The Mad Dual-Hatter

David Graham: “Unemployment rates are near historical lows, and finding good help is hard. Perhaps that’s why Donald Trump keeps turning to the same group of officials to fill multiple positions.”

“The government has a term for this: dual-hatting. Or rather, a term exists for what Blanche, Vought, and Patel are doing. Rubio is breaking new ground in both semantics and government. Some dual-hat roles exist by design. The head of the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are the same person, to increase agility when dealing with cybersecurity threats, though some people believe that the roles should be split.”

“In these other cases, however, Trump either can’t or won’t find someone to actually fill the role. Neither possibility is encouraging. If he can’t, at this early stage in his administration, find enough qualified people willing to do these jobs, then the rest of his term will be a continuous struggle to execute. If he simply won’t, because he would rather stick with a small circle of figures he trusts, the administration will also be beset by dysfunction, as leaders pulled in too many directions drop balls, as well as by dangerous incompetence and conflicts of interest.”