What frightens me is that 1984, and Kafka seem to be alive and well today

What a newpaper in Finland is saying.

Donald Trump promised to shake up the US administration, and that is what he is doing, judging by his announced ministerial and advisory picks. The question is whether there will be anything left of the administration after the next four years when this lot get going. People are being appointed to the administration who are certainly quite competent in their own right. In some area. But not in what they should be. Cabinet of Horrors Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is an ex-military man who made his name as a Fox News anchor who has passionately defended Trump. But he has no skills to command the world's largest armed forces. But for Trump, it seems enough that Hegseth is "cleansing" the military of woke and sexual minorities. And maybe sack the generals who oppose it. What could go wrong when the US military faces one of the most demanding changes in its history as threats grow around the world? Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard is a Putin sympathiser who has blamed the US for the war in Ukraine and has no intelligence experience whatsoever. Attorney General Matt Gaetz has experience only in causing turmoil in Congress. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has experience as the maga governor of South Dakota. According to her memoirs, she shot her dog because it wasn't trainable. Could this be the reason she was chosen to be in charge of border security, which is part of the solution to the immigration problem? Billionaire Elon Musk and billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy are leading the charge to improve governance. As a result, hundreds of thousands of federal employees could be laid off, including those who are supposed to oversee Musk's companies. It is possible that the US federal government will soon be as well run as the communications department of Musk-led X, formerly Twitter, from which the media always got an automatic response to inquiries about poop mojitos. Name-calling Even the selectors seem to think they are terrible. Indeed, Trump does not seem to believe that the picks will pass the US Congress. That's why he wants to bypass it, citing urgency. One of the US Senate's main constitutional duties is to approve the new president's nominations. However, the law has a bypass, which means that while the Senate is in recess, the President can make temporary appointments. Trump is now demanding that the incoming Republican leadership of the Senate immediately declare the Senate in recess. That way, his administration's nominees would not have to go through a formal, public hearing on their eligibility. Democratic senators, in particular, might ask awkward questions in public. Tellingly, with a likely 53-47 Republican majority, Senate hearings should be a close shouting match. But Trump clearly does not trust even his party colleagues to get the nominations through. At the start of Trump's term, we will see whether Republican senators have any backbone left. It is now being softened by threats to challenge them in the next election if the nominations don't go through. What could go wrong Trump's cabinet of terror is waiting for more names. Will anti-vaccine and coronadenialist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. get to storm the country's health care system? The result could be Make America Sick Again. Will Trump appoint a Secretary of Education at all? If he does, will his job be to run down federally run public education? Knowing that the US electorate is increasingly divided by educational attainment, the big goal of shutting down education is probably to prepare more less-educated Republican voters. The most chilling observation about Trump's appointments is that, with Hegseth and Gabbard in particular, the US security may end up with totally unqualified people in charge. Maybe it will all work out. But if anyone in the world is planning to attack the US, the next four years are a very good time to do so.