Political and administrative shifts that systematically prioritize identity or loyalty over demonstrated ability have hollowed out institutional expertise, producing cascading failures across interdependent infrastructure, regulatory, and safety systems. The result is not isolated accidents but a structural vulnerability: complex systems require deep, distributed competence to manage rare risks and maintain interoperability.
— If true, this reframes many recent disasters as symptoms of an ideological and personnel policy problem rather than only technical or funding shortfalls, changing where reform efforts must focus (hiring, promotion rules, legal standards).
Damon Linker
2026.05.15
78% relevant
Linker describes the Trump presidency as producing governing behavior that 'defies reason' and a president 'barely sane'—a concrete claim that senior executive irrationality is degrading policymaking and institutional functioning, which maps onto the existing idea that failures of competence at the top can cascade into system‑level collapse.
2026.03.05
100% relevant
The article links specific events—US Navy ship collisions, the PG&E‑started wildfire, the East Palestine train derailment, contaminated eye drops—to a thesis that anti‑merit norms and legal frameworks (post‑1960s diversity prioritization) have systematically sidelined qualified personnel.
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