Dem
51
GOP
49
Donald Trump is already thinking about the cabinet for his second term. It is likely to be a nightmare for democracy. All the top jobs would be filled with people known to be loyal to him above everything and for their willingness to bend and break laws for him, punish his critics, and purge nonbelievers from the government. Trump wants to jail his critics (including politicians and journalists), whether or not they have broken any laws, deport thousands or maybe tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants (or lock them in concentration camps), and use the military to do things like invade Mexico (or maybe San Francisco). It would be a cornucopia of vengeance, retribution, and crime and probably nothing could stop him, not even the courts (which he would simply ignore: How many divisions of soldiers does the Supreme Court have?)
Imagine the following cabinet officers and you have an idea of what could happen if enough young people, Black people, and Latinos ask: What has Joe Biden ever done for me? How about secretaries Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Kash Patel, and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)? Vance has a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, so he is clearly the "best" candidate for attorney general. Steve Bannon for secretary of homeland security, anyone? That would put him in charge of the border. Wanna bet on whether he might order all border patrol agents to shoot to kill anyone crossing the border illegally? Suppose the Supreme Court ruled that he doesn't have the authority to do that and he kept doing it anyway. Then what? If the Democrats get a majority in the House, they would instantly impeach Bannon. But would there be 67 votes to convict in the Senate? Alternatively, Bannon could be chief of staff to make sure everyone on the staff put loyalty to Trump above all else.
Other potential cabinet members might be Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Kari Lake, and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), unless one of them was vice president.
Would any of these people be able to get Senate confirmation? It depends on which party controls the Senate, of course. If the Democrats win all the contested states, they will have 50 seats, so the vice president would break ties (unless Sen. Lisa Murkowksi, R-AK, occasionally voted with the Democrats, preventing ties). If the Republicans win a clear majority, there would be nothing to stop Trump. If he couldn't get Senate confirmation for, say, Miller as secretary of defense, Trump might appoint him acting secretary and let him start giving orders. It could be a year before the Supreme Court even got the case and it might rule that the president could fill vacancies with acting appointments. Who knows?
The only person in the cabinet who believed in the rule of law might be Elaine Chao. She has served as secretary of labor and secretary of transportation already. Trump might want her in the cabinet to make Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) happy. McConnell is married to Chao.
What we can be sure of is that cabinet v2.0 would be totally different from cabinet v1.0. Many of the initial people in v1.0 were at least somewhat competent and most supported the rule of law, including Rex Tillerson (State), Steven Mnuchin (Treasury), James Mattis (Defense), Elaine Chao (Transportation), John Kelly (Homeland Security), Mike Pompeo (CIA), and Nikki Haley (U.N.). Trump is not going to make that mistake again. As Maya Angelou said: "When people show you who they are, believe them." (V)