"I prefer incompetent evil to competent evil"

[John Dule]

I have seen this statement flippantly thrown around several times on this site as of late. It is typically used in a comparison between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump-- the implication being that DeSantis is somehow more dangerous to American society than Trump because he is more competent.

Even overlooking the fact that "evil" is not a useful characterization of anyone's political beliefs, this is a dumb argument, and its popularity is a major indicator of how polarization has deeply damaged our country. In today's partisan framing, only extremely politicized issues-- gender identity, guns, abortion, voter ID, etc-- receive any coverage. This has distracted us from the fact that much of what the president does is essentially apolitical.

Would you like a president who is incompetent at international diplomacy? At combatting inflation? At ensuring that energy prices remain low for consumers? Do you want a president who is too stupid to effectively combat terrorism or deal with our adversaries on the global stage? Would you prefer a president who lacks basic critical thinking skills in the event of a serious disaster-- such as a pandemic or a hurricane? Do you want someone in charge who has no legal background and cannot understand basic policy issues and does not know what he is constitutionally permitted to do?

Out of sheer stubbornness, you might be saying "Yes, John! If the 'bad guys' are incompetent and they fail, people will realize it, vote them out, and then everything will be ok again." This is accelerationist idiocy for two reasons:

1) In rooting for the opposite side to fail, you are essentially rooting for expensive food, housing, and electricity for average Americans. You are rooting for high unemployment and inflation. You are rooting for irreversible damage to America's position on the world stage, and irreparable damage to our strategic alliances. You are rooting for riots and property damage. You are rooting for unpaid pensions, economic strife, and a general breakdown of the basic functions of government. This all might sound fun to a middle-class tween anarchist on an internet forum who has never experienced scarcity in any meaningful sense of the word, but it affects real people who will suffer as a result of government incompetence. Imagine the narcissism it takes to actively cheer on the suffering of millions of people just because your personal brand of extremely online socialism didn't win the last election cycle.

2) Strategically speaking, there is no evidence that the accelerationist approach will turn people away from the Republican Party. There have been two catastrophic GOP presidents in my lifetime. The first managed a 25% approval rating, an economic collapse, and two pointless foreign wars that squandered the budget surplus. What was the Republican Party's response? It abandoned that era and rapidly reinvented itself as something far worse. The total ideological and practical failure of Trumpist policies might cause his supporters to finally come to terms with their stupidity, yes. But it is equally likely to push them further down the rabbit hole of extremism. I do not see what is to be gained here.

I don't care if anyone responds to this with a serious argument. I just wanted to let you know that if you say this, I will think you're stupid.

[John Dule]

Depends on the type of competence and incompetence than anything else.

Yeah, it's really not possible to answer this kind of question in the abstract. In some cases malicious intent will be more harmful, in other cases incompetence will be worse. It depends on a lot of factors.

I think that at the very least, a mentally competent US president will be smart enough to know when he can and can't rock the boat, and when he's pushing things too far. This is to be distinguished from someone (like Trump) who has never studied US history, has never read the Constitution, does not know the basic duties entrusted to the different branches of government, does not understand the law, has no background in public service, and is not capable of understanding the perspectives or feelings of other human beings. Other good examples of this personality type include Marjorie Taylor Greene and Darrell Brooks.

If you allow these people to flail around with unchecked power, they are just as likely to self-immolate as they are to immolate everyone else. Maybe I'll be proven wrong about this someday-- I hope not-- but I cannot see someone like Ron DeSantis or Glenn Youngkin ordering their supporters to attack the US capitol to overturn an election. I say this simply on the basis that they are capable of self-awareness, and they would understand the implications of their actions (which has never been true for Trump).

I think it is important for us to distinguish between Republicans with whom we have policy disagreements and Republicans who belong in padded cells. If you lump them all together, people will stop taking your argument seriously.

[John Dule]

At this point, I don't like the performative woke crowd but I am also sick of everything Reaganomics and austerity. (Democrats talking about Dobbs is good, don't get me wrong, but the systemic problems need to be addressed as well.) The GOP is still the rich man's party to me, regardless of which side is more competent. Now unlike most of this forum, I actually have had to live with scarcity of necessities. I have gone days without eating because I couldn't afford food. I don't say this because I want sympathy (many here already know about it), I say that because I would rather have incompetent people with their handlers in charge than with people who are  competent at screwing over the poor or working man.

I will be voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 primary, not only because I think he's the weaker candidate, but:

1. Because he's better at exposing the hypocrisy of the Christian Right.
2. Legislatively, he deserves credit for signing the First Step Act, HEROES ACT, and NAFTA renegotiation.
3. After 2024, it's game over and Democrats will hopefully have new leadership and fresh people running for president next time.

If that makes me stupid, that's fine.

I'm sorry, but I think you are carelessly chucking American democracy in the dumpster for the sake of purely speculative short-term policy gains. Let's hope I'm wrong.

[John Dule]

This is a straw man argument as the correct responses oppose evil. Yes, I am to a degree at least relieved, certainly not happy, that the Trump Administration being unable to effectively plan a picnic led to various conservative legislative matters such as repealing Obamacare going down in flames whereas under a more competent Administration like DeSantis, they might have pulled off that extra one vote.

But again, that's just a silver lining to a very dark evil cloud.

A straw man argument is when you make up a fake quote that nobody actually says.

Again, how can people who closely follow politics even suggest that Trump is worse than McConnell? The latter has been there since 1985 and irreparably destroyed the integrity of the Supreme Court. Trump is a corrupt idiot who fetishizes power. Incompetent evil > competent evil, every time.

I will always take incompetent evil over competent evil.

I retain that incompetent evil is preferable to competent evil, so Trump.

Incompetent evil over competent evil a majority of the time.

Competent evil is worse than incompetent evil 10 out of 10 times.

I'd rather have an incompetent autocrat (Trump) who's more likely to draw greater backlash (even if DeSantis is more deserving of said backlash) and is more importantly term limited than the competent, more politically astute autocrat (DeSantis) who's more capable of doing far greater irreversible  institutional damage than Trump ever could and would be the odds favorite to win re election in 2028.

Even if MTG is as evil as Pinochet, incompetent evil is better than competent evil.

This is not a straw man argument.