In today’s New York Times, we learn what Donald Trump is really up to with his nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general: he’s trying to shove open the Overton Window, choosing someone so far outside the norms that other terrible appointments he’s made (and will make) can slide through the Senate.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan report (gift link):
He [Trump] is making calls on Mr. Gaetz’s behalf, and he remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.
In other words, Senate Republicans will have a chance to assert their prerogatives by rejecting Gaetz, who, among other things, has been accused of taking part in drug-fueled orgies and having sex with a 17-year-old girl — a minor in the state of Florida.
Meanwhile, Trump’s unqualified choices for secretary of defense, accused rapist Pete Hegseth, and for secretary of health and human services, all-around loon Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will win confirmation, according to Trump’s theory of the case, because Republicans will content themselves with rejecting his most egregious appointment rather than all of them.
The Overton Window is generally a term used to describe crazy policy ideas that are put forth in order to make other, slightly less crazy ideas appear to be more plausible. But it works for people as well. The only way Hegseth and Kennedy look good is by standing in contrast to Gaetz. And so it goes.
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Ill probably unsubscribe from your horrible comments….because you will never listen to reason….for example. so what he had sex with a 17 year old……the drinking age was 18, and girls in my HS in Norwalk CT had fake Ids to get into local concerts, in at Yale and Univ of bridgeport. No one questioned you, so we all probably had sex with a 17 year old with a fake id…..quit applying todays standards which would be illegal to yesterdays standards which held a woman accountable for lying.
I would argue that 34-time felon adjudicated rapist Trump’s election itself has broken the Overton window for good.