NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN!

The New York Times just posted the transcript of Ezra Klein's most recent podcast, under the headline "Trump Kicks Down the Guardrails." Klein begins his opening monologue by asserting that Donald Trump is acting in a way resonable people never believed he'd act:

Think back two months. Imagine it’s September. You’re reading the Substack of some resistance-era liberal. They’re ranting about the dangers of the Orange Man coming back. “Imagine what a second term is going to be like,” they write. “You’re going to have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary. Tulsi Gabbard is going to lead the intelligence services. Matt Gaetz is going to be the attorney general. Maybe Donald Trump is going to make a ‘Fox & Friends’ host secretary of defense.”

I think most people reading that would have said: Oh, come on! Donald Trump might be a menace. He is a menace. But that’s a parody of what a Trump-hating liberal imagines a Trump administration is going to be. Let’s be real about this.

But here we are in the real, and that is not what a Trump-hating liberal imagines a Trump administration is going to be. This is what Donald Trump imagines a Trump administration is going to be. It is what he is trying to make it be.

Seriously?

How could any political observer fail to anticipate that Trump might pick Kennedy for HHS? As I've been telling you, this pick was discussed in August, and Trump told CNN he "probably would" give Kennedy a job in the administration.

How could Klein fail to notice the popularity of Gabbard within the MAGA/Fox News bubble, and the widespread pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine sentiment within that bubble? Haven't we spent eight years debating whether Trump is a Russian agent or merely a pro-Putin useful idiot? Didn't Trump pick J.D. "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine" Vance as his running mate? And remember that Vance was recommended by Donald Trump Jr. -- y'know, this guy:

On the latest episode of Triggered, I spoke with America First rock star @JDVance1 about the weird obsession the political establishment has with Zelensky and the rampant corruption happening in Ukraine funded by American taxpayers. pic.twitter.com/f1An5l7US2

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 17, 2024

Why was anyone surprised at the pro-Russia choice of Gabbard?

I admit that the Gaetz pick was a surprise to me -- though we all should have realized that Trump would choose someone who intended to go the the Justice Department and "start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads," which is what a unnamed Trump adviser told Marc Caputo of The Bulwark that Gaetz vowed to do.

And we know Trump likes Hegseth because he considered making him head of the Department of Veterans Affairs in his first term.

I love the way Klein expresses contempt for the "ranting" of "resistance" Trump-bashers even as he admits that we were right. (We were right, but I guess we were right in a gauche way, so Klein and his entire crowd are still smarter and cooler than we are.)

Klein is horrified to discover that Trump doesn't feel constrained by "guardrails." Wow, who could have predicted that? Oh, right -- lots of people.

Washington Post, November 1, 2023:

Trump and his allies have plans to remove the guardrails in a second term

... He wants lawyers like John Eastman, willing to wrench and blowtorch legal language until the will of the electorate becomes secondary to the will of Donald Trump.

The New York Times, December 4, 2023:

Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First

... He has glorified political violence and spoken admiringly of autocrats for decades.

... Forces that somewhat contained his autocratic tendencies in his first term — staff members who saw their job as sometimes restraining him, a few congressional Republicans episodically willing to criticize or oppose him, a partisan balance on the Supreme Court that occasionally ruled against him — would all be weaker.

As a result, Mr. Trump’s and his advisers’ more extreme policy plans and ideas for a second term would have a greater prospect of becoming reality.

CNN, September 26, 2023:

@jaketapper

Hutchinson: In A Second Term, Trump would Not Have Guardrails

♬ original sound - Jake Tapper

We were talking about Trump and "guardrails" a year ago. We knew. But Klein is the kind of person who never experiences any disruption to his very comfortable life and therefore can't imagine this level of disruption happening at all in his world. He knew people were forewarning us about this, but it couldn't really occur, could it? Because if it did, it would be really bad! Nothing really bad ever happens in Ezra Klein's world!

Well, it's happening. The leopards still won't eat Ezra Klein's face, in all likelihood, but he should be prepared to see a lot of faceless people, and a lot of leopards.