When the first round of cabinet picks and short list Supreme Court Justices were coming out, I was admittedly surprised. My worst nightmare was that the President would follow up his victory by bringing in moderates and even liberals into the White House. He did to some extent, but a good chunk of the people he picked were conservatives such as Mick Mulvaney, Scott Pruitt, and Neil Gorsuch.
Of course, he also brought in problematic people. Reince Priebus led the moderates. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner led the liberals. Steve Bannon led the alt-righters. Then, there were those who weren’t even on my radar for their politics. Among them was Sean Spicer.
Anthony Scaramucci is leading communications now and we should all be concerned. This is an odd strategic pick, but more importantly it’s a pick that brings with it the baggage of strong liberalism tempered by an alleged “fiscal conservatism” that thus far has not been made evident. The progressive views he has shared in the past are available for all to see.
What worries me is that he’s not disavowing these views. Instead, he’s simply deleting them to remove the distraction and “moving on to” the President’s agenda.
Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets. Past views evolved & shouldn't be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that's all that matters
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 22, 2017
Let’s set aside the fact that deleting Tweets before claiming transparency is laughable at best. What’s striking is that he’s not expressing any changes in his perspectives. This is a job and if his job is to communicate the President’s agenda, his perspectives won’t make it in, right? Wrong, and it’s an insult for them to think we’re that naive.
The Comms Director has a direct line to the President’s ear. The last thing we need is even more liberal perspectives swaying the President further to the left. I’m all for people changing their perspectives. Heck, I was in favor of the Iraq War over a decade ago. People can change their minds. The problem with Scaramucci is that he’s not claiming to change anything, whether it’s his leftist opinions on gun control, abortion, or the border wall.
Americans didn’t vote for Donald Trump because they wanted more liberals in the White House. They would have voted for Hillary Clinton if that was their goal and Scaramucci seems more ideologically aligned with the Democrats than Republicans. What does this say about an administration that has accomplished so little in its first six months and that has been embroiled in controversy after controversy?
It’s not too late for the President to put in a right-minded, ideologically aligned Communications Director on the job. Call it a mulligan. Say he was unaware of Scaramucci’s old views or that he fell for a sales pitch. Humble yourself, Mr. President, and get a conservative to handle the communications for your administration. Stop proving that my initial fears were justified.
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