Never Confuse Incompetence for Malice

Erick Erickson / July 19, 2024

A man can sleep better at night thinking evil men in charge have a plan than realizing incompetent idiots with no plan are in charge. Many Americans have resorted to conspiracy theories because they will not process that idiots are in charge in a confluence of random events who make matters worse through their gross incompetence.

During COVID, many people believed so many of the things that were conspiracies came true. They were never conspiracies. They were statements of common sense that ordinary Americans knew were true but the bureaucrats insisted were not so. The competence of ordinary Americans was given disproportion disadvantage to the incompetence of the bureaucrats. Six feet between Americans and plexiglass panels were not going to stop a virus. Everyone knew except the bureaucrats. Once the vaccine proved ineffective, there was never a reason for a booster. But the bureaucrats said otherwise.

It was always obvious that if Iran were able to sell more oil, it would use the profits to fund more terrorism. The bureaucrats said it would not be so and released a pile of cash to Iran and let them sell oil. Iran funded Hamas. Hamas attacked Israel. The bureaucrats and the government proved incompetent again.

Now, a 20-year-old loner named Thomas Michael Crooks came within an inch of killing former President Donald Trump in a field in Pennsylvania. Every line of sight is supposed to be protected when a President takes a stage. The director of the Secret Service, however, said in an ABC News interview that because the roof of the building where Crooks took up his spot had a slope, it would have endangered Secret Service agents’ lives to take up a position on a roof. Agents whose job is to jump in front of a bullet to protect the President could not be on a minimally sloped roof lest they get injured. The snipers on the even more sharply sloped roof who shot Crooks were local police, not the Secret Service, because of the slope.

The Secret Service and local police failed to coordinate. They failed to communicate. Hours before the event, they saw Crooks. They saw him again with a range finder measuring out distances. Members of the crowd saw him and pointed him out to local police. Local police seemed convinced the crowd was seeing the Secret Service. In fact, the Secret Service advance team knew and directed that particular roof be secured, and it was not.

On the left, people have speculated that Trump staged the shooting to advance himself politically. Others are convinced Crooks hit a teleprompter and it shattered, cutting Trump’s ear. The reality is a bullet grazed Trump’s ear. The teleprompters were not hit and there are photos to prove it.

On the right, people have speculated the Biden administration attempted to kill Trump. Perhaps agents were given a “do not fire” order. Someone created a social media post claiming to be the police sniper, in which he said as much. It was fake. The reality is the government would not rely on a 20-year-old who got booted from the high school rifle team for being a bad shot. The reality is the government could have concocted a private heart attack instead of a very public shooting.

The reality is we are governed by idiots. The bureaucracy that cannot deliver the mail on time cannot do much competently. The reality is Trump survived by the grace of God against a confluence of incompetence. To restore trust in institutions, people must be held accountable. But Joe Biden, who fired no one after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, nor fired his secretary of defense for disappearing while on the job, nor fired anyone else ever, will not fire the director of the Secret Service. With no accountability, there is no incentive for competence.

Rome could survive repeated crises because its bureaucracy worked for the glory of Rome. We are on the verge of social collapse because our bureaucrats and leaders are idiots working for their own advancement. A week ago, that incompetence very nearly got a former President killed and very nearly started serious civil unrest.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.