As we know, Donald Trump has no government experience, few policy ideas, and the attention span of a gnat. As a result, he will have to rely heavily on his team in order to run the country.
The team does not exactly inspire confidence. Here is how it breaks down:
1. Where’s the key to the washroom? Team members with no experience running an agency or a large private sector entity: DeVos; Carson; Trump himself.
2. Fox in the henhouse: Team members who clearly don’t believe in the mission of the agency they will be leading include: Carson; Pruitt; what’s his name–I just can’t remember–Rick Perry!
3. Shining brass: And you thought Patton was dead! Two out of three are sane, which is a high percentage for this crowd. Team members: Flynn; Mattis; Kelly.
4. Alt-right on! Out of the ideological mainstream guys: Bannon; Flynn.
5. Tribunes of the plutocrats: Faux populists include Ross, DeVos, and Mnuchin.
6. Who’s in charge here? The team as a whole is rife with ideological conflicts. These include: Mattis vs. Flynn on Russia and Islamic terrorists; Kelly vs. Trump on immigration control; Tillerson vs. Pruitt and Trump on climate change; Sessions and Mattis vs. Trump on torture; and Price vs. Trump on entitlement “reform.”
The most important potential conflict is between Mattis and Flynn. Mattis is a hawk, but he’s not a nut, while Flynn, by all plausible accounts, is an autocratic crazoid. If Flynn wins this battle, God help us all.