Take no comfort from either distance or incompetence.
Neither one means a damn thing.
Bush v. Gore was the narrowest election in US history, ultimately decided by one vote. When Bush was sworn in the expert analysts, incumbents, and most especially Democrats assured us, and themselves, that he was incompetent and incapable. They also concluded that he would ultimately be chastened by his narrow mandate, hampered by his own inability, and restrained by the adults in the room like Dick Cheney.
That did not happen.
Instead ... instead we got a budget-busting tax cut for the very wealthy, stealth-privatization of medicare, a series of ultra-right judicial appointments like Alito, and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other unnamed locales. These wars featured torture, black sites, indefinite detention, and domestic spying. Far from being chastened, humble, or careful, Bush and the people around him went whole hog.
Trump, was also billed as someone too incompetent, too distracted, and too restrained to do much damage. While some restraint was there, he still tried to terminate NATO, end our support of our allies, "find" election fraud, leave people to die in disasters unless they "were nicer to him", jail reporters and members of congress, and shoot unarmed protesters. He was held in check then. He won't be now. And even with those limitations he still sought to protect dictators, used government to enrich his family, and staged an insurrection, all of which he relates with pride.
Narrow victories, incompetence, and for that matter weakness are not restraints. They are a license for extreme behavior. Time and time again when standing on a ledge Trump, and Republicans generally, have overstated their mandates, lashed out at all others, and been rewarded.
Like Republicans, Democrats often over-hype their victories. But unlike Republicans they do not exploit them. Instead when faced with Biden's narrow victory they chose to rest easy that "the fever had broken" and made no substantive progress on electoral reform, statehood, or the corruption of money in politics, instead hoping to woo the billionaires themselves. They also did little to boost struggling state parties, give DC and Puerto Rico what they deserve, or end gerrymandering. Even judicial vacancies and crucial board positions were delayed until the end.
The elderly incumbents believed they were safe and the consultants (superdelegates) who actually run things got back to their comfort zone of fundraising. The arduous task of actually prosecuting insurrectionists to prevent another attack was given out as Merrick Garland's consolation prize and the "Rule of Law" became a sad joke. Yes Pelosi empowered the Jan 6 commission but no one acted on their findings and "rendering the verdict of history" means very little for those of us who must survive the present. Likewise they passed the Inflation Reduction Act which started drug price negotiation and actually both raised and enforced taxes on the ultra-rich and multinational corporations. But since the DNC bundlers spiked any work on finance reform all it took was one billionaire dropping 250 million to buy himself a Trump and both gains will be terminated. The republican party may not know what they want but they know whom they serve.
As a consequence of this self-induced incompetence working with the Democratic party feels much like sending a flash mob to fight a gang war. They look good and get noticed, but they cannot land a punch and have no staying power. Until that changes real victories will always be "Just one $5 donation" out of reach.
That is not sustainable.
Incompetence, is also about goals.
When we call someone incompetent. We assume that they want what we do, or that they actually want what they say they do for that matter. Consider Paul Ryan. Ryan made plea after plea for a balanced budget and turned federal accounting into performance art. Each budget release was larger and more staged than the last all attesting to the 'seriousness' of his quest for deficit reduction. And they were taken seriously, so long as you ignored the fact that he assumed 10 or 20% growth rates and a magical ability to repeal a tax, and get money from the same tax. And strangely when they were enacted, none of those things happened. Instead deficits shot up and tax revenues were drained. Paul Ryan it seems, is as incompetent at accounting as Susan Collins' is at detecting contrition, unless that isn't what they actually want.
As of now Elon Musk and Vivek Ramuswamy have made a big splash, tweeted up a storm and convinced anyone and everyone that they know nothing about how budgets work. They are over-inflating costs for minor programs, overestimating staffing levels, and ignoring (so it would seem) the actual spending on social support and infrastructure. If they keep going this way, we are assured, they will never achieve the savings that they promise, at least not over the long term. But all these critiques assume that they actually want those savings to be real not just an excuse for privatization, selling off irreplaceable resources, and firing anyone who seeks to follow the law or get in the way of their profiteering. Just as we assume that the silicon valley execs who are jumping at the chance to "disrupt" the DOD are interested in improving our national security not just trading east-cost profiteers for western ones.
To someone who has no need of public lands, public health, or public schools, the government works best is one which does nothing, outsources the rest, and cuts their taxes accordingly. If they achieve that, like Paul Ryan and his tax cuts, then they are anything but incompetent.