Trump team incompetence stains everything it touches

A few days after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Benjamin Wittes, editor of the influential Lawfare blog, came up with a pithy summary of the new administration: “malevolence tempered by incompetence.” A year later, that rings truer than ever.

In fact, this last week was a big one for malevolence. But today’s column will focus on the incompetence, whose full depths — and consequences — we’re just starting to see.

Let’s start with a few recent stories.

In his State of the Union, Trump devoted part of one sentence to the disaster in Puerto Rico, struck by Hurricane Maria. “We are with you, we love you,” he declared. But the island’s residents, almost a third of whom are still without power four months after the storm, aren’t exactly feeling that love.

Oh, and for the record, I don’t believe Trump, who spent much of his speech falsely blaming brown people for a nonexistent crime wave, loves Puerto Ricans.

Trump also declared, as he has in the past, that he is “committed” to taking action on the opioid epidemic. But he’s been in office a year and has basically done nothing.

What he did do, however, was appoint a 24-year-old former campaign worker, with no relevant experience before joining the administration — who appears to have lied on his résumé — to a senior position in the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which should be coordinating the effort (if one existed).

Meanwhile, the Trump-appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned after Politico reported she had purchased tobacco-industry stocks after taking office. This was unethical; it was also deeply stupid.

These aren’t isolated examples. A remarkable number of Trump appointees have been forced out over falsified credentials, unethical practices or racist remarks.

Why is this administration hiring such people? It surely reflects both supply and demand: Competent people don’t want to work for Trump, and he and his inner circle don’t want them anyway.

But what’s the problem? Overall, stocks are up and the economy is steadily growing. Does competence even matter?

The answer is that America is a very big country with a lot of strengths, and it can run on momentum for a long time even if none of the people in charge know what they’re doing. Sooner or later, however, stuff happens — and then incompetence becomes a very big deal, as it already has in Puerto Rico.

What kind of stuff may happen? The scariest scenarios involve national security. But we can’t count on smooth sailing for the economy, either. And who will manage economic turbulence if and when it hits? After all, we currently have perhaps the least impressive Treasury secretary in U.S. history.

Matters are a bit better at the Federal Reserve, where nobody seems to have bad things to say about Jerome Powell, just confirmed as Fed chairman.

On the other hand, why didn’t Trump just follow the usual norms and appoint Janet Yellen, who has done a fantastic job, to a second term?

One answer may be that Trump is a traditionalist — and few things are more traditional than passing over a highly qualified woman in favor of a less qualified man.