Q Toon: Bessent Assurance

Saying that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is one of the more qualified members of Donald Joffrey Trump's cabinet is akin to saying that Doc is one of the taller of the Seven Dwarfs.

Nevertheless, while Trump may not give a shit about health, education, welfare, the rule of law, international relations, veterans, labor, agriculture, the environment, transportation, national parks, democracy, or anybody not named Donald Trump Sr., he does like to have a monetary system that keeps him in the style to which he come accustomed.

So he put a billionaire hedge fund manager and major campaign donor in charge of the nation's finances. Trump was even willing to overlook that Bessent is openly gay, and used to work for George Soros. (Don't think for a moment that fails to rankle the MAGA rank and file.) He even used to give large sums to Democratic campaigns.

Bessent has the unenviable job of trying to soothe his buddies on Wall Street. This week, there was a momentary interruption in the stock market slide after his prediction that Trump's tariff war with China might not go on forever. Wall Street also appreciated him prevailing upon Trump yesterday to back off his demands that Fed Chair Jerome Powell resign — but as soon as the markets closed, Trump went right back to calling Powell derogatory names, so a lot of good that did.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can spook the Nasdac.

A couple Sundays ago, Bessent told Kristin Welker on Meet the Press: "Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations." And he's right, insofar as someone who wanted to retire right now might decide to put it off until their savings account recovers.

Assuming that they have a choice in the matter. Over-67-year-olds aren't eagerly sought after by the Gen Y-ers and millennials now in charge of most hiring and firing decisions. (Hiring? Good luck getting your 50-years-of-experience résumé getting through indeed.com to be seen by any human being.)

When it comes to LGBTQ+ issues, Bessent has not had much to say in his present position. One can, however, go back ten years ago, when he told the Yale alumni magazine , 

“In a certain geographic region at a certain economic level, being gay is not an issue. What’s fantastic is now, people in the rest of America, whether blue collar or white collar, have access to everything. If you had told me in 1984 when we graduated and people were dying of AIDS that 30 years later I’d be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

There is much about the present moment in history that you wouldn't have believed in 1984.

But as for the immediate future, there may be a fan base for former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, but I don't see anyone, not even the Log Cabin Republicans, clamoring for Scott Bessent to take a shot at the Top Job.

He might not even outlast Pete Hegseth at his current job.