Foxes, Hedgehogs and Roadkill

The WaPo takes on the same issue I did the other day: the dearth of competence in the federal government. For good and bad reasons they take a certain "pox on both your houses" approach.  It is difficult to plan for everything, and there are certainly examples of Democratic administrations being caught flat-footed.  The article notes that the Clinton Administration really wasn't awake to the threat of Sunni Islamic terrorism (although I think that changed a lot after the USS Cole).  In order to get the article sourced properly, they talked to a bunch of Bush 43 guys and needed that balance, I guess.

The problem is that this leaves unaddressed the metaphorical elephant in the room, namely the GOP's steady descent into a party that actively loathes experts and government.  To the degree that government should exist, it should be to benefit the markets. This has taken its logical apotheosis in Trumpistan, as the Trump administration sees the proper role of government as benefitting Trump personally.

There is the famous metaphor of Foxes and Hedgehogs from Isaiah Berlin.  Foxes know a little bit about a lot of things and this leaves them uncertain of what they really know.  Hedgehogs know one big thing and use that lens for everything.  Ideologues are - by definition - hedgehogs. 

To use an example from the Left, Sanders' supporters are all over Twitter yammering on about universal, single payer health care in the age of Covid-19. This has been their focus since 2016.  Unfortunately, universal health care exists in China, Italy and Spain and hasn't made a damned bit of difference in stopping the pandemic.  What HAS worked are things that South Korea, Taiwan and Germany have done to track, isolate and mitigate.  That's a public health competency, not about access or payment of coverage.  But if you are a Sanders Hedgehog, you can't really see beyond "if you don't support Bernie, you want people to die of Covid-19."

The problem is that the GOP has become a party of Hedgehogs devoted to the idea that government exists to help markets and nothing more.  It's not even libertarian.  It's closer to a mercantilist/kleptocratic philosophy.  I suppose we have to find room for the other species of hedgehog in the GOP: the evangelicals.  The GOP's blinkered ideology has led to famous Trumpisms like "Who knew health care was so complicated?" Or it can be seen in Brian Kemp being surprised that asymptomatic people can shed the virus. 

I recently ordered Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk about how Trump has destroyed the bureaucratic competency of the federal government.  It was obviously written before all this happened, but it's been a long-running goal of the GOP to - in Grover Norquist's words - shrink government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub. Not only has Trump's active assault on what he falsely calls the "Deep State" led to mass resignations, he has staffed his maladministration with varying levels of incompetent "acting" officials.  There is no one charge, so suddenly Jared Kushner is in charge.

In fact, the GOP has become so enamored of their one idea and the absolute falseness of anything that does not comply with it, that they have become something other than a hedgehog.  If anything, they have become roadkill. They are the possum who freezes in the headlights of an oncoming car.