A long time back, I read a book my brother lent me called About Face, by David Hackworth. It was about the Vietnam War, one of those long, very well-researched non-fiction books, and it was about how Hackworth went from one of the most enthusiastic members of the Army to being a big critic of the war. Good book.
Anyway, the thing I remember best from that book and have referred back to many times in my life is the part where Hackworth puts people into four categories based on two criteria: competence and activity. So the four categories are Competent/Active, Competent/Inactive, Incompetent/Active, and Incompetent/Inactive.
Hackworth figured that competent/active people are the ones who drive most of the big, positive things that happen in the world, like maybe building Microsoft or coming up with the Theory of Relativity. Next most useful are the competent/inactive (I would put myself in this category), who need to be pointed in the right direction but end up doing much of what needs to be done. Incompetent/inactive people are not really so bad according to Hackworth because they can always be put to work doing something that needs to be done, even if it's flipping burgers or digging ditches.
It is the incompetent but active people, he argued, who are really a disaster, and they need to be eliminated from any organization. These are people who do not know what they are doing, but they see themselves as being in charge, are eager to act on their own ideas, and are not at all afraid to shake things up. And if you think about that and apply it to people you have known, you can probably see why I keep coming back to it.
Donald Trump is not really an idiot in the usual sense of someone with a low IQ, but he is perhaps literally the most extreme example of an active and incompetent person, at least in his current capacity, that any of us has ever seen. If that was not already clear from his complete lack of political experience, or the obvious ignorance he displayed during the campaign, or from his bizarre cabinet picks, his first few weeks in office have provided ample evidence of his lack of basic competence in the POTUS role.
Trump has one major trait that I have seen in other active incompetents in the business world: He acts impulsively. Shoots from the hip. Acts first, thinks second. He seems literally incapable of planning something long-term, organizing it, assigning tasks, taking it step by step, building something complicated. He seems extremely impatient, unable to establish any long-term plan. I think it is no surprise that almost everything he has done so far has been the result of his own actions -- cabinet picks, a Supreme Court nominee, meetings with world leaders, executive actions -- and not the result of legislation, which requires working with others, forethought, and patience. He just cannot do forethought or patience. Just can't.
Trump has another incompetence trait that, by contrast, I have not seen in many business leaders: He takes things very personally and cannot seem to help himself when it comes to reacting to any opposition as a personal attack. At the same time, he also seems compelled to point to anything, real or unreal, that he sees as positive and make it as clear as possible to one and all that he personally achieved this, and could everyone please give him the adulation he clearly deserves? This may be a much more common and more functional trait in the entertainment world where, credit where it's due, Trump has had some success, In the business world or the political arena, it just seems bizarre. At a minimum, his personal insecurity makes him less effective if only because it causes him to say (or tweet) comments that undermine his credibility and sometimes give us reason to question his sanity.
But what really sets Trump apart is his self-assurance, his lack of self-awareness, his utterly unjustifiable belief in himself. He seems to not only believe that he is qualified to be President despite all evidence; he seems to truly believe that he alone is uniquely qualified to be the best President there can ever be. It just is not likely that anyone so delusional about their own abilities has ever been so far out of their depth and has been handed so much power.
At the center of all his issues is, by all appearances, a man who sees himself as some sort of transcendent figure, a secular messiah. The world turns around him, his personality, his business needs, his popularity, his unique abilities. The rest of us can see what a pathetic delusion that is, but I do not believe that Donald Trump can.
We handed this man the reigns. It is increasingly frustrating that we handed him the reigns by choosing Hillary Clinton, then watching helplessly as an outdated rule gave the presidency to the loser of the democratic vote, but that cannot be helped now. I do not believe that most Americans will ever follow Donald Trump, the ultimate active idiot, but we will all be dragged along. The best we can hope for now is that the ride will not last long.
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