Like any other would-be autocrat, President-elect Donald Trump is selecting people for key positions overseeing the military and legal system based not on objective merits but their personal loyalty to one man: in this case, a 78-year-old Republican who felt betrayed in his first term when more-or-less qualified cabinet officials would balk at some of his more extreme demands. This time, he’s saying with his early picks, there will be no one second guessing the leader or, in the words of his son, thinking they “know better” than a man with the nuclear codes.

The nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who resigned from Congress on Wednesday, is the clearest sign yet that Trump intends to govern as an authoritarian who will use all the levers of the state to harass his critics and avowed opponents. Gaetz graduated from William & Mary Law School but otherwise has no experience that would suggest he’s qualified to lead the Department of Justice.

"Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department," Trump proclaimed.

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There is no shortage of right-wing lawyers who would love to serve as attorney general and do just that. Ken Paxton, currently Texas’ attorney general, would have been a perfect MAGA pick: In 2020, he sued to disenfranchise those who voted for President Joe Biden in an effort to keep the loser of that year’s election in power; he has since sued the Biden administration no less than a hundred times and has used his office to go after groups that provide aid to immigrants; he’s even ordered raids on the homes of his political opponents, including an 87-year-old member of a Latino civil rights group he baselessly accused of voter fraud.

Gaetz, however, is unsurpassed in his........

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