Donald J. Trump just won a major electoral victory. His coattails turned a 49-51 senate to a 53-47 senate.

He deserves a cabinet that is loyal to the agenda he was elected to implement.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 20, 2024

What are his key accomplishments as a professional/politician? I don't know him well so I did some digging around. If y'all could let me know what I missed, I'd appreciate it.

It doesn't appear like he's really accomplished a lot. He seems like the type of generational career politician we're all trying to get out of politics with a penchant for grandstanding for attention.

1) As a fed rep he's stirred the pot with the gas mask stunt, introducing the failed effort to abolish the EPA, and was a leader in the McCarthy ouster. He's voted for and against somet things against the grain, but not anything that really mattered or made a difference.
2) He is a third-generation politician. He got into politics at age 28 and has been there ever since after filling a seat in a special election caused by a corruption case levied on the incumbent. He ran unopposed for reelection, three times. During his time as a state rep, he never had to defend his record in a meaningful way.
3) In FL he was a proponent of the stand your ground law as the chariman of the state justice committee. Nice feather in his cap for sure, but all he really did was dig his heels in. He didn't really have to do much else.

I'm struggling to find much that supports the narrative that he's this super impactful change agent that's going to make a difference. Where has he proven his ability to do that? He's strong-willed and convicted, but to what end? He's also got some really questionable marks on his record.

What am I missing? After doing more research and really digging into it, it seems more likely that he's a decoy to distract attention so the other folks get confirmed. It was likely he was going to have to resign his seat anyway due to the heat he's under, so this just gave him a chance to do so with some cover.

wtmartinaggie said:

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What are his key accomplishments as a professional/politician? I don't know him well so I did some digging around. If y'all could let me know what I missed, I'd appreciate it.

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When did this become the standard? Why would it be different on January 20, 2025 than it is now?

I'm going to just leave this right here for posterity's sake....

The 20 Republican senators who voted in 2021 to confirm Merrick Garland as attorney general are, in alphabetical order,
Roy Blunt of Missouri
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
Susan Collins of Maine
John Cornyn of Texas
Joni Ernst of Iowa
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
James Lankford of Oklahoma
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
Jerry Moran of Kansas
Lisa Murkowski of Arkansas
Rob Portman of Ohio
Mitt Romney of Utah
Mike Rounds of South Dakota
John Thune of South Dakota
Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

I'm very curious to see who of this list will vote 'no' against Gaetz. Some of them are already publicly complaining about Trump's pick...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/11/18/republicans-who-voted-for-merrick-garland-as-ag-complain-about-matt-gaetz-trumps-choice/

That's irrelevant and a diversion tactic to what I was asking.

wtmartinaggie said:

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That's irrelevant and a diversion tactic to what I was asking.

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No, it's not. It either matters or it doesn't.

I'm sick of this double standard crap.

Well then don't divert to the double standard when it suits you. Do you want your cabinet members qualified or not? If we both do, then we can talk about it. If you don't think that someone needs to be exceptional to have a senior role in our government, then we will just have to agree to disagree.

wtmartinaggie said:

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Well then don't divert to the double standard when it suits you.

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You're the one demanding the double standard.

Newsflash: down is not up.

wtmartinaggie said:

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Well then don't divert to the double standard when it suits you. Do you want your cabinet members qualified or not? If we both do, then we can talk about it. If you don't think that someone needs to be exceptional to have a senior role in our government, then we will just have to agree to disagree.

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Then let me ask you...

Question #1:
What were Bobby Kennedy's qualifications at 35 years of age when his brother made him Attorney General?

Question #2:
How did Bobby Kennedy do in that role?

How so?

Are you really comparing him to Gaetz? To compare their accomplishments or qualifications at their time of nomination is laughable.

What has Gaetz done? Everyone keeps dodging that question. I'm not trying to start a conflict with y'all, I seriously want to know what he's done.

twk said:

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Quote:

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We're living in a society today where lack of political experiences Really not that big of a deal. It's actually a qualification.

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Political experience is the only thing Gaetz has going for him. It's his professional experience that is being questioned here.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive as a lawyer myself, but I had more experience practicing law as a small town lawyer at the age of 42 than Gaetz does. I'm not questioning his instincts; I'm questioning his ability.

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What you are really questioning here is Trump's judgment.

Gaetz is nothing, if not a firebrand/lightning rod. It seems that is precisely what Trump wants for the position. Perhaps we should trust his instincts….?

BoerneGator said:

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twk said:

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Quote:

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We're living in a society today where lack of political experiences Really not that big of a deal. It's actually a qualification.

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Political experience is the only thing Gaetz has going for him. It's his professional experience that is being questioned here.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive as a lawyer myself, but I had more experience practicing law as a small town lawyer at the age of 42 than Gaetz does. I'm not questioning his instincts; I'm questioning his ability.

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What you are really questioning here is Trump's judgment.

Gaetz is nothing, if not a firebrand/lightning rod. It seems that is precisely what Trump wants for the position. Perhaps we should trust his instincts….?

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Also, if there's one thing everyone knows about Donald Trump, it's that if someone sucks at their job, he'll fire them. So, if after his lessons learned from Sessions and Barr in term 1, his instincts of putting a bull dog lightning rod at the top of the DOJ turn out to not work, he'll just replace Gaetz with someone else after a year or so.

BoerneGator said:

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twk said:

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Quote:

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We're living in a society today where lack of political experiences Really not that big of a deal. It's actually a qualification.

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Political experience is the only thing Gaetz has going for him. It's his professional experience that is being questioned here.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive as a lawyer myself, but I had more experience practicing law as a small town lawyer at the age of 42 than Gaetz does. I'm not questioning his instincts; I'm questioning his ability.

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What you are really questioning here is Trump's judgment.

Gaetz is nothing, if not a firebrand/lightning rod. It seems that is precisely what Trump wants for the position. Perhaps we should trust his instincts….?

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No one is infallible. Trump himself will tell you he did a poor job on personnel in the first administration. Gaetz seems like an overcorrection.

wtmartinaggie said:

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Well then don't divert to the double standard when it suits you. Do you want your cabinet members qualified or not? If we both do, then we can talk about it. If you don't think that someone needs to be exceptional to have a senior role in our government, then we will just have to agree to disagree.

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We agree to disagree. Trump wants him. That is the only criteria that matters.

We're about to see how effective middle fingers are at making actual positive change.

Spotted Ag said:

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"Experienced" choices for these positions are what got us to the environment of govt bloat that we have today.

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This is a patently ridiculous argument.

"College graduates got us here, so let's hire some high school dropouts instead."

SCOTUS justices don't even have to be attorneys (or apparently able to define a female). This is an absurd complaint about him.

It could be a classic case of Galileo's Gambit - a logical fallacy that if an idea pisses off the establishment, it must be the right idea, when in reality it could be the right idea, but not always. ....or that if the established consensus by the "experts" (i.e. "trust the science", "the science is settled", etc.) was proven wrong once, all established consensus/ settled science could be wrong and must be questioned.


...only in this case, I don't think it's fallacy. I think it's true and the instinct is correct. Put a bull dog lightning rod in there to dismantle, rebuild, and get some credibility back for a completely broken massive bureaucratic department. Sessions and Barr nudging the drain didn't work. Need to burst the pipes.

All good. I was thinking about that recently. We're at a point where this is all going to end up in a transformational point in our history. If it works, Trump will go down among the greatest and this period will be viewed as a great reawakening. I don't even want to think about what happens if it doesn't.

So glad this resolved itself.

wtmartinaggie said:

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So glad this resolved itself.

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Is there any Trump nominee you think is qualified for anything? You seem to be completely opposed to what your president wants and is entitled to.

Republican nominees... the only ones to get effed for liberal made up things

McMahon is more than qualified for DoEd. But that's just needs to be shut down and returned to the states where it belongs.

nortex97 said:

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SCOTUS justices don't even have to be attorneys (or apparently able to define a female). This is an absurd complaint about him.

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No way a non lawyer gets confirmed for SCOTUS.