"Engineered Incompetence"

The parade of confirmation hearings for Cabinet positions and other senior positions in Der Furor's administration continues apace, and - as usual with such hearings - has produced more sound than light.

There was, however, one particularly interesting hearing - that for Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth. It provided a prime example of what historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes as engineered incompetence. As she writes in her article "Pete Hegseth and the Autocratic Strategy of Engineered Incompetence," 

"Authoritarian states abound with examples of engineered incompetence, when leaders appoint individuals to Cabinet positions who lack the skill-set and high-level connections needed to succeed. This makes those individuals more dependent on the leader and creates more space for the leader’s powerful cronies to influence the institution to their own benefit ..."

No one should denigrate Mr Hegseth's military service, particularly at a time when Americans once again have elected a president who avoided military service himself*, and has described those who've lost their lives or suffered injury in combat as "suckers and losers." But we should all understand what Mr Hegseth's service actually was: yes, he has experience leading troops in combat, and rose to the rank of Major before leaving active duty for the reserves in 2014. Majors, however, generally command battalions of soldiers (300-1,000 troops), or serve as staff officers without command responsibility in larger organizations. 

As was pointed out (by Democratic senators) during his hearing, command and management at Mr Hegseth's level, while admirable, falls somewhat short of the experience needed to manage the Department of Defense, with its 3 million military and civilian personnel and $850 billion budget. Why might a president nominate a person with such limited experience for such a massive job?

Senators of both parties conducting Mr Hegseth's confirmation hearing did neither the nation nor Mr Hegseth any favors. Democrats spent too much time on issues of drunkenness and marital infidelity, while Republicans spent too much time thundering about the horrors of DEI. No one - with the partial exception of Senator Tammy Duckworth - asked difficult questions about management, strategy, and Mr Hegseth's qualifications to be the senior civilian defense advisor to the president.

There are, indeed, management issues at the Department of Defense and each of the services which need attention. There are serious issues of grand strategy, acquisition management, and resource allocation that need to be addressed. But are such weighty and massive issues best handled by a young former military officer of limited experience at lower levels of command and management ... whether he has dust on his boots or not?

No, they aren't. Unless the president is less interested in competent management and command experience than he is in engineering incompetence in the position ... filling it with someone who will not have the moral or professional authority and gravitas to tell him what he needs to know, rather than what he wants to know (or not know). 

Der Furor tried the same move with his nomination of the execrable Matt Gaetz for Attorney General; fortunately, that was such a ludicrous nomination that he had to quickly back off and nominate Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi instead**. While Ms Bondi has at least reasonable qualifications for the position, her sycophantic adoration of Der Furor and refusal to provide direct and honest answers to legitimate questions about her independence tar her nomination with the stench of engineered incompetence.

And can we forget the utterly insane nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services? No reasonable argument can possibly be made for his completely meritless nomination, other than to engineer incompetence in a critical organization that has already been damaged by ludicrous conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation, and disregard for proven science.

We're in for a long four years of engineered incompetence. One hopes at least that we can begin clawing reality back in the 2026 midterms, before the damage has become irreversible.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* The flags and memes showing a heavily-muscled, heavily-armed Rambo-style Furor are so utterly laughable ...

** Which leads one to wonder whether Gaetz was just a decoy to provide an easier confirmation path for Bondi.