Some Democrats fear they’re playing into Trump’s hands by fighting his mass deportations rather than focusing on his failures on bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living.

But it’s not either-or. The theme that unites Trump’s inept handling of deportations, his trampling on human and civil rights, his rejection of the rule of law, his dictatorial centralization of power, and his utterly inept handling of the economy is the ineptness itself.

In his first term, not only did his advisers and Cabinet officials put guardrails around his crazier tendencies, but they also provided his first administration a degree of stability and focus. Now, it’s mayhem.

A sampling from recent weeks:

1. The Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth disaster. Hegseth didn’t just mistakenly share the military’s plans with the editor of The Atlantic; we now know he shared them with a second Signal group, including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.

He’s a walking disaster. John Ullyot, who resigned last week as Pentagon spokesman, penned an op-ed in Politico that began: “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon.” Last Friday, Hegseth fired three of his senior staffers. His chief of staff is leaving. As Ullyot wrote, it’s “very likely” that “even bigger bombshell stories” will come soon. The Defense Department “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”