There’s something absurd about Donald Trump announcing something as politically quotidian as a transition team. A figure so patently chaotic and disinterested in the grind of governing — who spends campaign speeches weighing up whether he’d rather die at the hands of a shark or electrocution, and who spent his last time in office sneaking in as much time in front of the TV as he could — actually preparing for another stint in the White House? It’s like watching the Joker fill out a tax return.
Luckily, the announcement of key appointments to his team was typically Trumpian, capping off a particularly wild week for US politics.
Democratic choices
Trump has appointed former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team. He loves doing stuff like this — allowing his policy and presentation to be dictated by the personal and the petty. Remember his guest at the 2020 presidential debate? Former business partner of Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Tony Bobulinski. Bill Clinton’s alleged rape victims, too, were invited to Trump’s second debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Indeed, there were a lot of clickbait headlines about how RFK Jr’s “shock” endorsement of Trump last week represented an “upending” of the campaign between Trump and Kamala Harris. But let’s face it, if you took away the famous surname and looked at Kennedy’s public announcements — that Wi-Fi causes “leaky brain,” anti-depressants cause school shootings, and that there are chemicals in the water supply that could turn children transgender — which candidate would you expect him to prefer? The man has brain worms, both figurative and literal, and Trump is the brain worms candidate.
Gabbard, meanwhile, ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, before ditching the party in October 2022. In 2016, she endorsed Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing option available. By February this year, she was headlining the hard-right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), telling them of the Democrats’ “dictator mentality“.
A whale of a time
To return briefly to RFK Jr — the drip feed of his truly horrifying history with animals continues. Earlier this month, Kennedy confessed to dumping a bear cub carcass in New York’s Central Park — for a joke! — thus solving a decade-old mystery. Fun side note, he told that story to Roseanne Barr, who we last saw destroying her career by tweeting slurs and conspiracies.
Then over the weekend, an old interview with Kennedy’s daughter resurfaced, in which she said he once cut off the head of a washed-up whale with a chainsaw and drove home with it strapped to the roof of his car.
Contrasting social media presence
One would always have struggled to get a cigarette paper between Trump’s business interests and political interests, and the 2024 campaign is no different. Trump is selling another set of “digital trading cards” featuring mocked-up images of Trump in superhero garb, dancing, wearing US flag-themed boxing gloves and, in Trump’s words, “even holding some bitcoins” (very cool!) — US$99 (nearly A$150) a pop. But that’s not all — buy just 15 of them and you get a chunk of the suit he debated Joe Biden in. “People are calling it the knockout suit,” apparently.
Luckily the Democrats, having purged themselves of all that pointless, self-congratulatory courting of media-savvy liberals who were only ever going to vote for them, aren’t doing anything the least bit embarrassing on social media.
Ah, I’m just kidding — they did a big dance on TikTok for Stephen Colbert during which former speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi looks as though she’s being introduced to the concept of movement for the first time, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looks as though she’s reached the final indignity that will cause her to actually quit the party.
Can you wait to get your hands on a piece of the knockout suit!? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
