If the last few years have been a race between Trump’s malevolence and his incompetence, I have mostly felt like the incompetence has been winning.

While neither outcome is great, it is the incompetence that is the better of the two alternatives.

Lately though, especially with John Bolton and William Barr joining the administration, I feel like the malevolence is starting to take the lead. It helps to explain why my sensation of “Everything is terrible and getting worse” seems to be accelerating over the past few months.