The Triumph of Incompetence

What to Expect from an Administration from which Character, Expertise, Judgment Etc. Have Been Banished -- Drawing by Genevieve Shapiro

We are seeing the unmistakable signs of a band that can’t shoot straight. Predictably so—with more dumb, dispiriting, and absolutely avoidable missteps to come. How bad will it need to get before the self-defense mechanisms of our constitutional republic stand up and defend?

The core mistake of so-called Signal-gate was not that prominent journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the “Houthi PC small group” chat with US cabinet members and other administration notables on the Signal app. (As many observers have noted, imagine it was the agent of an unfriendly foreign government instead). The mistake was that the exchange took place at all where it did. Signal and other commercially available apps like it are explicitly prohibited for sensitive official communications, in part for being susceptible to interception in ways that formal channels established for the purpose are not.

Coordination of intrinsically sensitive national security policy, whatever the exact level of classification, is supposed to take place in physical SCIFs—special facilities designed to facilitate discussion of classified “sensitive compartmentalized information” beyond the reach of electronic or other surveillance—or by secure Video Teleconferencing.

Anybody who has worked anywhere close to national security knows this.

But nobody should be surprised. When the American people voted this president back into office, they knew what they were getting. Indeed, they spoke loud and clear about at least one thing: Character does NOT/NOT matter.

And when our dear leader selected his distinguished cabinet this time around, he spoke more unequivocally still: proven experience (with few exceptions) shall play no role. Loyalty to the boss is in; expertise is out. Shameless groveling is in; professional judgment is out. Rewarding billionaire donors is in; adherence to the law is out.

What we see unfolding before our eyes now—and we presumably see only the tip of the iceberg—flows from the rotten core of a rogue regime and from explicitly crafted personnel policy: No character. No leadership. No management.

We asked for dishonor, dishonesty, and corruption. We got it: the triumph of incompetence.

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People Matter

It is important to note that our democratic institutions are meant to be “impersonal”—to serve the public impartially. But bureaucracies are also made up of people. So who those people are, particularly those in key positions, makes a big difference. Cabinet officials typically come with proven track records, inside and outside of government. Some even bring gravitas, the ability to command respect—and with good reason. Sure, politics and personal ties have always played a role, at times crowding out competence. Crooks, rogues, and incompetents have sometimes slipped through the cracks. But whatever one thinks of their policy credentials or ideological orientation, in the past most have possessed a minimum threshold of plausibility. Most, not all.

For its part, the Senate has taken more or less seriously its constitutional role of “advice and consent”. Less so this last round.

Career government employees, too, are presumed to bring baseline competencies to the table. Commissioned military officers, for example, are expected to possess qualities such as leadership, integrity, and courage. Foreign Service officers are selected for their integrity and prudence, among other qualifications. One core skill has always been judgment, which is difficult to define but easy to identify when you see it. Can this person be trusted? Can they think critically, discern one thing from another? Will they make the right call? If they make a mistake will it be for understandable reasons and will they own up to it?

Loyalty, too, is a critical trait, but loyalty to the constitution.

But as everyone knows, career officials stand in the crosshairs of the current regime, targeted for elimination. They are seen as untrustworthy, dedicated to a different proposition than the one pursued by our dear leader, and to be X-ed out of the equation.

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Less Than Zero

I suddenly recall the late conservative commentator William F. Buckley’s quip that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the telephone book than by the faculty at Harvard. Buckley famously disdained academic learning of the lofty leftist persuasion and fancied himself focused on pragmatic concerns and stubborn concrete reality. I wonder what he would have thought of the current motley crew.

But then I further recall that this august group was not chosen at random. They are not a telephone-book sampling. Rather they are a curated selection of courtiers, loyalists, ideologues, and useful (and not so useful) idiots. Several seem to have been consciously selected for their willful ignorance, as a message of deliberate contempt for what used to be minimally acceptable qualifications of senior officials.

To paraphrase Henry Miller, they are a kick in the pants to the very idea of good government. What else should we expect from them?

And what more?