The High Cost of Incompetence: Floods, Racism, and a Regime in Collapse
By Mary Trump
I've been thinking a lot lately about professionalism, competence, and the simple concept of professional pride. Why do we choose to go to certain professionals? Why do we seek referrals for doctors, lawyers, or financial planners from people we trust? Because we want the most skilled, competent individuals helping us—people who care about doing their jobs well.
Yet there is one position in this country for which none of this seems to matter: the presidency of the United States. It's the only job in the federal government that doesn’t require a security clearance. Anyone—literally anyone born into the right circumstances and enabled by the wrong people—can assume it. That is horrifying.
And it's that horror I’ve been wrestling with, especially as we continue to suffer under a regime that prizes loyalty over competence, obedience over experience, and power over decency. In the entire Trump regime, there is perhaps one person who exhibits even a shred of professionalism or pride in their work—and the rest of us are left to deal with the consequences of that imbalance.
Which brings me to Donald Trump's visit to Texas.
You’d think it would be straightforward to look for the bodies of children swept away in a catastrophic flood. You’d think such a tragedy would compel urgent, compassionate action. But apparently, that’s a hard thing for Donald Trump to grasp. He appeared genuinely baffled by the magnitude of the disaster—as though natural catastrophes of this scale have never happened before.
This isn’t just ignorance. It’s a tactic. He’s setting the stage to deflect responsibility: “How could I possibly be responsible for something nobody could’ve prepared for?” It’s a line we’ve heard countless times: “This is like nothing anybody has ever seen before.” Except, of course, we have seen it before. Often.
CBS News reported from Texas, speaking with families devastated by the floods. Many were outraged that warnings and alerts never came in time. They believed lives could have been saved. When asked about this criticism, Trump responded with characteristic hostility:
“Well, I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances. This was—I guess Christie said—a one in 500, one in a thousand years, and I just have admiration for the job that everybody did. It was just admiration. The only bad person would ask a question like that. To be honest with you, I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that. I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, really, the job you've all done. It's easy to sit back and say, oh, what could have happened here? Maybe we could have done something differently. This was a thing that never happened before.”
This is how he operates. He reframes every question of accountability as a personal attack—and by doing so, he avoids taking responsibility altogether.
Later, when asked who first contacted him about the unfolding disaster, Trump offered a chaotic timeline of events:
“Probably Christie, but I was notified by a lot. And Chip called also. Chip was here for—he thought it was going to be a little flood. He was going to miss the signing for the big beautiful bill, and he called to apologize. He said he's going to be delayed because of a little flood. And the little flood turned out to be the biggest flood anyone's ever seen. So Chip—but Christie called right away. She was there. I looked the next morning. She was right there on the ball.”
He then pivoted to a monologue about how “no other president would be helping Texas as much as he would.” He mentioned falling egg prices. He brought up his assassination attempt. In short, he made the entire catastrophe about himself. Because once the cameras were off, he no longer had to pretend to care.
Over 120 people have died so far in the devastating floods. And yet Trump’s final public comment on the matter was this:
“We had a country that was very close to being finished, and now we have the hottest country in the world. That's why I am so saddened by this.”
This grotesque display of self-promotion amid tragedy reveals something deeper—and darker—about Donald. There are two fundamental reasons he should never have been placed in a position of such extraordinary power.
First, if someone cares only about money, they cannot be trusted to govern. When every decision boils down to cost or savings, disaster is inevitable. We’ve seen this time and time again.
Second, and more critically, Donald Trump is a nihilist. He does not care if the country burns to the ground, as long as he gets loyalty, power, and personal enrichment. He is desperate to avoid the obvious truth: he’s not immortal. Someday, we will all outlive him. That is a reality he cannot bear.
And that brings us to another arm of his regime: immigration enforcement.
Speaking to the press, Tom Homan attempted to justify the agency’s aggressive tactics:
“Look, people need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol—they don't need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them. They just need to tally the circumstances, right? They just got through the observation, get articulable facts based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions. Like a uniformed border station walks up to them at, for instance, a Home Depot, and they got all these articulable facts, plus the person walks away or runs away. Agents are trained in what they need to detain somebody temporarily and question them. It's not probable cause. It's reasonable suspicion.”
Let me be very clear: these people are not just participating in racist systems. They are racists. This is a conscious ideology. It’s not inherited bias from upbringing—it is active, deliberate, and indefensible.
Anyone who defends it, who overlooks it, who excuses it, is just as guilty.
