Washington's Crisis of Competence Is About to Get Worse

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The phrase that haunts British politics arrived in 2006 when Home Secretary John Reid looked at his own department and declared it “not fit for purpose.” Those four words—meant as a warning—became a permanent indictment. Nobody ever really fixed it. The phrase just stuck around, a scarlet letter on an entire institution.

I’m thinking about that this week because America’s running the same experiment, except we’re doing it at scale and with nuclear weapons.

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When Institutions Start Failing Publicly

Start here: threats against Members of Parliament have more than doubled since 2019. Last year alone, nearly 1,000 reported crimes. That’s not a trend. That’s a breaking point. British MPs are now so worried about their physical safety that they need government support programs just to show up for work.

Now flip to America. We’ve got a president who’s spent the last month directing his Justice Department with the same casual brutality you’d use managing a vengeful business. The attorney general’s name doesn’t matter—the actual structural problem is that Trump’s demands have become so extreme that even his most compliant appointees can’t fully deliver. That’s a direct quote from reporting on the situation, and it’s the kind of thing that gets buried in think-piece language usually, but let me be clear: we’re watching a chief executive systematically pressure law enforcement to punish his enemies, and the only thing slowing him down is the sheer audacity of some of his requests.

That’s a “not fit for purpose” moment.

Then there’s the government shutdown mechanics. Trump just directed officials to pay DHS employees—Coast Guard, FEMA, CISA—who’ve been without pay during what’s now a record-length shutdown. You know what that does? It splits the difference without solving anything. Employees get paid retroactively while uncertainty continues. It’s a band-aid on a fracture. And the reason we’re even discussing DHS payroll is because nobody’s willing to make the actual structural decision about whether this shutdown ends.

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The Competence Desert

Here’s what I think’s actually happening: we’re not in a political crisis. We’re in a competence crisis.

Look at Iran policy. Trump promised a quick end to “the Iran war”—his phrase—but hasn’t explained how. The bet was that American firepower could frighten Iran into compliance. Iran’s response? They’re not cooperating. Meanwhile, the UK and allies are discussing sanctions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz because Iran’s blocking it. That’s not a small thing. That’s shipping lanes. That’s global oil markets. That’s the kind of pressure that usually requires actual diplomatic architecture, not just military posturing.

Instead, we’re getting videos.

The administration’s filming its military operations and uploading them—a practice that’s only possible in a country where citizens consume war on YouTube and ask almost nothing in return. It’s performance masquerading as policy. And I get it: war’s been hidden for twenty years. Showing it has a certain honesty to it. But honesty without strategy is just theater, and theater doesn’t move Iran.

The marmalade thing is actually instructive here too, even though it sounds ridiculous. Britain’s potentially going to have to relabel breakfast spreads under post-Brexit EU food rules. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the problem: institutions are grinding forward with technical adjustments while the actual coherence of governance—the thing that makes people trust that someone’s thinking about the whole system—disintegrates.

Where the Economy Meets Politics

The scariest signal I’m seeing comes from Nebraska.

A meat plant closed. Young Latino men—politically disconnected, economically squeezed—helped deliver Trump’s victory. But now in that same economy, they’re considering unconventional candidates like Dan Osborn. That’s not a committed political movement. That’s people willing to bet on anyone if it means their situation changes.

Economic pain breaks party loyalty. Always has. And when you combine that with what’s happening institutionally—rising threats against politicians, erratic justice department pressure, shutdown mechanics that don’t resolve—you get a situation where voters have permission to abandon the normal coalition entirely.

Trump’s coalition brought in voters who weren’t traditionally Republican precisely because they’d given up on institutions working. They wanted a wrecking ball. Fine. But a wrecking ball that doesn’t build anything afterward just leaves you with rubble and colder nights.

The Real Question

Here’s what I genuinely don’t know: whether any of this catches up with the administration before 2026, or if we just exist in this state of slow-motion institutional decay until Trump leaves office (however that happens). Britain lived with “not fit for purpose” as a permanent condition. They adapted. Life went on.

But Britain doesn’t have nuclear weapons in the hands of a president performing military decisions for YouTube.

My read is we’re about six months away from a moment where the competence crisis stops being background noise and becomes operational. Could be Iran. Could be something with the financial system. Could be something nobody’s predicted because institutions are failing faster than we can measure.

What I’d bet on: Trump’s second-term incompetence is going to look different than his first-term chaos. It’ll be more deliberate, more focused on power consolidation, less interested in governing. And that shift—from chaos to intentional breakdown—is when things actually get dangerous.

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What I’m Watching

• The DHS payroll patch holds or breaks by mid-March: If Trump keeps using emergency directives to pay federal employees without resolving the shutdown, we’re in permanent governance-by-workaround territory. Watch for the first agency that can’t function on partial pay.

• Iran’s next move on the Strait of Hormuz before April 15: This isn’t just military posturing. Oil prices move on this. If Iran escalates and the administration’s response is another video, that’s your signal that policy-making has fully collapsed into performance.

• Dan Osborn or similar third-party candidates gaining measurable support in 2026 midterm polling: The Nebraska situation scales if the economy stays tight and institutional chaos continues. Track special election and primary results in districts with high Latino populations and recent economic disruption. That’s where the real realignment happens.

• The first major Justice Department appointment that Trump withdraws because even his appointee won’t fully comply: This is the institutional pressure test. When Trump can’t get his own people to do what he demands, we’ll know how deep the competence problem actually runs.