How Donald Trump exiled the political class

His Cabinet will not be full of the usual suspects

There's a new boss in town.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that as president he would hire "the best people." Reporters enjoyed snarking about what that might mean, exactly. But as Trump picks his Cabinet, we are starting to get one message loud and clear: Trump's best people are not in the political class. It is decidedly short of the journalists, wonks, consultants, lobbyists, think-tankers, and politicians that normally staff the executive branch's top tiers.

We shouldn't be so surprised. In many ways, Trump's victory was a victory won over the political class itself. Practically everyone in Washington, D.C., detested him. And Trump was also opposed by almost the entirety of the conservative wing of the political class: the conservative journalists, columnists, and policy experts. One of the Trump campaign's underlying themes was that D.C. was filled with idiots who messed everything up. They're to blame for the financial collapse, and the Iraq War, and the terrible rollout of ObamaCare.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.