Isaac Newton’s third law of motion famously states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction: If you push an object, for example, the object pushes back against you with equal force.
It turns out this isn’t just a law of physics.
It’s a law of politics.
President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks thus far have run the gamut from traditional and well-established (Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser, Chris Wright for secretary of energy, Brendan Carr for Federal Communications Commission chairman) to the more audacious and controversial (former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary). What they all have in common is that they represent a precise reaction to the excesses and evils of the Obama-Biden bureaucracy that has, for over a decade and a half, plagued American politics.
Take, as the most obvious example, Gaetz. Gaetz is charismatic and brilliant; he has been both aggressive and effective on the House Judiciary Committee. He is also, as has been widely reported, thoroughly disliked in the House of Representatives. He has been generally perceived as a destructive force, an egotist focused more on media coverage than on the functioning of the House; his defenestration of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was unpopular among his colleagues, with many believing that he pursued McCarthy vindictively based on his opposition to McCarthy’s House Ethics investigation against him.
And that’s precisely why Trump is picking him.
To Donald Trump, the Department of Justice has been an instrument of vindictiveness from his first days in office. From insiders in the DOJ working with the FBI to gin up the Mueller investigation to the Merrick Garland DOJ targeting him repeatedly under legally shoddy auspices, the DOJ has consistently represented resistance to his presidency. And so, Trump has picked precisely the type of person he believes will clean out the agency from top to bottom.
Or take RFK Jr.
RFK Jr. represents a slap in the face to the traditional health establishment. He has a long record of controversial statements on everything ranging from 5G to vaccination. But he is a reaction to the overweening arrogance of a conspiratorial elite who crammed down COVID-19 misinformation on an industrial scale, told Americans that boys could become girls, attempted to wield the reins of government against their medical opponents, and even tried to mandate vaccination on 80 million Americans. RFK Jr. is the natural reaction to a health policy elite who have made themselves radioactive.
Trump himself has always been a form of snapback against the overreach of what came before. Barack Obama tried to remake American politics in his image: high-handed, intersectional, and replete with authoritarian overtones. Trump came along and ripped the idol off his pedestal. Joe Biden tried to transform American politics by radically reinterpreting the bargain between American citizens and their government. Trump is returning to reject that never-requested transformation.
Every political action has its equal and opposite reaction. No doubt the same will hold true in the future if Republicans overreach in their own way. But for the moment, it’s vital to recognize that the Trumpian backlash has been well-earned.
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