The president-elect has appointed oilmen, bankers, generals and anti-government ideologues. It is a tainted team for a tainted president chosen in a tainted election
The idea that Donald Trump might become a “normal” American president once he moved into the White House was always for the birds. The 2016 contest was an abnormal election won by an abnormal politician. It was an abnormal election because hackers linked to the Russian government worked to help Mr Trump’s cause; because the head of the FBI tossed a political hand grenade into the closing stages of the contest which helped Mr Trump’s cause; and because, since a US supreme court ruling in 2013, states that want to have exploited a power to impose voter ID rules that intentionally keep African Americans off the rolls. Oh, and 2.8 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Mr Trump. That’s hardly normal either.
Mr Trump was and remains an abnormal politician because he threatens changes that, with almost no exception, are genuinely destructive to American values and interests, not least to the interests of many of those white working-class voters who voted for him in the hope of change. He has now assembled a government team which, again almost without exception, testifies to this reality. These appointments confirm that he cannot be regarded as a president like any other. Perhaps, in five weeks’ time, when he actually succeeds Barack Obama in the Oval Office, he will start to do things that suggest otherwise. But that has not happened yet.