Trump wants a ‘merit-based’ society, so he appointed people with no merit and little experience
In his search for qualified individuals, Donald Trump has stacked his cabinet with appointees who have zero qualifications for their roles.
As part of a long-promised effort to roll back DEI, the White House released a memo entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit Based Opportunity”, which outlines the president’s plan to curtail inclusive hiring practices across the country. While the memo begins by reminding Americans Trump’s presidential duty to “protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” the rest of the memo details exactly how the federal government intends to undo those Constitutionally enshrined protections. By eliminating “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences” in hiring, the president intends to ensure jobs for “hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream.”
The irony of that statement is palpable, considering that some of Trump’s hires have never worked a day in their lives in the fields they’ve been hired to oversee. Take John Phelan for example, Trump’s yet-to-be confirmed pick for U.S. Navy Chair, who has no military experience whatsoever. Phelan is a business magnate, an art collector, and a generous donor to Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign. Phelan will be replacing Acting Secretary of the Navy Terence G. Emmert, who has decades of experience in the armed forces. In the Biden Administration, the position was filled by Carlos Del Toro, who served in the Navy for 22 years. before stepping down as U.S. Navy Chair in January, 2025.
Trump’s cabinet picks are concerning and controversial
Outside his lack of military experience, Phelan is one of Trump’s least controversial picks for a cabinet position. One of his most hotly contested choices was Robert F. Kennedy, was tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. A conspiracy theorist who believes that vaccines cause autism and suggested that tap water turns kids gay, Kennedy was met with pushback from Democrats, and even ruffled a few Republican feathers. Breaking from party lines, GOP Senator Mitch McConnell voted against Kennedy’s confirmation, citing the candidate’s vaccine skepticism (and his own bout with polio as a child) reasons to reject Kennedy’s appointment to America’s top health position. Despite the misgivings of many Senators, Kennedy’s confirmation passed, and the largest healthcare organization in the world is now being run by a man who drinks raw milk.
While Kennedy’s nomination is chilling, there is one Trump appointee whose dearth of qualifications and surplus of political power has stoked true federal fear: Elon Musk. Despite not being elected or qualified, Musk cemented his political legacy in the nascent Trump administration with a quarter billion dollar donation to the president’s 2024 campaign fund. Since his appointment to helm a federal organization that doesn’t officially exist, Musk taken up a metaphorical (and sometimes literal) chainsaw in order to slash jobs and budgets across the government. Musk and his team of college age cronies have infiltrated federal buildings and gained access to the financial information of millions of Americans. Eventually, DOGE’s breakneck incompetence caught up with itself, and the agency was forced to rehire the hundreds of workers it terminated at the National Nuclear Security Administration who were responsible overseeing America’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Some jobs can’t be left to a 19-year-old with a verified Twitter account.
Trump’s claims feel pretty hypocritical
Trump has claimed that he wants to hire federal employees who are qualified, but his own appointees prove that the president isn’t willing to put federal money where his mouth is. Meanwhile, millions of hardworking Americans that Trump claims he’ll protect are seeing their jobs evaporate overnight, and except where nukes are concerned, the cuts will continue.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
