Along with his remarked-upon shortfalls in diplomacy, nuance, finesse, rationality and often good manners, our 45th president has also been docked for his diversity shortfall. This means he is surrounded by too many persons of pallor and of masculinity, in other words, by white males.

And there they were, as the Washington Post has reported — five of them — sitting there listening as he was speaking to Putin by phone. To make matters worse, as the paper continued, “Trump’s choices to fill 21 Cabinet-level positions include 16 white men, four women, (including two Asian-Americans) and one African-American man.”