Conservatism: ONLY THE INCOMPETENT NEED APPLY (Paul Krugman)

[CousinIT]

https://forbesmagzine.com/opinion-only-the-incompetent-need-apply/

. . .

I’ve written in the past that “the modern G.O.P. doesn’t want to hear from serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers charlatans and cranks, who are its kind of people.” And it turns out that the same is true for epidemiologists.

The right’s hatred of Dr. Anthony Fauci is a familiar story. However, much of “Nightmare Scenario” follows the saga of Dr. Deborah Birx, an experienced public health professional who headed Trump’s coronavirus task force and resorted to embarrassing flattery and sycophancy in an effort to get Trump to act responsibly.

For the most part, she failed; it seems clear that Trump’s inner circle never trusted her precisely because she was knowledgeable and had a reputation to defend. She was shut out in favor of politically reliable quacks.

So how did we end up here? How did one of our two major political parties come not only to reject democracy, but to exalt ignorance and despise competence of any kind?

I don’t know, but if you aren’t terrified, you aren’t paying attention.

Original source: NYTIMES - PAYWALL - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/opinion/republicans-incompetence.html

[gulliver]

1. Maybe we really should push for a pandemic commission like Kevin McCarthy suggested

Let's get Birx under oath and find out what she really thinks about Trump. Fauci might have a lot to say. Navarro, Moore, Kushner...

[Hortensis]

2. "...if you aren't terrified, you aren't paying attention." Of them. Yup. nt

[underpants]

3. Oh God! Stephen Moore? No wonder. CousinIT I see that you posted the bottom of the article

which is great. This is really two different articles intertwined with Krugman’s dead on assessment of the right’s fear of independent professionals.

Here’s some of the Stephen Moore part for those who don’t have a subscription

One thing I didn’t know about, however, was the special destructive role played by Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser.

It was Moore, the authors report, who walked into Donald Trump’s office just days after America went into lockdown to urge reopening by Easter. While an immediate lifting of pandemic restrictions didn’t happen, Trump’s growing insistence that the pandemic was no big deal helped inspire armed protests against social distancing and mask-wearing, and it contributed to a public health disaster that has so far claimed 600,000 American lives — with 95 percent of the deaths happening after Easter 2020.

It goes without saying that Moore isn’t an expert on epidemiology. But he isn’t an expert on economics, either. In fact, he has a reputation among many economists for being wrong about almost everything. I don’t mean that he has made some bad forecasts — that happens to everyone (although some of us admit it when we were wrong and try to learn from our mistakes). I mean it is unusual for him ever to get the facts right, or even manage to land in the remote vicinity of the truth.

For example, in 2014 Moore published an attack on yours truly over the effects of state tax cuts in which every key number was incorrect. And not slightly off: He made claims about job growth for certain years but offered numbers from different years, and got even those numbers wildly wrong.

Another example: In 2015 he wrote an attack on Obamacare in which every main factual assertion was wrong.

[CousinIT]

4. Thanks underpants! I was looking for a non-paywall version.

Didn't realize the one I found was two articles combined. Thanks for the excerpt from the ACTUAL Krugman article.

Paywalls annoy the crap out of me. A person could go destitute paying for subscriptions to all and sundry just to get some news. GRRR.