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‘Each of them individually is historically bad’: An Authoritarianism expert confirms the truth about Trump’s cabinet

Authoritarianism expert Timothy Snyder isn’t sugar coating the horrifying picks Donald Trump is making for his cabinet. Each new nomination should terrify you. Snyder was speaking with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi about the choices we’ve heard so far for Trump’s cabinet and he thinks it is historically bad. Great!

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“These appointments are not just poor choices in the traditional sense,” Snyder said and went on to make us all more terrified about the prospect of this cabinet. “Each of them individually is historically bad,” he said. “But taken together, these are not people who are going to be bad at their jobs in some sort of normal sense. Taken together, these appointments suggest an attempt to actually make the American government dysfunctional, to make it fall apart, to pervert it, to have it do things that it’s not supposed to do until it’s not capable of doing anything at all.”

Snyder went on to point out that the situation isn’t just about qualifications. He said that it’s not about people being under qualified or not qualified at all but that he sees each pick as being “anti-qualified.” Snyder said “It’s that they are anti-qualified. They are qualified to do the opposite of the thing that they are supposed to do.”

The idea, according to Snyder, is that these picks would reflect an American government that is falling apart. He said that these choices are part of the “notion that the American government should be falling apart, American society should be in chaos, and it would be a good thing.”

Frankly it is terrifying to think of someone like Trump being evil enough and intelligent enough to pull something like this off. To think strategically like this with his cabinet picks but Snyder is not wrong about it.

Anti-qualified is a perfect description

Look, I understand that this is horrifying but we also hopefully have a CHECKS AND BALANCES system that will stop these appointments from happening. If an expert on Authoritarianism is telling us this now, wouldn’t the checks and balances part of our government work to stop something like this from happening? As it stands, none of these individuals have been appointed. They’re simply just his nominees.

Call me naive to trust in our government as it currently stands but we have to hope that there are people we elected who won’t let this cabinet come together as Trump wants it to. If it does, then that’s a failure on the system that is meant to protect Americans and it is no one’s fault but those who let it happen and the MAGA party who put him in power.

Yes, it is frightening and we don’t know what is going to happen but right now, all we can do it listen to people like Snyder and hope someone sees sense to stop men like Trump. He’ll ruin the America he wants to make “great again” and all his little MAGA fans will let him do it because they lack the brain cells that make them see sense.

Let’s hope the “anti-qualified” cabinet picks that Trump wants don’t get the nominations.


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Rachel Leishman
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Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.