The demise of Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Trump's clown cabinet
Her brief, ignominious tenure is illustrative of deep dysfunction.
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Last week, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in disgrace amid accusations of drinking on the job, infidelity, and sexual harassment of staff by her husband.
It was an ignominious end to one of the few Trump cabinet appointments which began with some bipartisan hopes and an expectation of at least minimal competence.
Instead, Chavez-DeRemer became a lesson in the signal truth of Trump’s second term: He hires for spineless sycophantic loyalty, and anyone who is spineless and sycophantic enough to satisfy him is committed to grotesque fascism, corruption, or both.
Those who agree to work for Trump are, by definition, unqualified and evil. There are no exceptions, and, by this point, there is no excuse for pretending otherwise.
A brief hope
On paper, Chavez-DeRemer was one of the most potentially reasonable cabinet nominees of Trump’s second-term team of Nazis, scoundrels, cowards, and fuck-ups. She was elected to Congress in Oregon’s purple fifth district in 2022, and in line with her constituency she attempted to craft a moderate record.
During her term in Congress, Chavez-DeRemer introduced successful bills expanding healthcare services to veterans and funding overdose prevention programs — pragmatic nonpartisan measures. She lauded Biden’s infrastructure bill and the money it brought into Oregon, and joined Democrats in supporting federal transportation and bridge projects in the state.
Chavez-DeRemer was also unusual among Republicans in her support of labor. She was one of only a handful of GOP cosponsors of a bill to restore tax deductions for union dues and she signed a letter supporting the Teamsters’ right to strike at UPS.
She was also one of only three Republican cosponsors of the 2023 Protect the Right to Organize Act. The PRO Act would protect organizing in a range of ways — by allowing the NLRB rather than employers to set union election procedures, speeding the reinstitution of employees illegally fired for union activity, and holding corporate officials personally liable for violations of labor law. It would also block most right-to-work laws, which kneecap collection of union dues.
PRO Act passage has been a long term goal of labor, and Chavez-DeRemer’s support for the legislation helped her win labor support in her unsuccessful 2024 reelection bid. It also appealed to quisling Trump-friendly Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien, who pushed hard for her nomination.
During her confirmation hearing, Chavez-DeRemer backed away from support for the PRO Act, specifically repudiating the anti right-to-work provisions; she also promised to implement Trump’s (very anti-union) agenda. Nonetheless, 17 Democrats joined all but two Republicans in voting to confirm her. Sean O’Brien treated her appointment as a triumph for labor power.
“The Teamsters thank the bipartisan coalition of senators who put the needs of working people ahead of politics,” he enthused.
The enthusiasm, you’ll be shocked to learn, was premature. O’Brien and every Democrat who supported Chavez-DeRemer today look like credulous fools. The secretary of labor did not take the position to fight for working people. Instead, she fed at the public trough in grotesque and abusive ways.
A total toady
O’Brien’s plaudits started to fester pretty much as soon as they fell out of his mouth.
As part of Trump’s attack on the federal workforce, 20 percent of the Labor Department workforce, or 2,700 workers, were encouraged to retire or resign; one Bureau of Labor Statistics employee told The Guardian that the cuts were “catastrophic” and would leave the department “absolutely dysfunctional.”
In response to those concerns, Chavez-DeRemer had her chief of staff send an email to department employees warning them that if they talked to journalists about their concerns, they could “face serious legal consequences” including “potential criminal penalties” and “termination.”
As further acts of anti-labor subservience to the far-right regime, Chavez-DeRemer began the shutdown of the Job Corps program, a longstanding, popular, bipartisan initiative which provides career training, housing, and coursework towards a high school diploma or GED for tens of thousands low income 16-24 year olds. She also promoted Trump’s executive order encouraging 401(k) accounts to invest in crypto and private equity, refused to enforce a rule that prevented misclassification of workers as independent contractors, backed ending overtime pay for home care workers and domestic workers, and withdrew a rule to prevent sub-minimum wage pay for disabled people.
The labor secretary’s most despicable act of self-debasement, though, was probably her enthusiastic support for Trump’s petulant, dangerous decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer. Trump dismissed McEntarfer after the BLS released July jobs numbers that he didn’t like.
“I agree wholeheartedly with @POTUS that our jobs numbers must be fair, accurate, and never manipulated for political purposes,” Chavez-DeRemer burbled on social media — suggesting, utterly without evidence, that McEntarfer had manipulated the data.
Cathy Creighton, director of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab, delivered a brutal summary of Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure: “Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer sat by as her department’s budget was slashed, as worker protections for other agencies were dismantled, supported the Trump administration’s attempt to annihilate the federal workforces’ unions and placed a three-story portrait of the president on the building,”
As far as policy and the administration of her department goes, then, it’s fair to say that Chavez-DeRemer abandoned every vestige of bipartisan pretense to betray her staff, American workers, and common decency in typically repulsive MAGA fashion.
But there’s more.
Bottomless scandals
This January, two of Chavez-DeRemer’s top aides — Chief of Staff Jihun Han and his deputy, Rebecca Wright — were put on administrative leave. A complaint to the DOL inspector general’s office alleged they had been organizing events so that she could use department funds to pay for personal travel.
In addition, the IG also reportedly investigated claims that Chavez-DeRemer and members of her staff drank on the job and that she was involved in an affair with a member of her security team (he resigned in March). Additionally, Chavez-DeRemer was accused of fostering an office culture that was bullying and demoralizing.
As one relevant data point about the demoralizing culture, in January, Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, was barred from the DOL building after at least two women employees accused him of sexual impropriety and harassment.
More, the New York Times reported that the probe into the labor secretary found that her husband and father texted young female staffers in ways that certainly appear to border on the inappropriate. One text from Chavez-DeRemer’s father, Richard Chavez, suggested he could meet a female staffer in Oregon when she was there and urged her to “keep this private.” The Times also reported that Chavez-DeRemer had ordered her staff to “pay attention” to the two men.
Trump did not bother to announce Chavez-DeRemer’s departure himself — as political scientist Jonathan Bernstein suggests, it’s quite possible he barely knows who she is. In any case, he delegated the task to White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. Cheung made no mention of the corruption and abuse investigations — which were also notably absent from Fox News’ bland, brief report about her dismissal.
Chavez-DeRemer, for her part, as befits a true MAGA, claimed she had been undermined by the “deep state.”
Still, it seems fair to say that Trump (or someone in his orbit) decided they could find a labor secretary to lick Trump’s boots while generating slightly fewer bad headlines.
Whether they can actually find such an unobjectionable boot-licker, though, is an open question.
The death of dignity
Trump’s cabinet secretaries are a shocking bolus of venality and viciousness. He’s already fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, mostly for failing to defend his ugly, unconstitutional policies effectively, but also maybe in Noem’s case for corruption. Meanwhile, humiliating stories keep dropping about FBI Director Kash Patel’s excessive drinking and absences on the job, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy continues to be a terrifying public health disaster, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just lost a war in humiliating fashion.
Each of Trump’s cabinet picks is awful and evil in their own special way. But all of them have been, are, and will be awful and evil, no matter what their background (even those endorsed by Sean O’Brien). That is true for the simple reason that Trump himself is awful and evil, and he only appoints people who are willing to remove their souls, hearts, brains, and spines in his service.
The grotesque sacks of skin and vice that remain after that operation will stand up for no principles, personal or professional. They are either in it for what they can get or they are in it for who they can hurt.
That includes obvious bad actors like Vice President JD Vance and White House ethnic cleansing czar Stephen Miller. But it also includes people who, pre-Trump, appeared to be at least occasionally interested in governing or policy, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio — and like Chavez-DeRemer.
At one point, Chavez-DeRemer seemed to want to serve her constituents and to pass measures to help them. But when she agreed to work for Trump, she agreed to do absolutely nothing but harm the public and besmirch and humiliate herself. And so that’s what she did.
That’s it for today
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Trump hires for absolute loyalty and, apparently, low IQ … at least, low social IQ. And in return—under the bus with you, ladies! Still, don’t cry for you: You shoulda known, there is only one love in Donald’s life.
Kakistocracy is a word that has gone from obscurity to cliche in a New York minute. Trying to step outside our boundaries and comprehend how the world sees us is an exercise in humiliation.