THE BEST PEOPLE

A disheartening portrait of the alternately incompetent and
corrupt Cabinet of the current administration.

In his scathing critique, Yahoo News national affairs
correspondent Nazaryan (co-author: Children of the Dream: Why School
Integration Works, 2019, etc.) shows clearly how Donald Trump, with his
“intentionally nonlinear presidency,” established a Cabinet consisting of
crucially inexperienced individuals in public service, each remarkably
unqualified to assume key pivotal decision-making roles in politics. In an
assembly both “overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly old,” each member was
lauded for their elite status and financial worth and, to the author, “wealth
that was tacky and vulgar, wealth desperate for recognition, wealth that could
only have been an insult to the average citizens whose tribune Trump vowed to
be in Washington.” Nazaryan provides glaring examples of the rampant conflicts
of interests and ethical red flags by meticulously detailing the
head-scratching nomination hearings of Betsy DeVos, a fundamentalist
conservative Christian with a skewed view of an education official’s
priorities; Steve Mnuchin, secretary of the Treasury, who filed false financial
asset disclosures upon his appointment; Rick Perry, the Department of Energy
secretary who was blatantly unsure of what his position actually governed;
wealthy investor-cum–commerce secretary Wilbur Ross; and Department of Housing
and Urban Development nominee Ben Carson, who lacked any governmental or
federal agency experience whatsoever. While this type of bureaucratic runaway
train is not news to political watchdogs, the author manages to put a fresh
spin on a dire situation with snarky humor and wince-inducing facts, though his
intense contempt at times borders on unnecessary mudslinging. While he also
identifies countless other impurities infiltrating the political
stream—Priebus, Pruitt, Spicer, Bannon et al.—thankfully, he balances these out
by documenting how imprudence and circumstance caught up to the pack and an
incremental exodus ensued. Many others surprisingly remain in power, and
Nazaryan is pleased to call out the remaining political “backbenchers of public
and private life” whose tenures continue to crumble beneath the weight of unmet
expectations.

A dizzying, tragicomic crash course in contemporary political
incapacities.