Republican Cabinet Picks, Past and Present
It occurred to me that Trump's antics with respect to his cabinet picks were in many ways presaged by the cabinet picks of Republican presidents going back to at least Reagan. Reagan and both Bushes (Bush I to a lesser extent) in some cases chose people for cabinet-level positions who were ideologically hostile to the government agencies they were appointed to lead, despite the fact that those agencies were created for specific purposes by acts of Congress.
By right, if a president wishes to undo the proper functioning of those agencies, he should have to get Congress to decommission them. But doing that is harder, and often politically problematic. But we've allowed Republican presidents to undermine the functioning of government agencies whose mission they happen to disagree with by appointing ideologically hostile persons to head those agencies, all in the name of giving presidents the "team" of their choosing.
And lest anyone think I am unfairly singling out Republicans, I would point out that Democrats are not, unlike Republicans, hostile to the founding mission of these various government agencies.