It’s pretty obvious to even the most casual of observers that Trumpism has just been roundly rejected by the American people. And while most of us expected last week’s election outcome to favor Democrats, the scale of that rejection surprised even the most optimistic pollsters and pundits on the left, as seat after seat after seat turned blue, even in the deepest of red states. It was a total wipeout for Trump and the GOP, the kind of loss that has everyone on the right considering new employment.
So it was no surprise when, as the results were coming in, GOP operatives at all levels started scurrying for the exits. To bludgeon an old cliché, the rats are fleeing the sinking ship. Among the scurrying rats is Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, who vacated her office before the votes were even fully counted. Her resignation is not necessarily controversial, as post-election resignations happen in every administration, but her replacement has everyone in DC wondering just what kind of lame duck Trump plans to be.
As soon as Trump named Stephen Miller as his new Chief of Staff, most saw it as a clear and unmistakable message to the American people, and that message was that the hardest of hardcore elements are now in control of MAGA, and the next two years would be about pushing the same Trumpian agenda that we all just rejected. And given Trump’s history of forcing things on people that are not wanted, the choice seems to make sense, but only if Trump plans to keep up the tough guy act now that he has no base left to preach to.
Most see the choice of Miller for the top job as a kind of defiance, as if Trump has no desire to work with the incoming Congress, even though he has made a few comments saying otherwise. But with Miller at the helm guiding the Trump agenda through the legislative process, we know exactly what we’re going to get – laws designed to divide people and harm anyone Miller deems to be “not like us.”
But, oddly enough, I disagree with the common assessment of Miller at the helm. What I mean is, I don’t think he was chosen for the reasons most claim. I don’t think choosing him is an act of defiance, nor do I believe he got the job so he could spearhead a resurgence of the Trump agenda. I think he got the job because there was no one else left.
Trump’s extremism has expanded over the years, and each time it does, it leaves more and more of the Trump base behind. But it also creates a serious shortage of talent. After all, in most cases, the more educated, experienced, and qualified a person becomes, the more they reject extremism, since a quality liberal education teaches about complexity and how to reject the binary nature of most of our political discourse. So the more divisive one becomes, the smaller the audience gets, and while the smaller crowd may be full of true believers, it is typically short on talent. This makes staffing an administration incredibly difficult, especially after the voters clearly demonstrated their rejection of the entire Trump agenda.
Simply put – I don’t believe Miller got the job because Trump is planning some kind of comeback. He’s done, and I think he knows it. I believe Miller got the big job because he was the last guy in the room willing to say yes.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.