What did Donald Trump do today?

He appointed a white supremacist with a soft spot for authoritarians to head the United States Institute for Peace. 

When Trump ceded a broad swath of his authority to Elon Musk at the start of his second term, the United States Institute for Peace was one of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency's first targets. An independent, Congressionally-chartered organization focused on diplomacy, its headquarters were occupied and vandalized by DOGE employees. A court later found that action unlawful and reversed it. 

Today, Trump announced through the State Department that he was appointing Darren Beattie, currently the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, as its acting president. 

Beattie styles himself an academic, but has spent most of his brief working life as a right-wing political activist. He worked in the State Department during Trump's first term, until he was discovered to have attended a white nationalist conference, after which he was fired.

Beattie has praised the Chinese government for its crackdown on its Uyghur minority. He's also taken its side in its dispute with Taiwan, overtly contradicting longstanding American policy on the matter. Last year, he tweeted  that "competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work." He's also said that "low IQ trash" Americans should be forcibly sterilized.

Beattie's appointment may simply be a slap at the ever-growing number of Americans who disapprove of his dismantling of productive and valuable American institutions. But there is another possible explanation. A number of Trump administration officials now hold multiple roles simply because, as in his first term, there are very few people willing to take on prominent roles in his administration beyond those already a part of it.

Why does this matter?

• Misogynists, eugenicist white nationalists who praise hostile foreign governments for opposing the United States shouldn't be given diplomatic roles. 

• It's a problem if competent people aren't willing to work for the President of the United states.