The balance of power is shifting already
Donald Trump is now reportedly on the verge of withdrawing his nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, and reportedly plans to nominate Ron DeSantis in his place. This has set off yet another round of contrarian hot takes about how this must have been Trump’s plan all along.
I can’t believe I have to say this, but no, Trump’s Pete Hegseth nomination was not some secret evil genius plan to get DeSantis. For one thing, if Trump wanted DeSantis, he’d have just picked DeSantis to begin with and would have had no trouble getting him confirmed. As it is, Trump has severely weakened himself with the failed Hegseth pick before even getting to DeSantis.
It’s the same thing with Trump’s failed Matt Gaetz nomination. It wasn’t some secret plan to get Pam Bondi confirmed. If he wanted her in the first place, she would have been confirmed with no trouble. But as it stands, Trump has made another mess and weakened himself.
This Republican Senate was 100% ready to rubber stamp any run of the mill picks like DeSantis and Bondi, if only Trump had had the sense to pick such names. Instead Trump gave them the likes of Gaetz and Hegseth, which were too embarrassing to be rubber stamped.
It was a huge miscalculation on Trump’s part. By forcing the Republican Senate to reject his highest profile picks, Trump has made himself look like an idiot in the eyes of the public, and ceded the balance of power to the Senate. Now that they’ve stood up to Trump, they have the power and he doesn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. At all. Trump totally blew it.
Now Trump is set to take office saddled with a series of embarrassing failures, the stink of scandal surrounding his failed nominees, a low approval rating, no momentum, and evaporating political muscle. It’s an astounding degree of self imposed failure right out of the gate.
Will DeSantis and Bondi end up being just as bad as Hegseth and Gaetz would have been? Irrelevant. It’s not about that. It’s about how the failed nominations have weakened Trump. Which is entirely what this battle is about for us. Make him weak.
It’s not just that Trump has weakened himself. He’s weakened his presidency. It means there’s less power for people like Musk or Theil to try to seize. If this keeps up, this is going to be startlingly powerless presidency. Which is pretty much what we want. Shut him down, turn everyone against him.
