Mister Tee wrote:How consequential was yesterday? When we woke up pre-Inauguration, Nancy Pelosi was the only Democrat in the long line of presidential succession. By late afternoon, with the flip of the Senate, and pending Cabinet confirmations, there will be ZERO Republicans in that line, with Biden/Harris sworn in and Pat Leahy elevated to president pro tem of the Senate.
Also, for the first time, there will be not a single Protestant in leadership of the major branches of government: Biden, Pelosi, and John Roberts at the Court are all Catholics, and Schumer is Jewish.
ElectoralVote.com has expounded on this:
Biden's Cabinet Does Not Look Like Cabinets Past
For most of the nation's history, straight white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men ran the show. Yes, there were sometimes variations, like white Irish Catholic men who served as mayor of Boston, but in national politics it was largely straight male WASPs. Or, at least, straight male WWEPs (white, western European Protestants). Indeed, until Joe Biden was elected, only a few presidents failed to fit the model (Jack Kennedy was Catholic, Barack Obama was Black, and James Buchanan was probably gay, even if few people knew that in real time). Boy, are things different now. Here are the cabinet nominees.
Department
Agriculture Tom Vilsack Orphan-American, Catholic
Attorney General Merrick Garland Jewish
Commerce Gina Raimondo Italian Catholic woman
Defense Lloyd Austin Black
Education Miguel Cardona Latino
Energy Jennifer Granholm Canadian-American woman
Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra Latino
Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas Latino, Jewish
Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge Black woman
Interior Deb Haaland Native American woman
Labor Marty Walsh Irish Catholic
State Antony Blinken Jewish
Transportation Pete Buttigieg Gay
Treasury Janet Yellen Jewish woman
Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough Irish Catholic
To start with, a third of the cabinet is female. Six members are non-Hispanic white men, of whom four are Jewish, three are Catholic, and the only Protestant (Pete Buttigieg, an Episcopalian) was baptized Catholic as an infant and educated at Catholic schools. Three cabinet members are Latino. Two are Black. Throw in a Native American woman and you have a cabinet that looks a lot more like America than previous ones.
So have the straight WASP men at least gotten the top-level appointments that are not in the line of succession? Well, not exactly. Chief of Staff Ron Klain is Jewish. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is an Asian-American woman. DNI Avril Haines is a Jewish woman. EPA administrator Michael Regan is Black. SBA administrator Isabel Guzman is a Latina. OMB director Neera Tanden is an Asian-American woman. UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield is a Black woman. Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Cecilia Rouse is a Black woman. Science adviser Eric Lander is Jewish. That covers the entirety of the cabinet, and cabinet-level positions. The highest-ranking WASP in the administration is probably FBI Director Chris Wray, and Biden inherited him from the previous, WASP-heavy administration. As Bob Dylan once pointed out, the times, they are a changin'. (V)