Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants | Leaders who value loyalty above all else have a symbiotic relationship with those unable to succeed on their own merits

I think this is a very insightful essay

> Last week, Trump officials reportedly left behind documents describing confidential planning for the Trump-Putin meeting in a public area of an Alaskan hotel.

> That’s nothing compared with the actions of Emil Bove, Trump’s new nominee for the US court of appeals for the third circuit, who reputedly told subordinates at the Department of Justice that they should “consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’” and ignoring any court order blocking a planned deportation flight.

> Then there’s Billy Long, a former auctioneer and Republican congressman who Trump nominated and was confirmed less than two months ago to head the Internal Revenue Service, with “little background in tax policy beyond promoting a fraud-riddled tax credit”. Long has already been fired after clashing with the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Long was the sixth person to head the IRS this year.

> Let’s not forget EJ Antoni, whom Trump just nominated to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after firing former chief Erika McEntarfer for presiding over a disappointing jobs report earlier this month.

> Antoni is that rarity who has drawn harsh criticism from economists on the right as well as the mainstream for being ignorant, unprincipled and incompetent. He recently celebrated that “all net job growth over the last year went to native-born Americans”.

> I haven’t even mentioned the towering ineptitude of Trump’s cabinet picks, such as Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Robert F Kennedy Jr and Kristi Noem.

> How to explain the rise of so many incompetent and unprincipled people?

> Easy. **They could never succeed on their own merits.** As soon as their incompetence became apparent – which was likely to be as soon as they took the first job that required some degree of intelligence and integrity – they were fired.

> So they learned that to be rewarded with promotions, money and power, they cannot rely on the normal processes and systems of recognition for jobs well done. **If they’re to make anything of themselves, they must instead become ass-lickers, lap dogs and sycophants.**

> They must latch on to someone who values loyalty above integrity or competence, someone for whom fawning obsequiousness is the most important criterion for being hired and promoted, ideally someone who cannot tell the difference between a groveling toady and a knowledgeable adviser.

> Enter Trump.

> History is strewn with the wreckage of dictatorships that have attracted and promoted incompetent people lacking talent or integrity. As Hannah Arendt explained in her classic *The Origins of Totalitarianism*:

> > **Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.**

!ping ADMINISTRATIVE-STATE