Oncoming Train: Opposing Trump’s Clown Car Cabinet

Had U.S. Senators been allowed to vote by secret ballot, in the words of Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. would have received only 20 votes to be confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human services.

Such is the fear factor of Republican senators. Donald Trump is the Godzilla of American politics. Whereas another Maine senator, Margaret Chase Smith, galvanized GOP opposition  to Joe McCarthy, only a single Republican — polio survivor Mitch McConnell — dared to vote Nay on the Kennedy nomination.

“They actually do know better; they are looking the other way,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., astutely observed. All four Washington and Oregon Democratic senators were on the losing end of a 52-48 vote. We now have an antivaxxer in charge of national health policy.

A year ago, with Dems in the majority, this region chaired powerful committees in the Senate: Murray headed Appropriations, Oregon’s Ron Wyden chaired Finance, and Maria Cantwelll headed Commerce. Today, they are dissenting voices.

And powerful voices. Listen to Wyden on RFK, Jr.: Research by Senate staff “shows that Mr. Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans, especially when it comes to the safety and efficiency of vaccines.” The new Health Secretary has acted “to discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines.”

When the Washington Legislature took up legislation to strengthen measles vaccine requirements in public schools, reacting to an outbreak in Clark County, Kennedy came here to peddle his anti-vaccine myths. The chief myth, disproven in studies, is that vaccines are a cause of kids’ autism.

Sen. Cantwell weighed in with her family’s long ties to the Kennedy family. Her lawmaker father stood beside RFK, Sr., during his legendary speech in Indianapolis the night of the Dr. Martin Luther King assassination. “I told him in my office, in my family, the Kennedys stood up,” said Cantwell. 

The senator also noted that Washington is a major center for health sciences research.,  the place then-Vice President Joe Biden picked in 2015 to showcase his “moonshot” effort at finding a cancer cure. The National Institute of Health has dispensed $1.2 billion in grants to 11,000 people in the Evergreen State.

The clown circus of the Trump Cabinet is already on display, with the Vice President leaving NATO in turmoil after a trip to Munich — where Nazism had its start — and the Defense Secretary committing the “rookie mistake” of giving the Crimea as a gift to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Gone are the voices of restraint that held back Trump’s impulses and vengeance in his first term.

Nobody is laughing at these clowns. They are a threat to the Republic and to the Earth. It is time, as our senators are showing us, to speak out and resist. Silence gives consent. And we cannot afford the self-indulgence of retreating into what The New York Times calls Democrats-despair.

The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C., delivered her have-mercy message to Trump to his face on the day of his inauguration. But no mercy can be shown in pushback against Trump’s retribution or the conspiracy theories of RFK, Jr. Cousin Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, seeking to slow down the confirmation, delivered a scathing denunciation.

Nativist movements, with demagogue leaders, are nothing new in America. Pushing back usually begins with a courageous few: A movie about Washington state native Edward T.Murrow, who took on McCarthy, is due out this spring. Those with long memories will recall that freshman Sen. Henry Jackson was tapped for a minority spot on McCarthy.’s investigations subcommittee, as somebody with guts to take on ”Tailgunner Joe.”

Demagogues have an Achilles heel — they overreach. Joe McCarthy — whose aide Roy Cohn trained Trump — took on the Army. Henry Jackson ousted our own Joe McCarthy, Harry Cain, from the Senate. As related by a splendid Timothy Egan book, the Ku Klux Klan virtually took over Indiana, only to see its leader convicted of rape.  The initial resisters soon get a lot of company.

Trump has spawned a MAGA movement, and overstepping is already apparent. Congress’ phone system is “melting down” with calls from worried constituents, Sen. Wyden told a Seattle Town Hall audience Sunday night, on a book tour for his new book, It Takes Chutzpah.

A majority of Americans support human rights (even, nowadays, LGBTQ rights) and back privacy protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. They have, however, been gamed. The right wing media have manufactured issues, such as an America endangered by transgender teenagers using boys’ bathrooms. Demonizing is their game, no matter that it leads to suicides.

“You’ve got to talk in their language,” Wyden observed to his Town Hall audience. Stop and think for a moment: Was a higher minimum age a hot burner issue in last November’s election? Or the Earned Income Tax Credit? Or, for that matter, toxic chemicals causing high cancer rates in low income communities? Instead, what we heard from the Democrats was psychoanalysis of Trump.

Dan Evans was a Republican who believed in cycles, that eras of reaction are followed by times of progressive change. Progressives are now an endangered species. Meanwhile, the MAGA movement has flipped conservatism in the direction of authoritarianism.

To borrow from Ben Franklin’s famous saying, we are keepers of the Republic. It means calling Republican senators to account for their Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard confirmation votes — not, as is a bad habit of the Seattle left, giving Sen. Cantwell a bad time for voting to confirm the Treasury Secretary nominee.

Rough times ahead. Let’s hope Dan Evans was right about his cycles. Otherwise, the light at the end of the tunnel may belong to an oncoming train.

This story also appears in Cascadia Advocate.