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From the moment Donald J. Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015, he’s been anything but a conventional politician.
He’s consistently told Americans the unvarnished truth about everything from anti-worker “free trade” deals to our broken immigration system, from endless wars abroad to our two-tiered justice system.
Instead of caring about “conventional wisdom” or political orthodoxy, he’s been committed to doing what’s best for the American people.
And that’s exactly why everyday Americans, fed up with our country’s rudderless leadership, resoundingly re-elected President Trump.
Democrats and the media are naturally apoplectic about President Trump extending his unique way of running our country to his Cabinet and other agency nominations.
Just as they said about President Trump himself, his personnel picks have been attacked for lacking “traditional” experience or having “unconventional” views.
What these criticisms miss is that it was precisely because of those unconventional views and his unique resumé that Americans voted overwhelmingly to re-elect him.
They voted for a president and an administration focused on cutting through the noise and ignoring arbitrary credentials to deliver real results.
If that’s surprising to you, do a little reflection on what the last four years of “the adults” running things has entailed.
So many of Joe Biden’s nominees and staffers appeared very qualified on paper in the traditional sense of how Washington has operated — and most of these people have been, at best, incompetent or, at worst, outright destructive to our country’s stability and prosperity.
Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken boasted a long resumé of jobs at the highest levels of our country’s security and foreign policy apparatus, from the State Department to the National Security Council.
On Blinken’s “very qualified” watch, the Biden administration transformed the unprecedented era of world peace inherited from the first Trump administration into global chaos and conflict, from the Middle East to Ukraine to Asia.
Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas similarly held numerous positions as director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services and deputy DHS secretary, along with a successful private legal practice.
That highly conventional pick to run DHS went on to oversee tens of millions of illegal immigrants pouring into our country, including suspected terrorists, sex offenders and violent gangsters.
What about wunderkind Pete Buttigieg? That sleek Rhodes Scholar who worked at McKinsey, one of the world’s most prestigious consulting firms?
After being given $7.5 billion to build hundreds of electric-vehicle charging stations across the country, he managed to build less than 10 in two years.
We could go on, but it’s clear that the American people are fed up with what looks and sounds “right” on paper; they want what works in reality, and they voted for the outside perspectives needed to take the wheel and stop driving the country — and world — off a cliff.
President Trump’s nominees, however maligned, are set to do just that.
Tulsi Gabbard, for instance, is a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve who has vocally and articulately broken down how our national-security establishment has gotten us into endless wars while compromising the security of Americans.
She was even egregiously put on a terror watchlist by a politically weaponized government for voicing these opinions. Who could be better to serve as our director of national intelligence to focus on making our country safer?
Kash Patel, similarly, has been laser-focused on the politicization of law-enforcement agencies against Americans like President Trump himself, who faced one Russia hoax-fueled investigation after another, while actual, violent criminals continue to freely roam our streets.
For Americans concerned about Making America Safe Again, that sounds like an excellent — even if “unconventional” — background to reform the FBI.
Despite our material abundance, Americans have some of the highest rates of chronic disease in the world. Instead of tapping one of the medical “experts” — however conventionally qualified — who’ve overseen that disaster, President Trump chose a champion of preventative medicine, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to bring in new perspectives to Make America Healthy Again.
This team of visionaries and leaders President Trump has assembled will deliver on the mandate to Make America Great Again.
Democrats and the media can spend the next four years stonewalling and hyperventilating, as they did during the first Trump administration, or work with the president and be a part of our country’s resurgence.
Nearly 80 million Americans made it clear last month which option they’d prefer.
Lara Trump is co-chair of the Republican National Committee.