@Researchbuzz Also, someone (HCR?) noted that fascist regimes historically tend to be incompetent, because they value loyalty over competence (and competent people don't want to have anything to do with them).
@woozle @Researchbuzz Another fascinating-to-me observation came via #EzraKlein's participation in a #MunkDebate (https://munkdebates.com/debates/munk-debate-on-trumps-america/). Listening to it I was struck how utterly uncapable the pro-Administration side were.
Klein commented on this in a later AMA, saying to effect that Conway and Rhodes are good debators ... but where handicapped by the inability to say anything which might be construed as counter to the Administration because of ideological purity requirements and the consequences of even possibly contradicting His Orangeness.
That likely pervades all corners of the Admin and its various adjuncts. So long as the performance space is one of rhetoric and spectacle, they can get away with it. It's where the interactions are with reality (independent actors, the natural world, economics, etc.), it falls down mightily.