Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.
Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, D.C./New York political, media and corporate nexus.
But that is precisely the point — to insert reformers into a bloated, incompetent and weaponized government who are not part of it.
Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already drawing severe criticism.
His furious enemies cannot go after his resume, since he has spent a lifetime in private, congressional and executive billets, both in investigations and intelligence.
Instead, they claim he is too vindictive and does not reflect the ethos of the FBI.
But what will Patel not do as the new director?
He will not serially lie under oath to federal investigators as did interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a current Patel critic.
He will not forge an FBI court affidavit, as did convicted felon and agency lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.
He will not claim amnesia 245 times under congressional oath to evade embarrassing admissions as did former Director James Comey.
He will not partner with a foreign national to collect dirt and subvert a presidential campaign as the FBI did with Christopher Steele in 2016.
He will not use the FBI to draft social media to suppress news unfavorable to a presidential candidate on the eve of an election.
He would not have suppressed FBI knowledge that Hunter Biden’s laptop was genuine — to allow the lie to spread that it was “Russian disinformation” on the eve of the 2020 election.
He will not raid the home of an ex-president with SWAT teams, surveil Catholics, monitor parents at school board meetings or go after pro-life peaceful protestors.
Decorated combat veteran Pete Hegseth is another controversial nominee for secretary of defense.
What will Hegseth likely not do?
Go AWOL without notifying the president of a serious medical procedure as did current Secretary Lloyd Austin?
Install race and gender criteria for promotion and mandate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training?
Insinuate falsely that cabals of white supremacists had infiltrated the military —only to alienate that entire demographic and thus ensure the Pentagon came up 40,000 recruits short?
Oversee the scramble from Kabul that saw $50 billion in U.S. military equipment abandoned to Taliban terrorists?
Watch passively as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental United States for a week?
Allow the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to promise his Chinese communist counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army would first be informed if the President of the United States was felt to issue a dangerous order?
Rotate into the Pentagon from a defense contractor boardship and then leave office to rotate back there to leverage procurement decisions?
Oversee the Pentagon’s serial flunking of fiscal audits?
Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is certainly a maverick. He may earn the most Democratic hits, given his former liberal credentials.
But what will RFK also not do as HHS secretary?
Oversee his agencies circumventing U.S. law by transferring money to communist China to help it produce lethal gain-of-function viruses of the COVID-19 sort — in the manner of Dr. Fauci?
Organize scientists to go after critics of mandatory masking and defame them?
Give pharmaceutical companies near-lifetime exemptions from legal jeopardy for rushing into production mRNA vaccines not traditionally vetted and tested?
Leave office to monetize his HHS expertise and thus make millions from the pharmaceutical companies?
Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, former congressional representative and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, will soon be defamed in congressional hearings.
But what has Gabbard not done?
Joined “51 former intelligence authorities” to lie on the eve of the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks” of a Russian information/disinformation operation” — in an effort to swing the election to incumbent Joe Biden?
Lied under congressional oath like former DNI James Clapper, who claimed he only gave the “least untruthful answer” in congressional testimony?
Encourage the FBI to monitor a presidential campaign in efforts to discredit it —in the manner of former CIA Director John Brennan, who lied not once but twice under oath?
Fail to foresee the American meltdown in Kabul, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel or the Houthis’ takeover of the Red Sea?
We are going to hear some outrageous things in the upcoming congressional confirmation hearings.
But one thing we will not hear about are the crimes, deceptions and utter incompetence of prior and current government grandees.
The current crew, not their proposed Trump replacements, prompted the sick and tired American people to demand different people.
Voters want novel approaches to reform a government that they not only no longer trust but also now deeply fear.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
