By Ray Cardello for January 14, 2025, Season 30 / Post 10

The confirmation process for the president’s cabinet members, ambassadors, and principal officers of his administration is twofold. The president’s responsibility is to nominate people who are qualified for the job, align with the commander-in-chief’s vision, and are of high character. The Senate then performs its duty to advise and consent through committee hearings and a vote of the entire Senate. It sounds like it should be a very civil process, and in a perfect world, it would be. We live in a world far from perfect, and despite our hope that the country and maybe its leaders had turned a corner in November, the initial hearings to confirm the Trump nominees will be business as usual. By usual, I mean partisan and contentious. The Democrats did not get the message sent by the American people that they rejected the ways of the last four years and wanted Donald Trump behind the wheel. They also want him to have the team of his choice to get the job done. You do not have to watch the entire session. Watch the short sessions of Senators Warren, Hillenbrand, Duckworth, and Hirono to take the temperature of the hearings. The Democrats have no intention of rubber-stamping Trump’s selections. They will use their time to berate the character and qualifications and remind people of what they had to do in Trump’s first term to keep him under control. They understand their job to confirm, but they will get some retribution.

Some of these female senators were shaking. They were so passionate about their mission to make Pete Hegseth look as bad as possible to the public. Sadly for them, their animations made them look weak as Hegseth calmly handled all of their shots. One of the day’s highlights was when Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) took some of his seven minutes to hold the mirror up to the Democrats. He called out their hypocrisy, asking who among them called for resignations when they saw an intoxicated senator casting a late-night vote or suffered through a divorce because they cheated on their wife? He challenged them to look inward before calling out another. It sounded right at the moment, but unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears on the other end of the panel. These Democrats thrive on hatred, and it is directed at anyone with conservative roots.

The tone may have been more civil in the other hearings, but the sharp tongues were still taking shots at the nominee or the president-elect. These people do not care about redemption or second chances. They are all about retribution and getting a piece of revenge for the beating they took in November. They see a formidable team, far different than the woke, diverse group sent to the Hill by Joe Biden, and they recognize the country’s sentiment is starting to shift to the Right. The Left is suffering defeats at the ballot box, and their policies are failing at every level. The American people have pulled aside the curtain, and the Democrat machine is sputtering. This demise is what they should be most angry at. They took their best shot at tearing down the American experiment and fell short. They do not have a plan B. Sovereignty, strength, and prosperity will replace the damaged nation that the Obama/Biden era left, and the MAGA era will rebuild.