When Donald Trump announced this week that he would choose Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, it seemed for a brief moment that Trump might be making some kind of peace with the Republican Party he had shattered, humiliated, and reassembled. Yes, the "Little Marco" sobriquet that Trump gave Rubio eight years ago would be shadowing the Florida senator all the way to the State Department. But by refashioning himself as a Trump team player Rubio had regained some semblance of power and even dignity.
It looked like Trump had decided to take the win, and staff his administration with Capitol Hill players like Rubio and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Rubio even gained an endorsement from the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who seems to have understood that the country's best bet in the Trump II era was that the Cabinet would be staffed by people like Rubio.
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