[estearum]

Under the hood here you're assuming Trump is (largely) incompetent to lead but surrounded by people who 1) know that and 2) are competent themselves.

A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.

[ethbr1]

I think the people around him believe (1) he's competent to win the popularity contest that is an election & (2) he's vengeful against any perceived disloyalty.

There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).