An Exceptionally Valuable Phrase

     We have Dave Blount to thank for this one:

     There are three possible explanations for the Trump assassination attempt, which Big Tech and the media have attempted to delete from our memory: (1) thanks at least in part to DEI, the Secret Service has achieved levels of incompetence heretofore unimagined; (2) the Deep State let it happen through malicious apathy; or (3) the Deep State made it happen.

     The rest of the article is well worth reading, but the highlighted phrase is an absolute gem that invites, even demands reflection.

     There’s a fair amount of malicious apathy in government. It’s plain in the disdain of the police for their duty to pursue offenders and enforce the law. It’s evident in bureaucrats that disregard the immense harm their casually issued regulations can do to private citizens. It’s staggeringly obvious in elected officials who refuse to rein in other government-salaried malefactors-by-omission, as is their sworn duty.

     Malicious apathy in the Secret Service very nearly got Donald Trump killed. It was obvious from the sequence of events that the agents assigned to protect him felt no particular obligation to do so. Some of them weren’t even physically equal to the responsibility. As for the higher-ups who decreed the arrangements and the assignments, their complete unwillingness to answer Congressional inquiries plainly and forthrightly says more than any words of mine.

     Three other valuable, insufficiently frequently used words come to mind:

1. nonfeasance: failure to do what ought to be done according to one’s job’s responsibilities.
2. misfeasance: the performance of a lawful action in an illegal or improper manner.
3. malfeasance: deliberate wrongdoing by a public servant, whether elected, appointed, or employed.

     Malicious apathy can bring about any of those results. In the case of the July 13 horror, it’s hard to select any one of the three as more probable than the others.

     Today, the “three feasances” apply to a shocking percentage of all government action and inaction. Any homeowner who’s been told that he must await a town or county inspector’s verdict on his latest home improvement, then waits for the inspector at the appointed time without result, only to have the miscreant appear several days later while no one’s home, knows of what I speak. It’s frequently the case that malicious apathy is at the bottom of events.

     Many commentators have speculated about the high probability that there will be another attempt on Trump’s life. Watch for the signs of malicious apathy among his protectors. They constitute a signal to those who mean Trump harm: Go right ahead. No skin off our noses. The implications of that stance need no unpacking by me.