Probably the most merit-based administration in historical past strikes once more.
Meet Chamberlain Harris! No phrase on why her dad and mom saddled her with the moniker of a long-dead, disgraced-as-an-accommodationist British prime minister, however younger Chamberlain is nothing if not accommodating to President Donald Trump, which simply netted her a seat on the Fee of High-quality Arts. She will likely be accountable for signing off on Trump’s Large Dumb Grift Palace Ballroom.
Gosh, do you suppose she is going to approve it? Actually a thriller.
Harris is a whopping 26 years previous, was referred to as the “receptionist of america” throughout Trump’s first time period, and is presently the deputy director of Oval Workplace operations, no matter which means. She beloved working for Trump a lot that she continued to function his govt assistant after he left workplace in 2021.
Does she have arts expertise? Effectively, she has the identical quantity as Lindsey Halligan, who was initially tapped to evaluation all Smithsonian reveals for wokeness till ascending, briefly, to a U.S. legal professional gig—which is to say no expertise in anyway.
However hey, no less than Harris has a 2019 bachelor’s diploma in political science from the College of Albany. There, her honors thesis in contrast the communication methods utilized by former President Barack Obama and Trump, however principally served as a automobile to reward Trump about how profitable he was at growing his personal model and thrilling his social media base.
Harris received the nod for serving on the Fee of High-quality Arts as a result of Trump fired all of the members of the U.S. Fee of High-quality Arts again in October, proper within the midst of his ballroom-building spree. Positive, members of the fee are purported to be “specialists in related disciplines, together with artwork, structure, panorama structure, and concrete design,” however who wants experience if you’ve received Chamberlain Harris?
Harris’ appointment comes on the heels of Trump additionally firing everybody on the Nationwide Capital Planning Fee final July, changing them with cronies like Will Scharf, who presently serves as Trump’s employees secretary and was considered one of his innumerable private prison protection attorneys.
Scharf additionally has no expertise within the arts, city planning, or the like, however what he does have is a willingness to cede the NCPC’s function to Trump. In his function as NCPC chair, Scharf took the Trump-coddling stance that the NCPC doesn’t have jurisdiction over tearing issues down, so the group simply needed to stand apart whereas the East Wing was demolished.
Now that Harris has her new gig, she will be able to be part of the bevy of cronies and child racists that Trump has put in, none of whom can be employable in a standard administration.
That doesn’t simply embody high-profile individuals like Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. All of these of us are certainly unqualified, however even lower-rung administration roles now need to be filled with morally versatile true believers, which is the way you get individuals like Harris and Halligan in positions of energy.
Take 21-year-old Peyton Rollins, who’s one way or the other working social media for the Division of Homeland Safety. Rollins seems to have landed that job based mostly on the energy of his AI slop and white nationalism.
Or how about 31-year-old Paul Ingrassia, initially tapped to guide the Workplace of Particular Counsel till his Nazi-curious texts emerged, whereupon he was rewarded with a unique high-level administration job that didn’t require Senate affirmation.
Being certified for a job is totally irrelevant to this administration. Fealty to Trump of essentially the most comically overwrought type is the one factor that issues.
However the administration can’t simply acknowledge that, which might no less than be trustworthy. As a substitute, all of us need to endure the fascist mission of the administration telling essentially the most outrageous lies about these picks. White Home communications director Steven Cheung declared that Harris “understands the President’s imaginative and prescient and appreciation of the humanities like only a few others, and brings a singular perspective that can serve the Fee nicely” and will likely be “an amazing asset to the Fee of High-quality Arts.”
Come on, man. That is simply embarrassing.
Okay, nicely, to be honest, Harris most likely does perceive Trump’s “imaginative and prescient” of slapping his identify on every thing and turning Washington, D.C., into Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac, totally encrusted in gold gilt. That’s not likely a “distinctive perspective” or “super asset” to the fee, however may be very useful to Trump.
Even regular conservative arts and structure sorts can’t get behind Trump’s efforts to raze D.C. and rebuild it in his picture. Architect Cass Gilbert would by no means, so as an alternative we get Chamberlain Harris as a result of we dwell within the worst timeline.
