Still sore, pouty Dems trample Trump’s nominees

Grief comes in a variety of forms. The failed Democratic nominee opted to aimlessly roam the woods of upstate New York. The liberal Hollywood elite used the Golden Globes to tell us with trembling voice that they have been vilified while assuring us of their outsider status.

The Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have chosen instead to trample Trump’s Cabinet picks in this week’s Senate confirmation hearings, for no Cabinet at all is better than a Cabinet of so-called “deplorables.”

{mosads}In what the “Washington Post” calls “an unprecedented break with Senate tradition,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will be targeting eight of President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominations with the hope of blocking their nomination.

While Schumer aims to disrupt the President-elect’s Cabinet, ironically, Republicans did just the opposite in the early presidency of President Barack Obama. Republicans opted to help approve seven of Obama’s cabinet picks on the very day that he was inaugurated as president of the United States.

But like a glum child who just had his lollipop snatched away, the Democrats will provide no such gesture of goodwill, instead employing their infamous Alinskyite playbook to demonize the opponent.

Consider the timeline. Schumer has reportedly said that Democrats want to entertain no more than two Cabinet picks per week.

Schumer vows to slow down Trump Cabinet confirmation hearings: https://t.co/FsjX68lnoL pic.twitter.com/WlShGctSXK

— The Hill (@thehill) January 1, 2017

This timeline would mean just six of Trump Cabinet appointees could receive approval in the month of January. What a stark contrast from when Republicans approved a dozen of Obama’s Cabinet or Cabinet-level picks in January, more than half of his total selections.

Moreover, Republicans did not just give Obama leeway in choosing his Cabinet, they at times actively and unanimously facilitated his picks. Of the more than 20 Cabinet or Cabinet-level appointees needing Senate approval in Obama’s first days, just six of Obama’s selections received recorded roll call votes, the rest receiving a ceremonial, rubber stamp voice vote.

In every case where a vote was recorded, the nominee received more than two-thirds Senate approval. In not a single case, did a Cabinet appointee receive a unified down vote by Republicans. And in five cases, the nominee received unanimous approval by the Senate, Republicans included.

While Republicans largely accepted the fact that they lost the presidential election in 2008 and conceded some flexibility to the people’s choice for president, Democrats insist in true Clintonesque out-of-touch fashion that they know better than the people who put Trump in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So instead of adopting a measured, realistic approach to Trump’s Cabinet’s confirmation hearings, they will instead resort to creating false, untrue caricatures of Trump’s Cabinet. This of course was the bulletproof plan Hillary Clinton used in the 2016 election.

Trump was a racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic neanderthal. And apparently so is his Cabinet. Jeff Sessions is a racist. Scott Pruitt is an anti-science climate denier. Rex Tillerson is a wannabe KGB agent. Ben Carson is an unqualified simpleton. Andy Puzder is a heartless corporatist. And the list goes on.

Read Jeff Sessions’s opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://t.co/qTOi2aYpOT pic.twitter.com/02pwqi4OtA

— The Hill (@thehill) January 10, 2017

But the Democrats’ caricatures failed in November, and they will fail now. On the contrary, Trump is a brilliant businessman who shattered the conventional political playbook.

Jeff Sessions is a three-term Senator who insisted on the death penalty for a member of the KKK in Alabama.

Scott Pruitt has personally prosecuted EPA overreach and has called for “healthy debate” over man’s connection to global warming.

Rex Tillerson spent 40 years climbing to the highest position at ExxonMobil and learning first-hand how to make progress sitting across from Russia’s Vladmir Putin.

Ben Carson was of course a world-class neurosurgeon who came from a childhood of poverty.

And Andy Puzder took a company that was $700 million in debate and transformed it into a $1.3 billion annual revenue powerhouse, creating thousands of jobs along the way.

Track records of success are of no moment to Democrats, though. Blindsided by their inability to captivate the hearts and minds of the American people on Nov. 8, childish rebellion is now the order of the day.

As the Democratic ship sinks, the left will drag down anything and everyone with them, including Trump’s nominees. Fortunately for Republicans, the Democrats implementation of the so-called nuclear option (meaning Cabinet picks need just 51 votes as opposed to 60) should ensure a fairly easy nomination for most if not all of Trump’s Cabinet picks.

A word of wisdom for my liberal friends: Rather than stonewalling the winner of the 2016 presidential election, perhaps it’s time to analyze why they were the unforeseen losers.

Kayleigh McEnany is a political commentator who recently received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and also studied politics at Oxford University.

The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.