Trump's picks for key positions hold dangerously intolerant views

President-elect Donald Trump pledged to be a “president for all Americans,” but immediately contradicted that promise with his choice of white nationalist Steven Bannon as chief policy advisor. His most recent spate of appointments for key legal and national security positions are just as dangerous, and should be equally troubling to anyone paying attention.

Former Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a longtime friend of Trump, has now been tapped for National Security Advisor. Flynn has called Islam “a cancer,” retweeted anti-Semitic content on Twitter, and promoted the work of a white supremacist who advocates IQ tests for immigrants.

When he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, female agents were given a presentation instructing them to wear makeup. VoteVets said in a statement the Flynn appointment should “send shivers down the spines of all Americans,” while Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen darkly tweeted that Flynn is a “walking ethical minefield” whose appointment is “beyond terrifying.”

[quote]VoteVets said in a statement the Flynn appointment should “send shivers down the spines of all Americans.”[/quote]

Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has been chosen as the Director of the CIA. In his first congressional run, Pompeo’s campaign tweeted a link to an article calling his Indian-American opponent a “turban topper” who “could be a muslim, a hindy, a buddhist etc who knows.”

He has said that Muslim faith leaders in the United States are “complicit” in terrorism, and wants to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open indefinitely, which is a violation of international law. He supports expanding the surveillance authority of the NSA and insists torture is “within the law.”

Then there is Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Trump’s choice for attorney general. Sessions was once rejected for a federal judgeship because of his remark that he had approved of the KKK “until I found out they smoked pot.” He once called a Black federal prosecutor “boy” and warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.” He has called the NAACP and the ACLU “un-American” and “Communist-inspired” and referred to the Voting Rights Act as “a piece of intrusive legislation.”

In the Senate, he introduced a bill that would cut off federal funding for any city that does not assist in deportations, and voted no on an amendment affirming that it is illegal for CIA and FBI agents to torture people. The NAACP has issued a statement calling Trump’s choice of Sessions “unimaginable.”

These top-level administration picks are a stark sign that, as president, Trump will show the exact same disregard for women and people of color, and the same blatant contempt for people of faith and civil liberties, that he did as a presidential candidate.