It's 2025. Never attribute to incompetence or malice that which can adequately be explained by both.

At this point the onus is on them for pleading their offenses as just incompetence or just malice.

I love this, thanks for posting. I mean, I hate that it is true. But it is perfect for this moment.

Both scenarios are incompetence and malice.

They are in charge of making cuts but never bothered to understand what the departments do, the value, or where the excesses are. Yet they still make the cuts.

The Trump admin has stated over and over it is malice.

Russell Vought, Trump’s pick for the director of the Office of Management and Budget (a job he held during Trump’s first term), has said: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/books/review/administrati...

The Boys coming true, in banal form.

Serial incompetence without regard for due caution is indistinguishable from malice. Don't cut yourself with that rust old Hanlon's razor.

Its's Evil (Evil = Incompetence + Power)

Evil = Incompetence + Power - Empathy

I think there needs to be one more element like agency? Because under this definition of evil, a sponge elected as president is evil although it wouldn't do anything at all in any situation. Maybe that's still evil?

I sometimes wonder those people are evil or just incompetent, but it feels like those two are indistinguishable.