Who could have imagined it? That Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, of all peacocks, would commit an egregious error in judgment, display a complete lack of professionalism and be sloppy enough to divulge war plans in a group chat that included a prominent journalist?

Sure, there were reports of Hegseth’s gross mismanagement of the veterans’ groups that he once led. There were accusations of public drunkenness and a violent temper. But how many of the men who previously held his job could rock a bright blue suit the way he did? Or pose shirtless to such fetching effect?

What he lacked in rectitude he made up for in pulchritude. Give that man a big say in military operations and a Signal account. What could possibly go wrong?

And Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s immunity inanity — I mean, no one saw that coming. When the Senate held hearings on his fitness to be the secretary of health and human services, he assured lawmakers that his vaccine denialism was overstated. That his views were measured. That his words and deeds would be cautious.

Then came a measles outbreak in western Texas, and he sagaciously decreed: Hey, this isn’t a failure of inoculation. It’s a failure of diet. If those sickly children were just eating better — and maybe taking some cod liver oil — they’d be superheroes resistant to these vestigial viruses. And bird flu? Here’s a thought: Let it run rampant through affected flocks. Yes, it might mutate and spread catastrophically among humans, but perhaps we’d glean important insights along the way. Think of the approach as a new, microbiological season of “Survivor,” only with pathogens in the mix and countless lives on the line.

As President Trump’s crackerjack cabinet settles in and unsettles any sentient American, we are not beholding a series of discrete embarrassments and outrages. We are witnessing iterations of the same horror story. Trump chose people for senior administration positions not because they had demonstrated the skills and disposition that those jobs required, not because they had paid their dues, not because they had proved their mettle. He wanted provocateurs. He wanted sycophants. He wanted to test his supporters’ compliance and send his detractors into a tizzy.

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