The Trump administration's level of malice is off the charts. Fortunately, so is its level of incompetence, which might prevent it from doing even worse damage to America.
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To work for Donald Trump, you need to do what he asks without question; you must pretend (or believe) that every absurd idea he has is brilliant; and you have to enthusiastically nod along to every inane thing that comes out of his mouth, then repeat it on Fox News.
Now, if you are wondering, “Wait, aren’t those all the same thing?” then you are absolutely right, of course.
As a malignant narcissist, loyalty is all that matters to Trump.
Of course, there are some secondary job qualifications. The ability to lie effortlessly comes to mind, along with a complete lack of shame, a pronounced ethical flexibility, cruelty, and having had some work done.
You may have noticed that “competence” is conspicuously absent from that list.
Perhaps it’s because a know-nothing dolt like Trump does not want to surround himself with capable people.
However, it seems more likely that, if you insist on assembling a cabinet consisting of TV anchors, quacks, kooks, wrestling executives, bootlickers, and potential Russian assets, you’re just not going to get top-notch talent.
Whatever the reason, the fact that competence is in such short supply in this administration may end up saving us all.
Monday’s shocking revelation that Trump’s crackerjack national security team added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a secret (and likely illegal) group chat that discussed a military strike on the Houthi rebels in Yemen is a great example.
Nobody, from Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on down, realized that they were sharing national security information with a journalist who has frequently drawn Trump’s ire in the past.
And, if Goldberg had not left the group on his own accord once he realized that this was not some hoax but rather that these people were just that inept, they would still be sharing that information with him while wondering who was leaking state secrets.
While the military strike on Yemen ended up not being compromised, the big takeaway from the story is not just how lax operational security is in this administration, but also that every participant (other than Goldberg) in this chat likely violated recordkeeping rules as well as laws prohibiting the sharing of national security information using unsecure, non-governmental devices and apps.
All of this bodes well for Canada and Greenland should Trump ever follow through on his imperial ambitions. It seems just as likely that a Hegseth-led strike ends up occupying a Walmart parking lot in Des Moines, Iowa, and not Toronto.
As an aside, Hegseth hilariously denied the story even after the administration had already confirmed it.
Once again, you don’t have to be competent, you just need to be shameless and willing to lie.
What Goldberg revealed is so hair-raising that even some Republicans are demanding answers… probably also because even the most MAGAmerican will realize that this isn’t good. That, in turn, will make everybody else sound more ridiculous who claims this isn’t a big deal.
Of course, it is not just this one episode.
By now, it seems pretty clear that if any entity is able to stop Trump’s march toward turning the US into an authoritarian state, it’s going to be the courts.
The problem with that is that the Supreme Court has a solid right-wing majority. However, even Supreme Court Justice John Roberts or associate justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett will not necessarily rule in Trump’s favor if his strip mall attorneys present arguments that should be laughed out of any court.
On Monday, for example, the Department of Justice argued that the administration will provide no further information to a judge whose order to halt deportation flights to El Salvador it ignored and who is in the process of determining whether anybody should be held in contempt of court because of that.
Attorney General Pam Bondi justified this stance by basically saying that Trump has the authority to do whatever he wants because of his constitutional powers and because he had earned “the mandate of the electorate.”
Obviously, this line of reasoning should not hold up in oral arguments conducted in good faith (which is why we excluded Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch from the list of justices who may rule against Trump).
And we are just using this example because it happened Monday. There have been numerous times already when DOJ lawyers have used arguments resembling those of Lionel Hutz, the incompetent and sleazy lawyer from The Simpsons.
It also doesn’t help the administration that some of its most senior members, including the president himself, co-president Elon Musk, or Hegseth, keep blurting out stuff that undermines whatever case DOJ’s lawyers are trying to make.
This is particularly true when it comes to the role Musk plays in the government, which is relevant with regard to which transparency and ethics laws he has to comply with.
Naturally, Musk would prefer to adhere to as few rules as possible. After all, when you buy yourself a president and want to destroy a government, it would be unfair to have to comply with laws.
And, seeing how his Department of Government Eradication Efficiency (DOGE) is doing all kinds of questionable stuff, it is finding itself at the heart of a lot of litigation.
When DOJ’s lawyers argue these cases, they try to play down Musk’s role as merely a presidential adviser (and obviously also a supplier of vehicles for White House auto shows).
However, Trump keeps saying that Musk “heads” DOGE, which then makes those government attorneys look like lying fools who could be sanctioned.
By the way, it’s probably also not the wisest decision to keep attacking the judges who are hearing your cases.
Enter Hegseth again, who recently went after the judge who paused the military’s new transgender ban:
Since “Judge” Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids…after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare. https://t.co/CNrl252Irs
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 22, 2025
As a Fox News host, trolling a judge may seem like a great idea; as head of the Pentagon, it is likely not.
And that’s really what all of this comes down to: As a womanizing, heavily drinking Christian nationalist, he is perfect for the former but a real liability for the latter.
Usually, that would be a bad thing. After all, taxpayers should hope that they are getting excellence for their money. However, if the goal is to prevent government officials from wrecking the US, the incompetence of Trump’s administration is far preferable.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
