While each sad example above constitutes incompetence as generally conceived, in truth any manifested lack of efficacy can ensue from various causes, which are not always distinct but rather sit along a continuum. The most obvious (and often assumed) reason for incompetence is insufficient resources or attention, which typically gives rise to calls for “putting more money into x” whenever failure occurs. Ineptitude also can result when resources are adequate but public authorities prioritize other objectives. At the end of the spectrum sits a source usually hidden from view: ideology.
An ideologically-driven approach to service provision places a higher priority on other values or objectives than traditional notions of competent task completion. The primacy of ideology in governmental service delivery is particularly insidious since it is purposefully opaque. Voters assume when making electoral decisions that they are choosing between two approaches for providing a desired public good. No candidate for public office openly campaigns on a platform of “vote for me and you’ll get worse outcomes in policing, garbage pickup, electric reliability, etc.”
A quote frequently attributed to former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia — that “there’s not a Democrat or Republican way to pick up the garbage” — assumes that voters prefer competent service provision over ideology for basic functions provided by government. Indeed, tasks ranging from picking up the trash and plowing snow-covered streets, to more significant responsibilities like policing and national defense, were once thought largely above meaningful debate. Performance was easily measured; the service was provided effectively and efficiently, or it wasn’t. Today, however, if picking up trash risks “impacting marginalized communities” or is seen as to “not advance equity,” it risks becoming “problematic.”
The “
Defund the Police” movement is a stark example of this. One would think capable policing is valued across the political spectrum. However, for some who assert that our criminal justice system is irredeemably racist, “defunding” the police became a clarion call for advancing racial equity. An obvious, but initially missed, winning political message for rebutting such calls would have made the case that reducing resources for policing can only result in inferior public safety outcomes, while still acknowledging systemic inequities. Criminal justice reform can be advanced without abandoning the public square to anarchy.
That many progressive public officials have now backtracked on calls for defunding the police obscures that rising lawlessness in many Democrat-led jurisdictions was a conscious choice by these officials and one not honestly sold to voters. The subsequent
election of New York Mayor Eric Adams over more progressive primary challengers, and
the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, show that when voters understand the consequences of what they are selecting, they will make a choice best suiting their interests.
These more recent electoral outcomes suggest that Dukakis may have been right — even if too early and for the wrong reasons. Competence is more important than ideology, particularly when ideology attempts to stand in the place of competence. And when incompetence and bad ideology are fused, as evidenced almost daily in the Biden administration’s sundry failures, clearly-articulated candidate messaging stating “these are the outcomes I will deliver” and “this is what I mean when I say public safety, border enforcement, energy security, etc.,” expressed in plain language, will have considerable appeal to an impatient and frustrated body politic.
The week saw what looked a whole lot like a relentless stealth dump-Biden campaign in Establishment Media:
