New ‘lawyer’ shows Trump wants loyalty, not credibility
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” – Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951)
In a breathtaking display of organizational indifference to the intelligence of the American public, the Trump administration this week trotted out a new press secretary who turned out to be a dud. She’s already gotten famous – and for all the wrong reasons – but in case you missed it, a few days ago Kate Zacharia took on the role of press secretary to the Trump administration.
Why is she a dud? It’s all about her credentials and the fact that she’s stretching the language about them. Lacking a license to practice, she says she’s a lawyer, but is she?
I don’t think so, but who am I? Let’s see what the arbiters of the English language have to say:
Per Merriam-Webster, a lawyer is “one whose profession is to conduct lawsuits for clients or to advise as to legal rights and obligations in other matters.”
The Oxford English Dictionary says a lawyer is “a person who is trained and qualified to advise people about the law and to represent them in court, and to write legal documents.”
By those definitions, Zacharia is not a lawyer.
The news about her questionable claim is circulating widely, but not before some quickly bought it:
Bamboozled, Fox News described her (highlights mine) as “an attorney and television commentator.” Concurrently duped, President Trump on Truth Social said, “Katie is a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney.”
Turns out, Zacharia has never passed a bar exam. Undeterred by reality, she has consistently claimed to be a lawyer. She has provided some tortured explanations about why she can call herself a lawyer even though she is not licensed to practice law, but her need to do so flies against commonly understood usage — and smacks of misrepresentation.
It’s amazing that nobody in the White House did a modicum of checking on this imposter before she was given the go-ahead to be the president’s spokesperson, but then, Zacharia is just the latest example of how the Trump administration has loaded itself up with people whose qualifications are questionable.
You can see why Hannah Arendt’s vivid depiction of how totalitarians pick their staffers, more on the basis of fealty than competence, quickly came to mind as I read this story.
So does that put Trump on the totalitarian track?
Much as it seems like that’s what he wants, he’ll come up way short. Trump’s awful handling of his office has driven his approval ratings to such lows that I doubt he’ll ever muster the kind of mass support that, as Hannah Arendt has argued, was necessary to bring post-19th century totalitarian regimes to power.
Trump’s team of incompetent sycophants has bungled its way into ruining his current term. These “crackpots and fools who lack intelligence and creativity,” Zacharia among them, will extend their hopeless track record until Trump and his people leave the White House.
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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