Consider this. As he prepared to take office in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense was Jim Mattis, a four-star general who mandated that Marines who were deployed to Iraq undergo cultural sensitivity training. In 2024, Trump’s nominee for the same post is Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend anchor and Army National Guard officer who has said that women should not be in combat roles.

The vast difference in these picks shows how much the GOP has shifted under Trump, who has bent the party’s establishment and institutionalist wing to his will.

This week, Hegseth will have his Senate confirmation hearing, along with a raft of other Trump nominees. Among them are South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for Homeland Security, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for Interior, Florida Senator Marco Rubio for the State Department and Pam Bondi as attorney general. Others, like Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services have yet to be scheduled because of lingering concerns about background checks, among other questions.

To be sure, some of Trump’s picks are qualified for the roles to which they have been appointed. Those nominees —Rubio and Burgum — will likely get bipartisan support, just as his previous nominees did. (Mattis was confirmed 98-1).

Yet, there are others who aren’t qualified. Their selection speaks to........

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