Just because the authoritarian Trump regime is incompetent does not mean it is any less dangerous. To the contrary, Trump minions’ carelessness, inexperience, and ignorance often make them more destructive in a democracy that should run on facts, stability, and the rule of law.
Trump’s dangerous incompetence, for example, tripped up one of his lackeys trying to raise his profile. “Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whom President Trump is attempting to fire for allegedly misrepresenting a property as her primary residence, described one of the properties at the heart of those allegations as a vacation home or second home on at least two documents,” the Wall Street Journal reports. If true, the pretext for her firing and for undermining the Fed’s independence was built on a lie, the sort of lie that would have been exposed, had she been given due process before she was illegally fired. The D.C. Circuit upheld the lower court decision, allowing her to attend the Fed meeting this week.
Unless this blunder leads to the firing of Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who initially reported this (fat chance), we will now have to contend with someone making extremely damaging charges even if the facts say otherwise. The propensity for reckless error does not make him less dangerous; it means more innocent people are potential targets.
Likewise, FBI director Kash Patel turned out to be precisely what critics claimed: a loyal partisan roundly indifferent to facts. According to a complaint filed by three former senior FBI officials last week, Patel showed he was willing to violate the law and defy Justice Department guidelines to cater to Trump’s whims in firing FBI career professionals, regardless of his sworn testimony from his confirmation hearing (“Patel said that…he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed”).
But in hollowing out the bureau of experienced professionals and taking a job far beyond his capabilities, Patel has not only politicized the FBI but also multiplied the chances of gaffes and errors. Indeed, thanks to his and Trump’s showboating on immigration and occupation of D.C., the FBI has been forced to divert forces from critical functions. As the New York Times reports:
[M]any agents focused on financial fraud and public corruption now spend two or three nights a week patrolling, significantly slowing the progress of their regular work, including witness interviews, search warrants and planning meetings, according to people familiar with the bureau’s priorities.
Ironically, as Trump is smearing “the Left” for (non-existent) ties to violence, FBI resources directed to domestic terror have been vastly diminished. Corruption, financial fraud, and child predation crimes are “not getting the full attention they deserve,” according to current and former FBI officials. Thanks to the ineffectual use of FBI in D.C., “there is a growing sense among rank-and-file agents and prosecutors that the federal law enforcement agency’s best work is suffering in order to pursue cases that are often marginal and in some instances simply not worth bringing.”
Meanwhile, Patel has received searing criticism over his bumbling investigation of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Patel’s “solution” was to come up with a story designed to make him look good and the rest of the bureau incompetent. He insisted that he, over the demands of career people, released the photo of Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer. Hmm.
The FBI routinely releases photos of suspects to enlist the public’s help in a manhunt. It is entirely (alarmingly) possible that Patel does not understand standard policy. Maybe he misunderstood whatever alleged objection was raised, or maybe he is simply lying about overriding career professionals. In any case, incompetence mixed with pathetic CYA spin only makes the FBI even more dysfunctional.
Unsurprisingly, he was battered at oversight hearings this week. Patel was reduced to screaming at and insulting senators, refusing to concede that his statement that the FBI had a suspect in custody was wrong.
Collectively, all of this makes us less safe, depresses FBI morale, and increases the risks that rather than catching criminals, the FBI will spend its time scrounging for ways of persecuting political enemies.
Rotten motives plus incompetence also have made shambles of the economy. Trump’s economic “policy” rests on tariffs (a tax on consumers and businesses), big tax cuts for the super-rich, huge deficits, taking away healthcare from millions, deporting workers essential to the economy, and crushing the Fed’s independence. It’s misguided in the extreme, but his chaotic, ever-shifting tariff rates make the situation worse—freezing decisions by investors, employers, and consumers. Bad economic policy made worse by an unstable president even has a name: TACO.
Likewise, Trump’s cockeyed foreign policy based on coddling autocrats and contempt for democratic allies weakens the U.S. while boosting Russia and China. But his designated representative’s pratfalls make matters worse. “[Steve Witkoff] has refused to consult with experts and allies, leaving him uninformed at times and unprepared at others, according to seven people familiar with internal discussions,” Politico reported. Even Witkoff acknowledged that Hamas may have “duped” him. Trump continues his reprehensible favoritism toward autocrats, and his sidekick makes us look utterly clueless and inept. National security takes a double hit.
To no one’s surprise, a regime filled with yes-men and incompetents who abhor expertise can be simultaneously dictatorial and entirely feckless. Recall that DOGE, a maneuver to supplant Congress, resulted in a series of blunders that had to be quickly reversed (e.g., firing and rehiring bird flu experts, nuclear weapons experts, weather service employees, VOA personnel).
All this reminds us that the boast of autocrats—More effective and efficient than democracy, not weighed down by messy laws and ethics!—is the very thing that makes their regimes weak and brittle. Whether it is the corrupt Russian army or the shock troops of ICE (which, for example, deported people in error) or the Patel-run FBI, the absence of checks and balances, oversight, experts grounded in facts, moral principles, and transparency means errors are not caught before disaster strikes and inane ideas are not discarded. Autocratic regimes set themselves up for cringeworthy miscues and policy blunders.
Certainly, Trump’s escalating lawlessness and resorting to military power move us closer to a police state. His and his aides’ ignorance, inattention, and clumsiness add a measure of chaos and increase the odds of missteps, further eroding the operation of the federal government. Like children playing with matches, this crew will burn our economy and government to the ground if not replaced by competent, experienced adults who respect democracy and good governance.
It cannot happen soon enough.
"...a loyal partisan roundly indifferent to facts." This is how Jen has characterized Kash Patel, but this description can be applied to every one of the president's Cabinet Secretaries. Some, like Rubio, might once have had competence to bring to his important position. But he's traded that for fawning fealty to the man at the top of the pile of ignorance that is now our government.
VOTE BLUE IN VIRGINIA AND NEW JERSEY. BUILD A BLUE WALL IN THE DEMOCRATIC STATES OF AMERICA.