Is tsf even *capable* of nominating serious, competent Cabinet appointees ? We'll never know, unless he tries. He won't.

So far, he's shown not the slightest intention of finding candidates who even pass for sane and normal. Quite the opposite.

tsf picks people not for incompetence, but for anti-competence. He wants people whose 'skill' (I use the term loosely) sets are ideal for ruining the agencies they intend to command. He hates these Depts., Offices, etc. -- anything that represents gov't that works. He regards them as the enemy, and in truth that's what they are, because they are devoted to the opposite of what tsf is devoted to -- a practical, functioning, and wherever possible, fair and equitable gov't. tsf HATES gov't in all forms, as most modern Uglilcans do, but most of all he hates subordinates who won't slavishly do his evil bidding as if he were a hypnotic Dr. Caligari. So he's nominating a wrecking crew, with any profound character flaw that would normally kill a nomination now considered a big plus in his eyes -- and the whole GOP is supinely going along with it, as if somehow they just can't find any reason to object to what he's doing.

What we desperately need -- and almost certainly won't get, at least not soon enough to forestall real damage -- is for some GOP Senators to realize that for a third of them, their six-year terms will outlast his in any case, so they can oppose his nominees, and even loudly object to his policies, with minimal risk. Similarly, another third are in the third year of their terms, and will be in office at least as long as he will. If they hold fairly safe districts, they have the opportunity -- and I would say, the obligation -- to counter tsf's monomaniacal efforts to destroy anything and everything he can't control absolutely. He does not hold absolute power, whatever he thinks. It is only the acquiescence of the Congress and the SCOTUS which helps him maintain that delusion. Those in the GOP who expect to hold office after the end of tsf's second term -- possibly even after midterms --need to be planning their options with grim practicality, knowing their Golden Calf is a lame duck, even before he takes office.

I would dearly love to see a GOP Senator change his party affiliation to Independent. I don't expect it to happen. But the fact that switching just one Senate seat would have such an impact only emphasizes how very, very thin tsf's grasp on power really is. He doesn't have a mandate, he only has an anti-democratic Electoral College, a few hundred thousand useful idiots, and a genuflecting Congress in his corner. Any of the three could change, and need to.