A lot of Trump’s supporters believe that one of the main problems of his first term was subversion from within: Too many aides and bureaucrats didn’t follow Trump’s commands or pursue his agenda. The president-elect probably believes this theory himself, which helps explain the selection of Matt Gaetz as nominee for attorney general.

I think Trump, like any president, does deserve Cabinet heads who are loyal to him — so long as they are loyal to the Constitution first. But the sabotage theory is mostly wrong about how Trump’s first term went. I wrote about it for the Washington Post after Gaetz withdrew:

Trump’s major failures during his first term can’t be attributed to saboteurs within. It wasn’t bureaucrats who kept him from getting Congress to fund a wall along the southern border; it was his own insistence, at a key moment in negotiations, that such funds had to be accompanied by cuts to legal immigration. Congress didn’t stop him from starting trade wars, or force him to declare victory in the one with China after Beijing made worthless promises to buy soybeans.

I conclude that what Trump and the country need are for him to “be surrounded by people who are competent, self-disciplined, able to sift evidence and willing to speak the truth.” The Senate should judge his nominees accordingly.