Governing By Chaos and Confusion

As I've watched and listened to all of the news about our country's zero tolerance policy and the separation of children from their parents, I've been struck by many things. The policy certainly has forced many people to think about children and families. Its made us think about the underbelly of racism in the US and how deep it may run. Its made me think about prisons, detention camps and 'tender age facilities', the latter being a name the government has come up with for baby and toddler detention facilities. I've also thought about history and the future and what all of this says about our country and its current leadership as well as our political state of affairs.

All of the above is the initial and perhaps logical response to what is going on. But recently I realized that there is something much more significant that needs discussion as well as some answers from political leaders. Watching what can only be described as management incompetence, I realized how big and serious our problem really is and we should all pay attention.

The crisis at the southern boarder has shown us that the emperor, or more specifically, the president, really doesn't have any clothes. We elected a person with no experience in running a government. We put him in charge. We watched as his transition team recommended and hired outsiders without checking competency. We watched as more and more staff became frustrated with a lack of management skills, both on their own part and that of their leader and other team members. All of this has happened over a period of time and it has worn many people out. It is debilitating.

But it also brings us to the reality of today. The government of the US is in total disarray and is sending a message of incompetency across the globe. What we are seeing is the inability to verbalize and implement policies and plans. We are all witnessing poor communication, confusion, and contradiction from the top and between and among agencies of the federal government. Imagine if you will that this government had a serious crises threatening homeland security. How confident can anyone be that agencies involved would be able to handle such a crises after watching things unfold in Washington and Texas over the past week. Homeland Security and Health and Human Services can't even coordinate a numbering system between their agencies for tracking parents and children. The Department of Justice came up with a policy with no implementation planning. Resources at port of entries were not planned for. Housing and holding facilities were not thought about. I could go on and on.

Yes running governments and bureaucracies is hard. Its difficult. That's why people try hard, in both the government and private sectors, to hire extremely competent people to perform operational tasks. Shooting from the hip may sound like fun but we are seeing the results up close right now. Yes our government is managing through chaos and confusion. All of this should send shutters through all of us relative to how badly most sectors of government are probably running under our current President. I fear we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. This is a manufactured crises. Imagine an unplanned and real crises. This isn't the coordination we should expect and we certainly don't deserve it.