A Ray of Light?

Is Matt Gaetz “pulling out” of his nomination to lead the Department of Justice a ray of light amidst the dark clouds of Trump’s burn-the-house-down Cabinet nominations so far? Or is it just a “one-off,” reflecting the universal hate for Gaetz among his erstwhile congressional colleagues? It’s far too early to tell, for Gaetz appears to be the worst and most bizarre of Trump’s nose-thumbing nominations so far.

We don’t know precisely what induced Gaetz to bow out. Was it a threat of massive criminal prosecution for his alleged sexual predation and sex-trafficking of underage girls? Did private discussions with Trump by people he trusts change his mind? Or did simple math — knowing that votes in the Senate to confirm Gaetz were not there — convince Gaetz or Trump to do the right thing?

Whatever the answers, the outcome provides a faint hope that the Senate may actually do its job, albeit not nearly in the way our Founders conceived.

As a number of high-profile confirmation hearings have shown, the Senate’s advise-and-consent process no longer works as our Founders intended. In open, public hearings, nominees lie, Senators posture and toe party lines, and the intended process of independent legislative-branch judgment fails utterly.

We saw this most clearly in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justices. In their respective Senate hearings, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas all swore to respect precedent. Yet all three later voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, a half-century-old precedent. Moreover, in the hearings of Kavanaugh and Thomas, the Senate inappropriately disregarded, if not marginalized, the courageous testimony of two women who accused the nominees of sexually inappropriate behavior grossly unbefitting judges on the nation’s highest court.

These hearings were not just far from our nation’s finest hour. They were an utter refutation of the notion that the Senate could do its constitutional job in open, public hearings. And the trend toward posturing and “performance politics” in public statements has only gotten worse — much worse — since then.

What happened in Gaetz’ case presents another model of Senate operation entirely. Everything important happened in private. Not even our best news media can tell us what, if anything, was decisive, or whether and how Trump himself changed his mind or Gaetz’.

But the Senate doing its job in private is infinitely better than not doing it at all. The private rejection of candidates also seems to accommodate Trump’s personality and transactional bent.

In this new model of advising and consenting, Senators need not oppose Trump’s worst nominees publicly and risk his wrath for “disloyalty.” They need not risk being “primaried” in the next election.

In private, Senators can reason and bargain with Trump. They might even propose altnerative sane and qualified right-wing nominees, who are willing to work with Trump for the good of the nation and can be characterized (or mischaracterized?) as Trump loyalists.

In other words, clever Republican Senators can do their patriotic duty without shedding the cowardice that apparently has suborned most or all of them.

True, such a system looks much more like monarchy than the public evaluation of nominees that our Founders envisaged. It smacks of whispering quietly in the Grand Vizier’s ear, knowing that he will know best how to leverage the King’s vanity.

But it’s far, far better than having vital top positions like Secdef and DNI filled with people having no relevant experience, or motivated by cooky ideologies like the Christian nationalism exposed in Pete Hegseth’s “Deus Vult” tatoo. If this model of private but real advising and consenting continues, we just might have a reasonably qualified, if right-wing, Cabinet teed up, if not confirmed, by January 20, and our Republic just might survive Trump’s second term. Our media would then have to decide whether to cover Senate confirmation hearings, which would only invite senators to put a performative “spin” on matters already decided in private.

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