Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Who’s worse: Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr,. or Kash Patel?

Gail Collins: Gee, Bret, good question. Easy to imagine RFK Jr. screwing up the vaccination system and sending throngs of people to the hospital, if not worse. But I have to go for Kash Patel — just the idea of giving Donald Trump an FBI director who’d be his yes-man is truly scary.

Who’s your pick?

Bret: They’re all dreadful, though I think Patel came out of his hearing looking marginally less awful than he did when he came in. Stressing the word “marginally” here because, ethically and intellectually, he’s about as far from his predecessor, Christopher Wray, as the Earth is from Pluto. The idea of any FBI director “purging” his bureau of ideologically suspect employees smacks of some Warsaw Pact dictatorship.

On the other hand, both Gabbard and RFK Jr. were … atrocious, abhorrent, anaphylactically abominable. The idea of having a director of national intelligence who for years was a leading apologist for dictators like Bashar Assad and traitors like Edward Snowden is hard to stomach. But maybe not as hard to stomach as a legal shakedown artist, conspiracy theorist and medical misinformer in charge of the American federal health system. So I guess my vote for worst nominee in U.S. Cabinet history goes to Bobby Baby Chickens in the Blender K.

Do you think they’ll get confirmed?

Gail: Well, you know how good-natured Trump is about Republican shows of dissent. There are a handful of party moderates who may be trying to figure out a way to look at least a teeny, weeny bit sort of independent. If any of them comes up with the guts to cast a vote against one single nominee, Kennedy seems like a relatively easy choice — even his cousin Caroline can’t stand him.

And Gabbard — you didn’t really think this administration was going to have a wise director of national intelligence, did you?

Bret: I suspect that Trump wouldn’t mind seeing Gabbard and Kennedy voted down. Unlike Patel, whose job is to protect Trump from legal scrutiny, those two were chosen for purely transactional reasons — two former Democrats giving Trump their public support and whatever votes they brought with them. I don’t think he feels any loyalty to either of them, or any need politically for them.

If a few Republican senators like Bill Cassidy, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Todd Young, and Susan Collins vote them down, Trump will wind up with the best of all worlds. He can scapegoat evil RINOs for their defeat while getting an opportunity to appoint better people.

Related Story: Trump Is Going Woke on Energy

Better Choices Available

Gail: Sigh. You know, I’m getting really tired of waking up in the morning and knowing it’s probably going to be a good day for Bad Guy. If your prediction comes to pass, who do you think he should nominate next?

Bret: I’d suggest Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, for the director of national intelligence job and former Senate majority leader Bill Frist for health and human services. Huntsman was a well-respected ambassador to China for President Barack Obama and then, in Trump’s first term, to Russia. Frist was an accomplished surgeon before he went into politics; he even saved David Petraeus’ life.

Of course, this being Trump, he’ll never go for those ideas. And I’m really beginning to wonder about his supposed newfound competence. Twenty-five percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada? Really? Either it’s a terrible negotiating strategy or a gigantic economic blunder that will raise prices on American consumers. It already feels like a presidency that’s off the rails. But I’ve underestimated Trump’s political strength so many times before, and I also have to confess he’s done a few things I like. (On Monday, Trump announced a monthlong pause on the tariffs on Mexico.)

Gail: Nononono, I said luck, not competence. And don’t you think the luck will run out once the farmers have to try to handle their crops without migrant labor — and consumers have to pay higher prices for homegrown food and imports?

Bret: I’m not convinced that Trump is just lucky, except maybe in the stupidity of his political adversaries. The paradox of Trump is that, as terrible as he is on some issues, he’s done well on others.

Gail: OK, name two.

Bret: I’ll name more than two. Ending DEI in the federal government — and thereby the relentless racialization and genderization of personnel management that DEI entailed. Insisting the government will recognize only two sexes — thereby helping to protect women’s rights, especially in sports. Promoting domestic energy production — helping, at least in the long term, to undermine oil- and gas-reliant economies like Russia’s by bringing down the global price of energy. Demanding serious border enforcement — underscoring the need for a meaningful concept of national sovereignty. Deregulation — allowing businesses and entrepreneurs to unshackle themselves from unnecessary, costly and needlessly complicated government rules. And sowing some useful fear in bad actors like the regime in Iran — and perhaps inspiring the people of Iran to free themselves of that tyranny.

Most of all, Trump is forcing at least some Democrats to start coming to grips with the ways their party totally lost touch with regular Americans. That alone is valuable.

Related Story: DEI Will Not Be Missed in the Military

Debating DEI

Gail: Let’s talk for a minute about DEI in federal hiring — diversity, equity, and inclusion, to give its full name. Think it’s fair to say we differ on this one. Seems like a worthy goal to me. And you feel it discourages the government from picking the best candidates for open jobs.

Well, last week Trump blamed the tragic plane crash in Washington on DEI. Want to comment?

Bret: Trump saying something dumb, which he does roughly 30 times a day, does not invalidate the broader merits of the case against DEI.

Gail: We’re not talking about setting racial, religious and sexual orientation quotas. We’re talking about encouraging employers to look beyond applicants whose backgrounds match those of the bosses and their friends.

Bret: Which, as any honest employer will tell you, at least privately, tends to devolve in practice into a de facto system of set-asides based largely on the identity of an employee or contractor. And also, in some cases, a quiet but damaging erosion of standards, like the weakening of the Army’s fitness requirements that I wrote about in my column last week. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be against DEI if the E stood for excellence instead of equity. By all means, let’s be inclusive and diverse, but never at the expense of merit as determined by impartial, consistent, colorblind, gender-blind standards.

Of course, Trump, nepotist extraordinaire, isn’t exactly the world’s best messenger for meritocracy. But this is one of those issues where I think Democrats would be wise to move away from DEI and identity politics in general. It’s hurting them with regular voters who are sick of being divided into every conceivable category except the one that should really count: American. I hope Ken Martin, the newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, gets that.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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