# Trump's Cabinet of Curiosities **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 10, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367 "2016-11-10T16:28:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/101 "2016-11-29T18:06:31Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > [Tom Price at Health and Human Services](http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/28/news/economy/tom-price-trump-health-secretary/index.html?adkey=bn). > > We may end up wishing it had been Ben Carson! So how will health be transformed under this nominee? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/102 "2016-11-29T18:45:07Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > As for Price, yeah, he definitely wants to get rid of the ACA. Hope it doesn’t come across as trolling by my pressing the point but, how does that help poor angry white people again? Right now they can get subsidized insurance. Post-Price they get… nothing? Yay? 😕 > > I see the word “replace” there, but NO GOP bigwig has ever elaborated on that AFAIK. They just won’t talk about it. In this context, I really think it is an empty box. The original request was “Can anyone draw some straight lines between the most ardent positions of Trump’s various picks and the benefits that will accrue because of these positions to the angry white people in their rural ghettos who voted him into office in the first place?” I only brought up poor people in the context of school vouchers. As far as ObamaCare goes, I imagine there are a lot of “angry white people” who aren’t poor, who don’t qualify for ObamaCare subsidies, and who would love to see it repealed. Take Emery County, for one example I’m fairly familiar with. There are about 11,000 people living in Emery County’s ~4500 square miles (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined), giving it an extremely low population density of 2.5/mile^2. It’s also 95% white and it voted overwhelmingly for Trump (~80% while Clinton and Evan McMullin both got 8-9%). Despite being extremely rural, it’s not particularly poor. The average household income is close to the average for the nation, the poverty rate is below average. I can’t speak directly for the “angry” part, but Emery County, Utah is exactly the sort of place that I envision when you wrote “the angry white people in their rural ghettos who voted him into office”. As for the concern that “NO GOP bigwig has ever elaborated on” what they mean by “replace”, I offer you some light reading: [https://abetterway.speaker.gov/\_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf](https://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/103 "2016-11-29T18:50:13Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > As for the concern that “NO GOP bigwig has ever elaborated on” what they mean by “replace”, I offer you some light reading: [https://abetterway.speaker.gov/\_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf](https://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf) When you said “light”, you weren’t just whistling Dixie. Same old crap: allow insurers to sell over state lines so that the least regulated state will be where they all wind up, cutting tort liability, yada yada yada same old GOP nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/104 "2016-11-29T18:53:19Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > When you said “light”, you weren’t just whistling Dixie. Same old crap: allow insurers to sell over state lines so that the least regulated state will be where they all wind up, cutting tort liability, yada yada yada same old GOP nonsense. You’re free to claim / argue that none of it will have the desired effects, that it won’t work, etc, but it’s not accurate to claim the GOP has no replacement plan. That’s my only point here. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/105 "2016-11-29T18:59:15Z")
Now McConnell’s wife has been tapped to head Transportation. Yep, that swamp is being drained alright. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/106 "2016-11-29T19:04:22Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Now McConnell’s wife has been tapped to head Transportation. Yep, that swamp is being drained alright. When you drain a swamp, the water and mud has to go _somewhere_. ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/107 "2016-11-29T20:11:29Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Now McConnell’s wife has been tapped to head Transportation. Yep, that swamp is being drained alright. Is Elaine Chao a bad pick? A quick Google shows nothing immediately objectionable, and I don’t remember her making headlines during the second Bush administration, even though she was Secretary of Labor for eight years. She certainly has the experience, not just in the Cabinet, but also a couple years as Deputy Secretary of Transportation during the first Bush administration. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/108 "2016-11-29T21:08:33Z")
I’m impressed with the cabinet choices so far. CNN points out 3 women of color have already been selected. > **[The three women of color Trump has appointed, so far | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/trump-cabinet-women/index.html)** > > As Donald Trump's Cabinet begins to take shape, the President-elect has selected three women of color so far to serve in top positions in his administration, including South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was a sharp critic of Trump during the 2016... Sounds like a very inclusive group to me. Trump said he’d pick the most highly qualified people and he’s doing that. Mike Pence deserves credit for finding these qualified candidates, but Trump is interviewing them himself. Conservative? Well yes, of course they are. Conservatives won the election. They get to govern. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/109 "2016-11-29T21:31:32Z")
Trump is interviewing them? Really? All by himself? Boy, got his big boy pants on _now_, huh? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/110 "2016-11-29T21:46:19Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Trump is interviewing them? Really? All by himself? Boy, got his big boy pants on _now_, huh? He’s only interviewing the women. You know… ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/111 "2016-11-29T21:50:24Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Conservatives won the election. They get to govern. Fair is fair. The Republicans did allow Obama to make the appointments he was entitled to make. The Democrats should follow that example. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > He’s only interviewing the women. You know… **elucidator** said his pants were _on._ ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/112 "2016-11-29T21:54:12Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > Is Elaine Chao a bad pick? A quick Google shows nothing immediately objectionable, and I don’t remember her making headlines during the second Bush administration, even though she was Secretary of Labor for eight years. She certainly has the experience, not just in the Cabinet, but also a couple years as Deputy Secretary of Transportation during the first Bush administration. [_Washington Post_ article on Chao](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/2016/11/29/85d42438-b64b-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html). Her prior experience does have applicability, although noted as somewhat adverse to labor union interests and on deregulation, which may have contributed to collapses as Sago and Crandall Canyon mines. _Oh, and she’s the daughter of the owner of The Foremost Group, a global shippping enterprise, is on the board of directions of Parsons and Northwest Airlines, was a former vice president of Bank of America and high management at Citicorp, was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the president of the United Fucking Way (also known as “America’s Foremost Charity for Charitable Giving to Itself”) , and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has stated that **he does not intend to recuse himself from her confirmation hearings** _. Trump has now graduated from airboat to just riding on the backs of alligators in terms of how swampy his Cabinet and directors presumptive are. > [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m impressed with the cabinet choices so far. CNN points out 3 women of color have already been selected. > [http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/trump-cabinet-women/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/trump-cabinet-women/index.html) > > Sounds like a very inclusive group to me. Trump said he’d pick the most highly qualified people and he’s doing that. Mike Pence deserves credit for finding these qualified candidates, but Trump is interviewing them himself. If your metric for the quality of his cabinet is the spectral distribution of their skin tone then I suppose it looks fine. If you are more concerned about the competence, character, and integrity of the people Trump is populating his Cabinet and inner circle with, it looks more sketchy than Skid Row at 2 a.m. For a candidate who came to office on the promise of “draining the swamp” and getting rid of corporate and insider influence, he’s pretty much gone to the very well he himself poisoned, save for outliers like alt.right media mogul Steven Bannon as his chief strategist and Myron Ebell, provisionally climate change denier as EPA transition and presumptive nominee for director. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/113 "2016-11-29T22:02:43Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > When you said “light”, you weren’t just whistling Dixie. Same old crap: allow insurers to sell over state lines so that the least regulated state will be where they all wind up, cutting tort liability, yada yada yada same old GOP nonsense. I continue to be amazed that the “across state lines” gets any mention. Several states already allow it and [nothing](http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-insurance-state-lines-20161114-story.html) has happened. > [@LA Times](#): > > The ACA allows states to reach compacts with other states to allow cross-border insurance sales (compacts are essentially interstate treaties). Georgia, Maine and Wyoming have passed laws enabling such compacts. No other states have joined them, and not a single insurer has expressed any interest in taking advantage of them. According to the Urban Institute, Georgia’s law permits insurers to sell policies that have been approved in other states, and Maine’s law allows the sale of policies approved in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Rhode Island. > > As the Georgetown University study team observed, laws allowing cross-state health insurance sales have no organized champions. Consumers aren’t clamoring for them; insurers aren’t interested in them; doctors and hospitals don’t care; and state regulators aren’t inclined to cede their oversight to interlopers from somewhere else. Their only backers are preening political candidates who don’t understand health insurance and hope you don’t, either. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/114 "2016-11-29T23:18:51Z")
And [now he’s selected](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/steven-terner-mnuchin-trump-treasury-secretary.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news) a hedge fund operator and former Goldman Sachs partner to run the Treasury. God help us all. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/115 "2016-11-29T23:20:16Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And [now he’s selected](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/steven-terner-mnuchin-trump-treasury-secretary.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news) a hedge fund operator and former Goldman Sachs partner to run the Treasury. God help us all. The swamp would be declared a superfund site, but I’m not sure the head of the EPA believes in those. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/116 "2016-11-29T23:49:36Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And [now he’s selected](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/steven-terner-mnuchin-trump-treasury-secretary.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news) a hedge fund operator and former Goldman Sachs partner to run the Treasury. God help us all. That Trump, always showing his deep commitment to the working class. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/117 "2016-11-30T00:18:14Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > That Trump, always showing his deep commitment to the working class. This choice is prolly Obama’s fault, somehow. Or the evil media. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/118 "2016-11-30T01:31:33Z")
What’s the historical data? If you look at it don’t find Treasury/Fed/financial regulators etc people frequently come from Goldman Sachs? Remember how they care so much that they gave Hillary a big fat check for a speech? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/119 "2016-11-30T02:12:05Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And [now he’s selected](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/politics/steven-terner-mnuchin-trump-treasury-secretary.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news) a hedge fund operator and former Goldman Sachs partner to run the Treasury. God help us all. Yes, [he really is](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-mnuchin-treasury-20161129-story.html) a piece of human feces. I’m fairly certain this country is going to be raped. Hang on for a real, wild, run… ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-cabinet-of-curiosities/771367/120 "2016-11-30T04:06:46Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The original request was “Can anyone draw some straight lines between the most ardent positions of Trump’s various picks and the benefits that will accrue because of these positions to the angry white people in their rural ghettos who voted him into office in the first place?” > > I only brought up poor people in the context of school vouchers. As far as ObamaCare goes, I imagine there are a lot of “angry white people” who aren’t poor, who don’t qualify for ObamaCare subsidies, and who would love to see it repealed. > > Take Emery County, for one example I’m fairly familiar with. There are about 11,000 people living in Emery County’s ~4500 square miles (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined), giving it an extremely low population density of 2.5/mile^2. It’s also 95% white and it voted overwhelmingly for Trump (~80% while Clinton and Evan McMullin both got 8-9%). Despite being extremely rural, it’s not particularly poor. The average household income is close to the average for the nation, the poverty rate is below average. > > I can’t speak directly for the “angry” part, but Emery County, Utah is exactly the sort of place that I envision when you wrote “the angry white people in their rural ghettos who voted him into office”. > > As for the concern that “NO GOP bigwig has ever elaborated on” what they mean by “replace”, I offer you some light reading: [https://abetterway.speaker.gov/\_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf](https://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-HealthCare-PolicyPaper.pdf) Let me first explain what I mean by “rural ghettos”. This is a term I coined after Trump’s election to describe the demographic that appears to have swung the election. It is meant to be taken literally- while the poorest inner city areas are on the opposite end of the spectrum from rural areas when it comes to population density, in many cases they otherwise share a striking resemblance in terms of the kinds of problems afflicting them- lousy schools, unemployment, isolation from the rest of society, racial segregation, rampant drug abuse, and the built environment being in a general state of disrepair. The kind of place that, to me, most fits that description would be a place like Appalachian Kentucky, from[here](http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/in-bluegrass-country/): > [@](#): > > The counties that produce the most pot are among the poorest in the nation. The Appalachia HIDTA team is considered a highly successful crime-busting unit, but if you add up the amount of marijuana eradicated, the number of meth labs cleaned up, the drug arrests made, and the length of the prison sentences handed out, and compare them to the area’s illiteracy rates (48.4 percent, the highest in the nation), average individual income ($12,000), and morbidity rates (Appalachian Kentucky has the highest death rate in the nation from all cancers), it is clear that the government has fought the drug war and abandoned the people, ensuring that the war never ends. In terms of the election, the area that springs to mind first is the industrial Northeast states that generally favor the Democrats, but this year swung Republican by narrow margins and handed the victory to Trump. The result was credited to people in what I have termed “rural ghettos”- poor angry white people in rural areas where jobs have left and heroin and other opiod abuse issues have moved in. Word is that this is the population that made the difference for Trump in the election. The other places that spring to mind when I think of “rural ghettos” are the kinds of poor Midwestern towns where [kids steal farm chemicals](http://articles.latimes.com/2004/feb/28/nation/na-meth28) [to cook meth](https://www.texasobserver.org/61-every-man-a-kingpin-a-new-method-of-making-methamphetamine-is-turning-run-of-the-mill-addicts-into-drug-manufacturers-in-north-texas-the-kingpins-are-living-out-of-their-cars/). So I hope I am not making you feel defensive about Emery County. I don’t have it in for all rural areas (“rural ghettos” isn’t meant to be offensive at all, though I am sure it is)- from your description, it does not sound like that place is riddled with poverty. Drugs? I don’t know- the meth stories seem to come out of the Midwest, not Utah. I associate Utah drug activity with the Mormon-backlash counterculture in Salt Lake, not the rural areas. And I can be very rural-people friendly- I recently damn near married a pickup-and-gun-owning, Christian conservative rural Arkansan -and I am none of those things. The thing is, those kind of demographic identifiers don’t give you enough information to really know somebody much at all, let alone define them. Still, some rural areas suffer from very serious problems, problems similar to those found in the poorest inner city areas. And it looks like Trump’s message appealed to these people, and they made the difference in voting him in. Is repealing Obamacare and replacing it with “choices” they can’t afford without the ACA’s subsidies going to help these populations? It doesn’t look like it, but since you were kind enough to post a link to an actual GOP plan, give me another day to read through it before I comment any further. 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