Episode Details

Never let it be said that establishment operatives within the Republican Party apparatus can’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The only questions that remain are these: Do they do it because they are power-hungry Deep Staters? Or are they just that incapable of recognizing a mandate when they see one?

The latest in the long line of “are you shitting me” moments comes in the elitist and tone-deaf remarks emanating from George W. Bush’s “architect,” Karl Rove.

In a recent op-ed penned for The Wall Street Journal, Rove is quoted as saying:

“While his nominees prepare for their hearings, the president-elect must turn to what is in many respects an equally important task: picking the No. 2s for his cabinet secretaries and administrator…It will be especially important for Mr. Trump’s picks to have capable No. 2s as undersecretary, deputy secretary, and chief deputy administrator — titles vary from place to place — especially if the No. 1 is new to government or that department’s function.”

Rove states that those “No. 2s” (I am sure that no pun was intended) should be people who have served in the agencies, departments, and commissions and know how they function; adding the entire process might be “confounding even [to] the most purpose-driven leader.”

Rove finishes up his piece by saying, President-elect Trump:

“...needs people who have been in the trenches, grappled with the bureaucracy and have some sense of its powers to distract, delay and misdirect…Shaking things up works only if doing so helps rather than hurts the American people. Doing the right thing the right way matters. Who’s No. 2 matters almost as much as who’s No. 1.”

Well, Rove has that last part right, anyway. And I do agree with him on his overall point. Trump cannot make the same mistake as during the first Trump administration (Trump 1.0). He must appoint and place people who understand the Washingtonian game and who won’t get gamed by the system. The problem here is this. The Republican and conservative inside-the-beltway bench is sprinkled with careerist, inside-the-beltway Deep Staters who, like last time around, would be quite tempted—if not motivated—to inject their self-preservative ideologies rather than faithfully carry out Trump’s Deep State destruction agenda with fidelity.

So, if we are to follow Mr. Rove’s advice and saddle the Trump nominees with establishment Republican “No. 2s,” how are we to have a reasonable expectation that those “No. 2s” won’t obstruct the administration’s anti-Deep State efforts just like many of Trump’s “No. 1s” did during Trump 1.0?

There can be no guarantee with a Washingtonian insider because that cohort has repeatedly proven to the American people that they have either a loose or non-existent relationship with the truth. Truth is “subjective” to that peer group. They can justify almost any action or infidelity, no matter how egregious.

One need only look at how the so-called Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collin (R-ME) abdicated their fidelity to their party’s leader during Trump 1.0.

Collins and Murkowski are two of only three GOP senators advancing to the 119th Congress who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial. Each has voted in line with GOP colleagues a scant 36% of the time this year. In most instances, their votes helped Chuck Schumer hammer through radically-Left judicial nominations. This voting fidelity is a far lower percentage than any other senator.

With the news that the “Deep-Statiest” Senator of them all, Mitch McConnell (