Ask A Genius 1542: Loyalty Over Competence and the New American Divide

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/10/12

How is Trump’s second administration shaping U.S. governance, cultural conflict, and institutional integrity?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss the deepening dysfunction in Trump’s second administration, where loyalty eclipses competence. Rosner contrasts the current team of sycophants with earlier figures like Rex Tillerson, who at least understood governance. The dialogue explores the implications of Dan Scavino’s appointment, the government shutdown’s legal tangles, and symbolic flashpoints such as Stone Mountain’s Confederate carving. Rosner criticizes politicized firings, university crackdowns, and misinformation around Trump’s health. Together, they frame a portrait of a nation slipping toward authoritarian theater—where spectacle overtakes substance and institutional trust erodes beneath partisan zeal.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: This is news to me. Dan Scavino is going to lead the White House Presidential Personnel Office. He’s also serving as Deputy Chief of Staff and is Trump’s longtime social media aide. 

Rick Rosner: In general, one significant negative difference between Trump Administration Two and Trump Administration One is that in the first, he had some competent people who were interested in governing, like Rex Tillerson, for instance, who served as Secretary of State for about a year. He ran Exxon. He was a big CEO—maybe not the nicest guy in the world, which you wouldn’t expect from someone running a huge oil company—but at least he was competent and not committed to tearing down the government.

This time around, it’s all Trump loyalists, which means they’re generally underqualified—sometimes straight-up idiots. Not entirely sycophants, but certainly leaning that way. The people around Trump are even worse this time than they were eight years ago. And nobody cares about any of the ideals that modern America was built on.

We’ve had a reasonably regular government since World War II, even before that. America has been a pretty good place for many people—with plenty of room for improvement, of course. But the changes Trump is making—none of those make America any better.

That being said, he may have done something worthwhile by helping to broker a Gaza ceasefire. If it holds, he probably deserves some credit for that, though I haven’t seen a deep analysis of it. I’m sure if you look more closely, there’s plenty of unsavoury stuff to take into account. But at least on the surface, with the ceasefire in effect, Israel isn’t actively conducting large-scale strikes, and if Hamas stands down and turns over some of the remaining hostages who are still alive, that’s a good thing.

Jacobsen: At Georgia’s Stone Mountain, there’s been a fight over a Confederate tribute—a vast image of three Confederate leaders carved into the granite face of the mountain. The carvings have towered over the countryside near Atlanta since the 1970s, honouring those who fought for the Southern cause in the U.S. Civil War.

Rosner: Some compare it to Mount Rushmore; the initial sculptor was the same person who later did Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, though the Stone Mountain carving was completed decades later by other artists. 

Jacobsen: The three figures are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. So what are your thoughts on this feud?

Rosner: What’s the feud like? You’re not going to obliterate the whole side of a mountain where this sculpture—about 90 feet by 190 feet and recessed roughly 42 feet—has been etched with explosives and jackhammers, right? Do people want it to be removed? I guess so. It looks like there was a group celebrating Confederate Memorial Day there, and a fight broke out with counter-protesters. From the images, it doesn’t even look like there were that many people involved.

I don’t know what you can do about that monument because it’s gigantic. It’s literally blasted into the side of a mountain, carved from solid granite about 400 feet above the ground. It’s not like pulling down a fifteen-foot-tall bronze Confederate soldier in a park somewhere. And as long as it’s there, you’re going to have protesters and counter-protesters.

I don’t know what you do about it. If it were something on the side of a mountain depicting Hitler, you’d have to get rid of it. But is the Confederacy as bad as Hitler? I don’t know. Can you even compare the two? I don’t know what you do about it. Maybe you do blast it off the side of the mountain.

But that’s certainly not going to happen now, under the current leadership of the country, which is putting Confederate leaders back up at places like West Point and elsewhere.

Jacobsen: That’s some sad news. U.S. actress Diane Keaton, star of Annie Hall, has died at 79.

Rosner: Yeah, that is sad. That’s not very old under current life expectancy, especially for someone who presumably had good access to medical care. It’s scary for me—that’s only fourteen years older than I am. She seemed like a nice person and a good actress.

Jacobsen: So now we’re in the phase where the wave went through, and the tide is pulling back. The CDC has reversed hundreds of firings as the U.S. government shutdown enters its second week. About 1,300 employees were notified they’d be laid off, and hundreds of those notices were rescinded within hours.

Rosner: Trump doesn’t have the unlimited power to fire government employees. People will go to court over this, because a lot of federal employees can’t be fired except for cause—you can’t just arbitrarily fire them.

Trump is on record as repeatedly saying he’ll fire people and cut back funding that most hurts Democrats and blue states. That can be used against him in court, just as it was when he engaged in politically motivated prosecutions—such as having investigators review his political opponents’ mortgage and loan applications. If they find anything out of order, they’ll claim those people declared multiple properties as their primary residence—but only if they’re Democrats.

There’s one guy, Ken Paxton, down in Texas, who owns eleven properties and claims three of them as his primary residence, which is definitely mortgage fraud. He won’t be prosecuted because he’s a Republican in a Republican state.

So, all this stuff—Trump is going to do what he’s going to do. People will go to court and fight it, and we’ll see how everything turns out.

Vegas bookies have the lowest odds on the shutdown ending before November 1st. Government shutdowns only became a thing after a 1980 legal change. The longest in U.S. history lasted 35 days, under Trump in 2018–2019.

Bookies think it won’t last that long this time. But who knows? Part of the reason the government is shut down, some claim, is that a government in shutdown doesn’t have to release the Epstein files. A lot of this looks like desperate maneuvering by Republicans to avoid revealing what’s in those files, which suggests that what’s in there must be pretty bad.

Trump has consistently demonstrated that he can act without consequence, retaining the support of many of his followers. So if they’re afraid of what’s in the Epstein files, those files must be really damaging.

Jacobsen: Interesting. Activist Laura Loomer has criticized the Pentagon over plans to close a military facility in Idaho. For those who don’t know, she’s a far-right activist.

Rosner: Laura Loomer is generally not just an extremist but also deeply unhinged. She’s been hospitalized at least twice for mental health issues. My favourite dumb thing she said was when she claimed she was the victim of an attack on her Jeep—that someone had slashed her tires, possibly trying to kill her. It turned out she was driving on tires that were six and a half years old. Tires wear out.

But lately, some people that liberals would consider extremists—people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia—have started criticizing Trump. Greene, who’s said plenty of lunatic things herself, has recently been making a surprising amount of sense in calling out some of Trump’s nonsense.

Which is great. If she’s a loose cannon, at least she’s firing in a direction that reins in Trump’s overreach. I’ll take that.

Jacobsen: Trump’s physician said in a memo that, quote, “Trump remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.” It added that Trump received preventive screenings and immunizations, including an annual flu shot and an updated COVID-19 booster, in preparation for upcoming international travel.

Rosner: Maybe, maybe. There’s a lot of skepticism about those statements. For instance, the memo called it a “semi-annual” physical. The president’s supposed to get an annual one. There’s never been a presidential semi-annual physical. So he’s obviously being checked out for something.

That leads people to speculate he may have had an MRI—one of the few procedures that can’t be done inside the White House. You have to be taken to a facility for that. But that’s speculation.

He doesn’t seem to be doing great. He’s 79 years old, and he’s obviously on several prescription drugs to manage whatever conditions he has. The administration isn’t telling the public anywhere near the whole truth about his health. For instance, after the latest physical, the White House said his “cardiac age” is 14 years younger than his chronological age, that he has the circulatory system of a 65-year-old. That’s nonsense.

Jacobsen: This next one is the following from last week. In contrast to Harvard’s conciliatory approach—issuing payouts instead of pushing back against federal threats of funding cuts—Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth said she “cannot support” a memo that the White House sent to nine elite universities.

The letter laid out detailed policies that universities should follow to receive preferential consideration for federal funding. Sally Kornbluth cited the fact that the letter from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon would restrict MIT’s independence and freedom of expression. Any thoughts?

Rosner: Trump has been pressuring universities—especially big-name ones like Stanford, Columbia, and UCLA—by pulling hundreds of millions, even billions, in federal research funding. Some universities, to retain that money, have been implementing the changes demanded by Trump. They’re all nonsense. He claims they’re designed to eliminate DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—and to combat antisemitism. Trump doesn’t care about antisemitism. It’s just a way to punish universities, especially those with campuses where there have been pro-Palestinian protests.

Universities don’t really control who shows up to protest. They can increase security, but they can’t stop demonstrations entirely. I guess they could expel some protesters, but at this point, it’s too late—the protests have already happened.

So, universities have to choose: kiss Trump’s ass and make the superficial changes he demands, or hold the line—half the students at Harvard major in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math. I majored in STEM before it was even called that—math and physics. You don’t get politics when you’re doing STEM.

I took other classes too—dance, art, women’s studies—and sure, there’s politics there, feminist politics primarily, but nobody was lecturing me about Marxism versus capitalism, or trying to turn me into a Marxist. It’s all bullshit. Campuses are liberal, sure, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s being turned into a communist. It’s just con-artist talk from Trump.

Universities now have to figure out how they’ll survive the next three years of Trump. Do they play along to keep their funding, or are they wealthy enough to ride it out for the next thirty-eight months and hope to recover when an actual adult is back in the White House?

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