[finnbow]

When Donald Trump ran for president, he brushed off concerns about his own lack of governing experience by repeatedly promising to hire “only with the best and most serious people,” as he said in 2015, adding, “We want top-of-the-line professionals.” When asked, just weeks before Election Day 2016, what his criteria would be for choosing senior staff, he answered: “Track record. Great competence, love of what they’re doing, how they’re getting along with people, references” and, the candidate added a bit later, “you need people that are truly, truly capable.”

... His inability to recruit, or to even to listen to, top people has hampered everything from Trump’s foreign policy to his own legal defense. His hostility to sound advice, coupled with reliance on his frequently terrible instincts, has produced a kind of synergy (to use a newly infamous word) of incompetence in the White House and beyond: Things go wrong on the world stage, Capitol Hill or with the media. Trump never blames himself, instead blaming everyone else, including the people who work for him. Experts — also known as people who know they’re doing — have had two years to observe this and have understandably become less willing to work for him. Their numbers inside the administration dwindle, lesser lights take over, more mistakes are made; lather, rinse, repeat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...d-rate-talent/