Choosing the Most Contemptible Member of Trump’s Cabinet Is No Piece of Cake

If you were asked to name the single most despicable member of Trump’s cabinet, whom would you choose?

Attorney General William Barr might be an obvious choice, insofar as he’s functioning essentially as the president’s private attorney, and has no interest in upholding justice on behalf of the American people.  His partnership with Trump is rapidly bringing an end to rule of law in the United States.

But then you have:

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, with his numerous conflicts of interest from failure to divest, an example of which was reported by Forbes: In June 2018, Ross, while secretary of commerce, owned “stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation and a huge player in an industry Ross is now “investigating” and that Ross had failed to divest his financial holdings, instead putting them in a trust for his family members, contradicting Ross’s written statement in November 2017 that he had divested all his financial holdings.

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Andrew Wheeler, a career coal lobbyist, and a one-man wrecking ball to the environment.  Currently, the EPA has eliminated or eviscerated over 100 important regulations that formerly protected the cleanliness of our skies and waterways.

Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, whose three-year tenure have been rife with corruption,  abusing her position at the Department of Transportation in order to enrich herself, her husband (Mitch McConnell), and her family on the taxpayer’s dime.” Examples include funneling money into her husband’s state of Kentucky, and bolstering her family’s shipping company, the Foremost Group.

Though these are all good picks, I wouldn’t count out Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has worked to subvert public education. She has promoted the privatization of public schools through vouchers, called for deep cuts to federal funding, rolled back protections for vulnerable children, and shilled for the for-profit college industry that has defrauded countless students.  She supports Trump’s budget proposal to slash funding for the Department of Education by 13.5%, which asks for a collective $9 billion in cuts to education, including after-school programs, career and technical education, and programs to hire and train teachers.

DeVos was in the news just a few days ago, as a federal judge put a stop to to her latest scheme to divert taxpayer aid away from public schools and toward private institutions.

This collection of loathsome human beings as assembled in one presidential cabinet is totally unprecedented.