Donald Trump’s cabinet choices have one thing in common. They are Trump fans. Or maybe more than fans. They are acolytes, or perhaps worshippers.

Needless to say, many pundits have expressed concern. They worry that the cabinet will not be able to restrain Trump’s baser instincts.

Which is the point. Donald Trump is not eligible to run for president again. He doesn’t want to have anyone telling him what to do, he just wants to do whatever comes to his mind without people telling him there are good reasons to choose another path.

Are the choices controversial? Many of them. I think that was the point. Trump is not a fan of the way things have been done in Washington in the past. He wants to blow things up. (Hopefully he wants to then build better, but that may not be as important to him.)

I’m not going to comment on any of the names announced so far. Some I found intriguing, others amusing – probably because I don’t live in the US and any changes made are unlikely to affect me. do the people he chose have the required skills to be a cabinet secretary? Not many of them, if you can believe the pundits.

With Donald trump, the question always is how serious he is about something that he says, which has me wondering about his cabinet choices. Most cabinet positions require confirmation by the US Senate. Several, maybe most, of those named so far are unlikely to be confirmed.

Is Trump shrewd enough that he is making appointments he knows will fail? What better way to reward MAGA loyalists than a cabinet position. Too bad they didn’t get confirmed, but whatever debt they think he owed them is paid. And if, by some miracle they are confirmed, Trump doesn’t care about the damage they do as long as they don’t bother him.

Almost twenty years ago, Stephen Harper became Prime Minister of Canada. Much of the Conservative Party’s support had come from social conservatives. Harper had promised them that, if elected, there would be a free vote in the House of Commons on same-sex marriage, which had been legalized not long before.

Harper’s party had won the election with a minority government. He made the same-sex marriage issue one of the first things addressed by Parliament. The House, led by its “progressive” element, affirmed the status quo. Same-sex marriage remained legal, and it has not been an issue since.

I always wondered if Harper chose the timing deliberately. He knew that in a minority Parliament, there weren’t enough Conservatives to reverse the law. By an early vote he kept his promise and put the issue to bed – without the cultural upheaval that changing the law would have entailed. It was smart politics.

I wonder if Donald Trump, with his cabinet nominations, is displaying the same shrewdness?