The strange alchemy of scandals in Trumpland

I just want to throw out something I’ve noticed in discussions of Trump’s scandals in general, and his nominations in particular. What I’m talking about is illustrated really well by the Pete Hesgeth situation.

It’s this: Hesgeth is radically unfit to be the Secretary of Defense for no less than three — that we know of — reasons, that are all completely independent of each other, with each by itself serving as a more than compelling reason for disqualifying him from one of the most important jobs in the entire government.

(1) Nothing in Hesgeth’s work history puts him within a parsec of being minimally qualified for the job. His resume is a complete joke for the purposes of this position. It’s difficult to overstate the extent to which he would be utterly unfit for the job, even if he were a person of sterling moral character and the very picture of sobriety. Which brings us to:

(2) Hesgeth is obviously an immoral creep; a serial adulterer, a man who has paid at least one woman off to not discuss his alleged sexual assault of her, and the possessor of a to put it mildly shady past in matters of business. He’s to all appearances a genuinely bad guy, who shouldn’t be considered for a top government job even if he were qualified for it (he isn’t even remotely; see (1) above) and if he weren’t a drug addict (he is; see below).

(3) Hesgeth is a strung out junkie, but because his drug of choice — as far as we know — is legal and respectable, we’re encouraged to minimize the fact that having a drug addict in this kind of job is terrible idea, even if he were qualified for it (NOT), and he wasn’t a scumbag (IS).

Now in a rational world all these rationales for dismissing him out of hand as a candidate for the job to which he’s being nominated would be additive. Yet in this world something very odd happens, not only among Republicans, who needless to say are past praying for at this point, but even among opponents of the nomination, who are prone to say things like “focus on the fact that he’s totally unqualified, not that he’s a scumbag and a drunk.” (Several comments in this thread take this tack). Through some mysterious alchemy, the fact that Hesgeth is totally unqualified gets lost in the shuffle when people focus on the scumminess or the monkey on his back, and the scumminess gets lost when the focus shifts to his total lack of qualifications, and the alcoholism gets short shrift when the focus is on something else, and round and round we go.

I sense this is related to, or may simply be an example, of Steve Bannon’s flood the zone with shit strategy — and of course we see the same dynamic play out all the time with Trump himself, where this week’s scandal somehow makes last week’s — or yesterday’s or this morning’s — scandal disappear from view.

Something’s going on here, I think, related to information overload and emotional weariness: it’s all too much somehow, and the awfulness of everything makes the particular awfulness of the moment tend to fall quickly out of focus and then disappear.

To fight against this tendency is one of this blog’s many duties.

. . . and in a perfect illustration of what this post itself is about, I forgot to mention that he seems at least Nazi-adjacent.