U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 24, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Many of President Donald Trump's appointees received widespread opposition from Senate Democrats, but a major exception was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Not a single Senate Democrat voted against confirming the former U.S. senator.
Trump made a point of filling his administration with ultra-MAGA loyalists, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Rubio, however, is known for being a traditional conservative and an establishment Republican — and Democrats who voted to confirm Rubio hoped he would be a voice of reason as secretary of state.
But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in a biting article published on May 5, argues that Rubio has seriously "sacrificed his values" in order to survive in the second Trump Administration.
"While also attending to Trump's needs," DeVega explains, "Rubio has been busy remaking the State Department in the MAGA image — an act that is undermining democracy at home and accelerating strategic failures abroad. What the administration calls 'America First' is, in practice, white racial authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism that governs who and what is deemed to be in America's vital interests."
DeVega notes that during the Cold War, the U.S. State Department "emphasized cultural pluralism" and "inclusiveness" with its "public messaging" — as officials realized that "American diplomacy takes place around the world."
"During the Cold War," the Salon journalist recalls, "America's elites understood that racism at home made America weak abroad…. Jim and Jane Crow were an international embarrassment, giving the Soviet Union a powerful counternarrative about American hypocrisy and the color line…. The State Department, meanwhile, deployed jazz diplomacy and other cultural outreach programs to project, in a carefully curated way, an image of American diversity as a weapon against communism and authoritarian regimes. These traditions have been largely abandoned under Rubio at the behest of Trump."
According to DeVega, Trump's "America First" purity tests for State Department employees are hurting the U.S. from a foreign policy standpoint.
"Limiting the number of Black and brown diplomatic corps members at a time when China is making great inroads in Africa and other parts of the non-white world through infrastructure development, securing rare earth and other vital resources, and building military bases is a strategic blunder," DeVega writes. "The (State) Department has also overseen the systematic dismantling of America's soft power. The gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and related programs that support public health have already contributed to an estimated 762,000 preventable deaths…. Since Trump's return to power, the United States has been repositioning itself as an explicitly Judeo-Christian nation — and government departments and agencies are following suit."
DeVega notes that Rubio "was a strong advocate for global democracy" during his years in the U.S. Senate but has "abandoned" that outlook to please Trump.
"He wanted America to be more confrontational with Russia and backed Ukraine in its freedom struggle," DeVega observes. "Now, while enduring the president's humiliation rituals — the public debasements Trump uses to test and bind the loyalty of those around him — Rubio has adopted his values…. Rubio sacrificed his values and the storied institutional legacy of the State Department itself to be in closer proximity to Donald Trump, a chaos agent — and America's reputation and power are collapsing."