Waiting for my oven to preheat, I watched a bit of MSNBC this afternoon. They were discussing Trump’s early appointments, and the talking heads and panelists must have used the term “loyal” close to a hundred times, all with the tone of voice one would expect uttering the word, “diseased.” The fact that Trump’s appointments suggest that he is only interested in departments heads and advisors who will be “loyal” to him and dedicated to advancing his agenda was relayed to the MSNBC audience as if the panel had discovered that all the individuals named so far are lizard people. Because, as we all know, other Presidents have reveled in appointing office holders who hated their guts.

Some of this confusion, and I’m being charitable, may stem from Doris Kearns’ acclaimed book “Team of Rivals,” which told the story of how Lincoln deliberately selected a Cabinet of the best minds he could find even when they were his political foes. Lincoln was a political genius who knew he could out-think, out talk, and out maneuver any other politician alive. A similar scorpions-in-a-bottle cabinet nearly dove George Washington mad. Donald Trump is no Abraham Lincoln, and he knows it.

A Washington outsider, Trump made the crucial mistake in his first term of trusting that supposedly patriotic American tapped to serve their President would do so honestly, ethically, and professionally. Boy, was he wrong. No President in history had seen so many betrayals, leaks, and Deep State sabotage. After his first term, the betrayals were in the form of tell-all books as ‘professionals” cashed in by violating official, legal or just societal standards of confidentiality. Trump thought he could trust the FBI. He couldn’t. He thought he could trust former military generals. He couldn’t. My Trump Deranged relative keeps arguing that Trump was unethical—nepotism!—to use he children as top advisors. My response: he needed advisors and confidants he could trust, and if his family was his last resort, and it was, then he was obligated to use them.

Trump had better make loyalty a requirement of serving in his administration. Not to do so would be negligent, irresponsible, naive and incompetent. MSNBC wants him to fail, of course, so it is only natural that they would equate being loyal to the President of the United States to rabies.