The unimportance of Trump's incompetence


The most talked-about essay of the past week is undoubtedly Robert Kagan's "Our constitutional crisis is already here" in The Washington Post, a long, gripping examination of the very serious danger that Donald Trump poses to American democracy as the country approaches the 2024 presidential election.
But that doesn't mean everyone is convinced. Ross Douthat of The New York Times finds the argument unpersuasive because Kagan (like, Douthat thinks, most liberal Trump worriers) fails to take into account Trump's incompetence. What we learned from Trump's time in the White House, according to Douthat, is that he had barely any idea how government functions or how to get it to do his bidding even on ordinary issues of policy, let alone in launching a successful coup. Hence Douthat concludes that anyone who insists that "Trump is personally going to organize his way to a constitutional crisis without any of the powers he enjoyed in 2020 needs to deal with the reality of how incompetently he used all those powers from '16 to '20."
That might be a persuasive critique if Kagan had suggested that Trump would single-handedly manage to reverse a loss in the 2024 election, making himself president through fine-tuned manipulation of the levers of power. But that isn't Kagan's argument at all. Kagan claims the following: that if Trump runs, he will win the GOP nomination; that if he's the nominee and he loses the election, he will claim he was robbed a second time by voter fraud; and that the consequence of this claim will be much worse than what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The outcome won't be worse because Trump is some kind of genius at controlling the institutions of American democracy, which would of course be much more difficult for him to do from the outside looking in than it was with him fuming in the Oval Office last winter. The outcome will be worse because of the one political talent Trump does possess, which is the demagogic manipulation of public opinion — precisely the same skill he wielded in 2016, first to take over the GOP and then to win his narrow victory over Hillary Clinton.
It is this skill that has persuaded two thirds of Republicans that the 2020 election was stolen. It's this skill that has inspired a series of Republican-dominated states to replace election officials with Trump loyalists. And it's this skill that keeps most Republicans in Congress from speaking out against Trump's civically corrosive lies.
It wouldn't take any kind of governing competence at all for Trump to sow chaos after the 2024 vote, which is really all that Kagan predicts, including "weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power."
Where would such chaos end? I have no idea, but it's nowhere good. And Donald Trump has more than enough talent to pull it off.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.
-
Nepal chooses toddler as its new ‘living goddess’
Under the Radar Girls between two and four are typically chosen to live inside the temple as the Kumari – until puberty strikes
-
October 5 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include half-truth hucksters, Capitol lockdown, and more
-
Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber bailout
Talking Point Should the government do more to protect business from the ‘cyber shockwave’?
-
Russia: already at war with Europe?
Talking Point As Kremlin begins ‘cranking up attacks’ on Ukraine’s European allies, questions about future action remain unanswered
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels
speed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Supreme Court rules for Fed’s Cook in Trump feud
Speed Read Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her role following Trump’s attempts to oust her
-
‘This isn’t just semantics’
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Miami Freedom Tower’s MAGA library squeeze
THE EXPLAINER Plans to place Donald Trump’s presidential library next to an iconic symbol of Florida’s Cuban immigrant community has South Florida divided
-
Judge rules Trump illegally targeted Gaza protesters
Speed Read The Trump administration’s push to arrest and deport international students for supporting Palestine is deemed illegal
-
Trump: US cities should be military ‘training grounds’
Speed Read In a hastily assembled summit, Trump said he wants the military to fight the ‘enemy within’ the US
-
YouTube to pay Trump $22M over Jan. 6 expulsion
Speed Read The president accused the company of censorship following the suspension of accounts post-Capitol riot