Ghosting, or Sloth? You Decide

We are in the midst of a target-rich environment. There are so many manifestations of incompetence and evil in the current administration that it is difficult to single out one as representative of the whole. So let’s bore in on a single area that most reasonable people feel is important. Let’s look at the number of roles in the Department of Defense that require Senate confirmation, where a nominee has been confirmed and is serving. The Department of Defense has 55 such roles. As of April 24 (last date I could find easily through search engine), guess how many people had been confirmed.

Give up? Exactly 1, Secretary of Defense General Jim Mattis.

How many of the 55 roles have had people nominated? Again, as of April 24, exactly 4, and two of those failed confirmation. How many more have been announced, but the nomination has not been transmitted to the Senate? Exactly 7, and one of those nominations for Secretary of the Army (replacing one of the failed nominations) has been withdrawn since April 24.

How many positions remain to be announced, nominated and confirmed? Forty-three positions are in Trump-limbo, awaiting any action to be taken. Now, this is the Department of Defense. Few people would argue that this is one of the governmental functions that should be staffed expeditiously in order to ensure that the department is able to perform its prime directive of keeping the nation safe. And yet here we are, 3 1/2 months after the inauguration and nearly 80% of the roles needing Senate confirmation have not even had an announcement of a candidate for the role.

It appears that one of the guiding principles of this administration is that they consider governmental agencies to be grossly overstaffed, and therefore substantial savings can be made by refusing to fill roles within the government. But to this outside observer, failure to staff essential roles will soon lead to paralysis within governmental agencies, leaving them unable to fulfill their duties. Many small-government champions may view this as a victory in the case of departments like Labor, or Education, or other similar agencies viewed as hotbeds of excess regulatory activity. But the Department of Defense?

If the act of leaving roles requiring Senate confirmation vacant is a deliberate decision being made as part of a strategic process to force administrative shrinkage, then let that be announced and we can debate the merits of the strategy. But if what we have is the Trump administration simply ghosting the agency positions, deliberately ignoring the need to fill them so as to hope that they go away, then we have yet another glaring example of the incompetence of the Trump administration.

There is one other possibility that comes to mind. What if there have been attempts to identify candidates for these roles, but either those candidates refused to be considered, or they were considered and then failed their background and security clearance process? Given the nature of this administration to be an information black hole, we may never know the full story.

So this is one simple example of how this administration has hit the ground and immediately assumed the prone position. An administration led by a caricature of a leader, who only knew how to drive his businesses into bankruptcy. An administration which found an eager legislative partner, looking for ways to implement Randian philosophy and effect a total reversal in government direction. This is where the discussion of evil comes into play. There are undoubtedly sincere conservatives who still believe that the country ran off the rails of Constitutional intent when the New Deal was adopted. That is a valid perspective, and it could be debated through the electoral process.

But this election offered a bait and switch. Campaign promises to drain the swamp of undue influence by banks like Goldman Sachs, only to reverse that pledge and fill the swamp with hordes of Goldman Sachs employees and alumni. Campaign promises to get this great new improved health care system that will cost less and provide better services. These promises were co-opted by the Ayn Rand wing of the Republican party into the AHCA, and once the bill passed the first step in the legislative process, they celebrated with Bud Light as they had designated bus drivers take them down the mall towards the White House. You know, that last bit may be the worst of all of this. To think that Republicans believe Bud Light is actually beer says more about them than all of their pronouncements of the moral inferiority of those who develop pre-existing conditions.

We now have a massive tax cut for the truly wealthy disguised as a revamp of health care legislation. If failure to staff the government is one of the manifestations of incompetence of this administration, then allowing this reversion to the bad old days of insurance company death panels represents the evil side of the administration. And still, the true believers do not realize that they have been trolled by experts as they pledge undying support for their supreme leader. If this legislation actually does pass, then their undying support will likely turn into dying support as states requesting waivers to the mandated treatment standards remove drug abuse treatment from insurance. The waivers will reinstitute lifetime caps on payments. But for those who are fortunate enough to remain healthy, they will save a pittance, and the Republicans will say, “See! We came through for you!”