I’m from the United States of Incompetence

History shows us over and over that survival depends on competent leadership. And as I looked at today’s news, one word kept echoing: incompetence.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that this is the danger we are living through now. We saw it play out during Trump 1.0. He dismantled the pandemic early warning system. He shut down the office in China that monitored new outbreaks. And when COVID finally reached our shores, he told Americans to maybe inject bleach. That kind of incompetence cost lives. In the end, it became the one thing almost everyone could agree on. Except for the fringe few, most people saw it. They knew he was dangerously unfit, and they turned out in record numbers to elect Joe Biden.

But now, years later, it feels like too many people are slipping back into denial. It is like going back to an abusive partner. At first, you know how bad it was. You remember the chaos. The pain. The lies. But slowly, they start breaking you down, making you doubt your own memory, convincing you maybe it was not so bad. That is what has happened with Trump. And that is what makes me think about the most dangerous question of all: what if he had been in charge during history’s hardest tests?

What if Donald Trump had been president during World War II? Would he have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Allied forces, or would he have praised Hitler as a “strong leader” and sat back while the world burned? What if he had been in the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Would he have chosen careful diplomacy to prevent nuclear war, or fired off late night social media posts until missiles rained down on American soil? What if he had been in charge on September 11, 2001? Would he have united the country, rallied the world, and pursued justice, or bragged about how his buildings were suddenly the tallest in Manhattan?

History is full of moments where survival depended on competent leadership. Where measured judgment, steady hands, and the willingness to tell the truth meant the difference between peace and catastrophe. And if you place Donald Trump inside any one of those moments, the answer is the same: we would not have made it. The truth is, we are living through the consequences of incompetence right now.

Today I watched RFK Jr. testify before Congress as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was asked how many Americans died from COVID. He could not answer. We lost more than 1.1 million Americans, and he could not even say the number out loud. He was asked how many lives were saved by vaccines. Again, no answer. Nothing. Just silence dressed up in stammering excuses. And then the lies came, the propaganda, the same tired conspiracy talking points he has been peddling for years. And instead of pressing him, instead of demanding the truth, Republicans spoon fed him praise. They handed him the very lines he did not have, like a teacher giving the answers to a failing student, and then they lobbed him softballs he could barely catch. This is not oversight. This is cover. This is the protection racket of a movement that props up ignorance and sells it back to the American people as if it were wisdom.

A few Republicans pushed back, but most of it came from Democrats. And still, it was not enough. Listening to RFK Jr. was genuinely sickening. I had to stop. I had to take breaks. I had to remind myself this is not a nightmare, this is our reality. This is the man in charge of the health of our country. And he is not even pretending anymore. He knows Trump will never, at any cost, remove him. So he lets his incompetence shine in full view. He could not answer the most basic questions, let alone the ones that demand depth, knowledge, and leadership.

And it does not stop there. Trump is asking the Supreme Court to give him unchecked power to fire independent agency commissioners, starting with the FTC. The FTC is the agency that cracks down on corporate fraud, monopolies, and scams. It is the watchdog that stops giant corporations from price gouging you at the pharmacy, from locking you into unfair contracts, from selling your kids’ data without your consent. If presidents can fire commissioners at will, it means companies and big pharmaceutical giants get a free pass while consumers lose the only shield standing between them and corporate abuse.

Independent agencies exist for a reason. FDR, during the Great Depression, knew America could not rebuild if Wall Street called all the shots. That is why he built institutions to keep politics and corporate greed in check. Trump’s move to tear them apart is not reform. It is sabotage that will benefit him, his family, and his friends. This is another example that he does not care about America’s existence or the American people.

And while he tries to tighten his grip on power, another agency, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is being turned into an armed police force with arrest authority. Think about that for a moment. Why does USCIS need these new powers when it was created to be an administrative agency? Its job is paperwork, not policing. It is supposed to be the place where people apply for visas, green cards, and citizenship, the place where families bring their hopes of belonging, stability, and safety. This is like turning the DMV or your local housing authority into a police department. They are there to serve the people, not arrest them.

This is how authoritarianism grows. Not always with tanks in the streets, but with subtle shifts that blur the line between civil services and law enforcement. The agency that once welcomed immigrants with instructions and guidance becomes the agency that surveils them. What begins as an office of hope is rebranded as an office of fear. And once that door is opened, it rarely closes. We have seen this before in history. In authoritarian states, service agencies are quietly transformed into policing arms. Bureaucrats become enforcers. Ordinary families come to fear routine encounters with government because they never know when a question about a form will turn into an interrogation about their loyalty.

The danger is not just what this unit can do today, but what Trump plans to do with it tomorrow. When an armed force is embedded inside an agency that touches millions of lives, it can be used for more than fraud cases. It can be used to intimidate, to harass, to target. It turns the path to citizenship into a gauntlet of suspicion. It tells immigrants they are not welcome participants in the American story, but permanent suspects under the eye of the state.

This is not reform. It is not about protecting the system. It is about weaponizing it. And it should terrify every one of us that the agency meant to help people become Americans is being reshaped to treat them as criminals, while giving Trump yet another personal army that falls outside the checks and balances meant to restrain him.

And while Trump builds a police force at home, he is continuing to dismantle our security abroad. His administration is pulling the plug on key European defense programs designed to counter Russia. These programs help protect tiny democracies like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, countries sitting right on Russia’s border. Ending them does not make America stronger. It hands Putin a gift and undermines the trust of our allies. It creates instability across Europe, opening the door for Russia to push further, to test how far it can go before anyone pushes back. We have seen this before. Hitler did not stop with one country. He spread, piece by piece, swallowing nations while the world hesitated. Weakness invites aggression, and Trump is signaling weakness in the clearest way possible.

Contrast this with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. John F. Kennedy kept the world from nuclear war by standing firm with our allies and showing steady resolve against the Soviet Union. He did not abandon Europe. He did not bow to Moscow. He understood that America’s safety depends on standing with those who share our values. Trump does not understand that. Or worse, he does not care. Or maybe this is the point. Remember, his dream is to be seen as a Strong Man, like the leaders of China, North Korea, and Russia.

And then there is Trump’s newest vanity stunt, renaming the Pentagon. With a stroke of his pen, he wants the Department of Defense to once again be called the Department of War. Because in his mind, defense sounds too weak, too passive. Never mind that the post World War II reforms that created the Department of Defense were designed to prevent reckless aggression and put the military firmly under civilian control. Renaming it does not change policy, but it signals aggression at a time when calm leadership is what keeps wars from breaking out. For Trump, it is all about the theater. The name. The branding. The performance. Just another signal of his incompetence.

If you think this is all too absurd to be true, look no further than his latest post on Truth Social. He wrote: “From a Delta Captain: ‘I thought you would get a kick out of this. Delta’s official memo to employees. Big changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. And the liberals thought Notice to Airman was racist to they changed it to Notice to Air Missions. Delta just changed it back to Notice to Airman. I think they are finally embracing MAGA.’”

It is nonsense. There is no evidence Delta renamed the Gulf of Mexico. Airlines do not control FAA terminology. And yet here is a president, clinging to power, using fake airline memos as proof of victory. This is what happens when incompetence meets power. The trivial becomes policy. The false becomes fact. And the consequences fall on all of us.

And even if this were based on some distorted fragment of truth, is this the message we should be hearing from the commander of the United States? Should the leader of the free world be wasting his time pushing airline gossip and internet hoaxes while real crises burn across the globe? This is not leadership. It is theater. It is distraction. It is the behavior of a man who mistakes propaganda for power and petty victories for history. Just another sign of the incompetence at the top.

But even inside Trump world, we are starting to see cracks. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is no hero, no savior, no voice of reason, is wobbling. She is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who ranted about Jewish space lasers, an opportunist who thrives on attention. And now she is sensing Trump’s power slip. That is not courage. It is desperation. Senator Bill Cassidy is pushing back on RFK Jr. too. Small breaks. Small fractures. But real ones nonetheless.

This is where we are. Incompetence at the top. Enablers in Congress. A movement so hollow that its own supporters are starting to question it. The stakes could not be clearer. America only survives when leadership is competent, courageous, and accountable. History has taught us that over and over again. From FDR pulling us through the Depression, to JFK preventing nuclear war, to Obama’s calm response to Ebola, to Biden rallying NATO against Putin, we survive when leaders tell the truth, steady the ship, and put the people first.

So if you are looking for signs that what we are doing is working, these are them. We are starting to see the cracks. And yes, sometimes it feels like they fill back in with cement. But this concrete is soft. It is not set. And every word, every protest, every vote, every push keeps chiseling away at it. We need to keep stomping on it. We need to keep pushing back. And we need to keep demanding that our lawmakers do the same.

And here is the good news. Even as RFK Jr. tries to limit access to vaccines, states are stepping up. New York has made it easier to get COVID vaccines without prescriptions. California, Washington, and Oregon have joined forces to create their own Pacific health alliance. Massachusetts is requiring insurers to cover vaccines no matter what the CDC says. Others are following. The cracks are spreading. People are listening.

We are in the middle of another COVID wave, and the FDA and CDC are no longer doing their jobs. But we are not powerless. You can still wear a mask. You can still get vaccinated. And every choice you make in defense of health and democracy matters. If you run into roadblocks trying to get a vaccine, speak up. Tell your elected officials this is not okay. Access to vaccines is a right, and no amount of incompetence from RFK Jr. should take that away from us.

So do not give up. Hold the line. Because the cracks are widening, and if we keep pushing, they will split wide open.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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