Arendt’s Law

Incompetence as a career choice

Paul Krugman borrows from Hannah Arendt, but not the banality of evil this time (although the Trump administration is a paradigm case). He’s riffing on this Arendt quote:

Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

Krugman thus defines Arendt’s Law: Totalitarian and wannabe totalitarian regimes only hire incompetent hacks.

Case in point, Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation. Moore stood in the Oval Office with Donald Trump on Thursday and presented a chart on the economy that was, well, pretty hacky.

Jared Bernstein looked at Moore’s numbers and declared them dubious at best and at worst crap.

Krugman wrote on Monday:

I don’t mean that Moore is extremely right-wing, although of course he is. I don’t even mean that he’s a dishonest hack, although again of course he is. I mean that even among dishonest right-wing hacks Moore stands out for his pathological inability to get numbers and facts right.

And the fact that Moore was the right’s go-to guy on economics even before Trump tells you a lot about the people who now rule America.

Arendt’s Law in action. “The Worst People Have the Most Power,” declares The Bulwark.

Next comes Trump’s nominee (another Heritage hack) to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics after Trump fired a competent one.

Let's focus on qualifications. Antoni finished grad school 5 years ago at Northern Illinois with no obvious distinction, his dissertation is meh, and involved no research on labor markets or data collection, he has never published a paper, and his life's work has earned 1… https://t.co/fdsppCCHfq

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) August 12, 2025

Krugman offers more details on Antoni’s resume (or lack thereof) and concludes:

I’d like to think that Antoni’s utter professional inadequacy for the role of BLS Commissioner will keep Congress from confirming him. But as I mentioned Monday, Stephen Moore already had a well-established reputation for surreal incompetence by the time Trump tried to install him on the Federal Reserve Board. Yet he would probably have been confirmed anyway if unsavory facts about his personal life hadn’t surfaced.

So there’s a good chance that Antoni will, in fact, take over the BLS. And the result will be the total destruction of one of the world’s greatest statistical agencies — an agency that has, among other things, been a crucial aid to business decision-making. It won’t even matter whether the Trumpists cook the books (although they will.) For from the moment Antoni takes full control, nobody will believe any numbers coming out of BLS.

Down the street at the House of Representatives, Rep. Troy Downing (R) of Montana advocates for a federal takeover of D.C. Fox News backs him up by posting a chart comparing dated homicide rates in D.C. with capitols in other countries not as armed to the teeth as the U.S. Downing thinks Trump’s D.C. moves should presage federal intervention in other “liberally run” cities because of their alleged crime problems. In fact, 2024 homicide rates in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are much lower than in D.C. Recent homicide rates in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago: 4.7, 7.1, and 21.7 (St. Louis is 54.4). But bad data and analysis is what incompetent hacks report. Our country hired one as its CEO.

Rep. Troy Downing on Trump's takeover of DC: "Hopefully this is a harbinger in what we see in these liberally run cities across the country … we need to send in the troops, which is exactly what we're doing." pic.twitter.com/vDpiflrTyr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2025

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