only Justice Antonin Scalia saw things his way; Congress later saw the wisdom of his case and let the authorizing law lapse. He led George W. Bush’s legal team in Bush v. Gore. He agonized over the phone with his wife Barbara as her doomed plane headed to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Out of government, he argued and won Citizens United, limiting a statute he had felt compelled to defend as solicitor general. He fought for school choice and against racial preferences, and was formidable even when on the wrong side, as in his battles for same-sex marriage as a constitutional entitlement and for upholding the executive amnesty for illegal immigrants who came here as minors. Dead at 84. R.I.P.

• Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in 1933 on the South Side of Chicago. His home life was chaotic, to put it mildly. He had a lot to rise above. He found music, and knew that this was to be his career. Eventually, he studied with Nadia Boulanger, the great French teacher of composition. He was a trumpeter, a composer, an arranger, a producer. He produced Thriller, the Michael Jackson album, the best-selling album of all time. He collaborated with nearly everyone you have ever heard of in the jazz and pop worlds: Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra. . . . He wrote film scores (In Cold Blood, for example, and The Color Purple). He wrote the theme music for Sanford and Son, the classic sitcom: “The Streetbeater,” that piece is called. Awards are not necessarily a measure of ability, but he won 28 Grammys and was nominated for 80. The amazing Quincy Jones has died at 91. R.I.P.

Politics

Trump Triumphant

Donald Trump joins Grover Cleveland as a won/lost/won president. That is their only resemblance: Cleveland was serious, honest, and dull. We will have four more years to reacquaint ourselves with the differences.

The victory of Trump and enough Republicans to keep the House and retake the Senate was in large part a repudiation of Democratic and, especially, progressive misgovernance. Lefty mayors and DAs fell even in deep-blue constituencies (unsurprisingly, considering the damage they had wrought there). The Biden-Harris administration came into the race limping from three-plus years of inflation, a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Hurricane Helene of illegal immigration, and the taint of woke craziness. Scranton Joe did not cross-dress and steal luggage, but an official in his Office of Nuclear Energy did.

Trump benefited from these debacles thanks to four years of normalization. His grotesque and illegal efforts to deny and undo his 2020 loss faded, thanks to time, and to his own and his followers’ resolute lying. A blizzard of prosecutions, partly justified but mostly ginned up by partisan actors, allowed him to play the victim. He drew, finally, on his media savvy and showmanship. The man who, over the years, mastered gossip columns, reality TV, and Twitter before it was X, added podcasts to his repertoire, guided, it is said, by the advice of his smart son, 18-year-old Barron. His campaign stunts, serving McDonald’s burgers and riding shotgun in a garbage truck, join the pantheon of political hokum alongside log cabins and hard cider. Demagogues use such tricks; so do great men (Lincoln the Railsplitter).

The lesson Trump seems to have taken from his career path so far is that his first administration was not Trumpy enough. He was bound, he believes, by enemies, or by normies who for all their loyalty did not get his freewheeling ways. His personnel choices seem designed to avoid this.

Elon Musk, genius and weirdo, has been given a Department of Government Efficiency — essentially a blue-ribbon commission. (How will the romance between his ego and Trump’s play out? Or, for that matter, his and fellow commission leader Vivek Ramaswamy’s?) Marco Rubio at State will be capable, if compliant. Doug Burgum at Interior will be the plumber, there to keep the oil flowing. The continental shelf falls off from there. Pete Hegseth, prospective secretary of defense, was a pom-pom girl for the “stop the steal” rally on January 6, and for the rioters afterwards. He paid a settlement to a woman who accused him of assault between wives 2 and 3 (John Tower, call your office). Tulsi Gabbard (director of national intelligence) would be a better DNI for Syria. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (HHS) is a health crank being rewarded for his endorsement. He opposes vaccines (when being cautious he says he wants them thoroughly tested) and thinks chemicals in the water may be stunting the sexuality of children (the Fifties called, the Birchers want their slogans back). Matt Gaetz (AG) is an aggressive congressional questioner and a loathsome human being. Trump’s second-term picks recapitulate Steve Bannon and Omarosa Manigault, at a higher level of notoriety.

The obstacle for such nominations should be the Senate. The Senate GOP showed a twitch of independence by tapping John Thune of South Dakota to be majority leader, over Trump’s online influencers’ lobbying for Rick Scott of Florida. Fifteen Republican senators have terms that extend after Trump leaves town. The rest must cling to their role and to their self-respect. Sending bad appointees packing will help Trump in the long run, sparing him trouble later on.

The 2024 race, perhaps more than the average election, gave signs of a cultural shift. Trump increased his support in every demographic group except white males. Gains among Latinos were especially impressive (will this diminish fretting about the “great replacement”?). Football players doing the Trump dance after TDs and sacks, the UFC champ giving Trump his belt, and the nods from Joe Rogan may signal a diminution of the culture of purse-lipped self-flagellation.

The 2024 election, like all elections, also reminds us that there will be a next one. Trump’s victory was miles from a landslide. As late returns came in, his popular vote total slipped below 50 percent; while he ran the table of swing states, he won each one narrowly. The Democratic Party, though it is in disarray, has not vanished. Even as the GOP has transformed itself under Trump, so may the Democrats, hopefully into something better than their current failed incarnation. Trump’s errors will help them, even as theirs helped him.

The Stat

$29,402 — the amount that the federal government spent on anti-poverty programs per person in poverty in 2023.

And that’s a conservative estimate. For the purposes of this calculation, I’m defining anti-poverty programs to include Medicaid, CHIP, and all nonveteran income-security programs (SNAP, the earned-income tax credit, the child tax credit, Supplemental Security Income, unemployment compensation, child-nutrition programs, and family-support programs). According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal outlays for those programs in 2023 totaled $1.082 trillion. Now, some of that spending went to people who are not in poverty, as eligibility for these programs has been expanded; but because these programs are supposed to protect against poverty, we’d expect some of the money to go to people who are living just above the poverty line. The total does not include outlays for Medicare or Social Security old-age or disability benefits. (Some of those benefits go to people living below the poverty line, but the programs are designed differently and aren’t intended to protect against poverty, so I have excluded them.) It’s a conservative estimate for another reason: I am using the Census Bureau’s official poverty definition, which, because it does not include most government benefits in the calculation, substantially overstates the number of people actually in poverty. According to that definition, there were 36.8 million people below the poverty line in 2023. So, with a numerator that is too small and a denominator that is too large, that works out to government anti-poverty spending of $29,402 per person whose income falls below the official poverty line. As Milton Friedman once said after doing a similar calculation, if that money actually went to the poor, they’d be rich.

by Dominic Pino

Correction: In “Pete Rose and Civilized Man,” by James Rosen (December 2024 issue), the number of seasons during which Rose and Tom Seaver were teammates on the Cincinnati Reds was incorrectly stated. It was one and a half (not five).