In 2019, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s current deputy chief appeared in a promotional video for a television drama about firefighters.

In the video, deputy chief Kristine Larson, who is both black and lesbian, extolled the virtues of inclusivity and diversity while bemoaning that a traditionally male space is not immediately accommodating to women.

“The reality is: you’re not one of the boys,” said Larson, who, between total pay and benefits, pulled in a cool $447,979 in 2023. “You never will be one of the boys, but you can be a good firefighter.”

She added, “You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it’s a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you. It gives that person a little bit more ease, knowing that somebody might understand their situation better.”

Larson, who answers to LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley, a white lesbian who made $654,951 in total pay and benefits in 2023, then said of those who doubt a woman’s ability to serve as an effective firefighter, “‘Is she strong enough to do this?’ Or, ‘You couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire.’”

“Which my response is,” she added in the 2019 promotional video, “he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”

A series of deadly wildfires would later consume large areas of Los Angeles, destroying entire communities and revealing a city and state that are as corrupt and mismanaged as they are incompetent. 

Set against the backdrop of California’s destruction, Larson’s comments highlight a problem that transcends even the state’s gross misgovernance. Her remarks serve as a reminder that the United States is heading toward a crisis from which it may not easily, or ever, recover. 

It’s the competence crisis, and it’s here whether you like it or not.

The deadly rise of incompetence

It’s the same problem that befalls all empires that grow fat, lazy, and luxurious. With great wealth and power comes the creeping acceptance of decadence, apathy, and corruption, vices that, if allowed to flourish, will consume until there’s nothing left; it’s rotted all through. A country may tolerate a few bad actors, but a culture that actively recruits and rewards the badly unqualified? That is unsustainable. 

America is no different. It can endure tremendous pain and strain, but not incompetence. It’s far too complex and interconnected a country to allow for the complete failure of one of its parts, let alone most of them. When the machine is allowed to break down, either due to apathy, ignorance, malicious intent, or generational knowledge loss, that is when things get ugly. That’s when people start to die. 

January alone has been a masterclass in incompetent and contemptible leadership. 

Earlier than the devastation in Los Angeles, on the other side of the country, a motorist barreled down New Orleans’s famous Bourbon Street, intentionally striking and killing 13 New Year’s revelers. As it turns out, the city had purchased anti-vehicle barriers to protect against such events. Yet not only did it fail to deploy the barriers for New Year’s, even despite all the usual warnings and cautions regarding holiday-timed terrorist events, but its 65-year-old police chief also revealed she was unaware they even had such security measures.

“I didn’t know about them,” she said, “but we have them, and so we have been able now to put them out.”

She’s 14 bodies too late. 

At subsequent meetings, she would later refuse to answer questions regarding how the attack could have been prevented.

Following the car assault, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell called it a “terrorist attack.” But then an FBI spokeswoman declared unequivocally that “this is not a terrorist event.” The FBI then put out a statement clarifying it was indeed investigating the Bourbon Street attack as an act of terrorism. 

The FBI also said there were likely accomplices. Then it said there were no accomplices. 

The alleged killer in the attack, by the way, posted several videos to the internet declaring his allegiance to the Islamic State. The FBI says he was never on its radar and it had no idea about the videos.

Nobody has resigned or been fired. We’re not ruled by leaders capable of such gestures.  

Speaking of poor leadership, California officials confirmed on Jan. 10 that the wildfires had displaced more than 180,000 people. Officials also confirmed that at least 24 people had been killed in the conflagrations, which are on track to become the costliest in U.S. history, with the total cost of damages estimated to be roughly $50 billion.

The news comes as city and state officials, who refuse to admit error and insist “climate change” is responsible for the destruction, face sharp criticism for cutting the fire department’s budget. They are also facing criticism for blocking legislation that would have allowed the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention to retain seasonal firefighters to assist with staffing shortages, for not building any new major reservoirs since 1979 even despite a population explosion and voters begging for them to do so, for sending out several city-wide false alarm evacuation notices, and for failing to prepare adequately for the forecasted high winds that were predicted to make the spread of wildfires more likely, including keeping water reserves stocked well enough to avoid fire hydrants running dry. 

Speaking of the fire hydrants running dry, when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) descended on the affected areas to lead the response, he was asked plainly, “What is the situation with the water? Palisades ran out last night.” 

“Local folks are going to figure that out,” Newsom responded, throwing his hands up.

On Jan. 9, a fire captain revealed that his teams were receiving “little to none” of the expected water from city fire hydrants.

Thank you for your leadership, Governor.

Then, of course, there’s Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has come under intense scrutiny for leaving the city a few days before the fires broke out for a taxpayer-funded junket to Ghana. She left despite being warned about the likelihood of wildfires in her city. When Bass, who demanded an additional $49 million be cut from the LAFD’s budget one week before the fire, finally returned, she was approached by a reporter who, predictably, asked her about her absence. The mayor didn’t even have a boilerplate response prepared, not even after a 10-hour-plus international fight. She just stared wordlessly into the distance, waiting for the opportunity to flee from the reporter, which she took the moment it presented itself.

There is nothing positive about the situation in California. It’s unsalvageable.

Change must come to the Sunshine State. It can’t survive this sort of thing much longer — and don’t expect help from Washington.

The president’s response to the New Orleans attack and a separate car bombing in Las Vegas was anything but urgent, to put it mildly. Meanwhile, the co-chair of the progressive caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives blamed the California fires on McDonald’s.

Even if they weren’t obviously incompetent and disconnected, why would anyone put faith in a government that pledges to rescue Californians while apparently forgetting all about North Carolinians displaced by hurricane flooding?

The need for dramatic change

The sad, inescapable conclusion is that California is doomed unless it embraces a dramatic cultural shift. It has displaced fierce competence and merit-based success with the ignorant, the incompetent, and the unqualified, accepting all the latter with a tired sort of resignation. The same can be said for much of the country.

Reviewing Larson’s years-old remarks back-to-back with the devastation and deadly misgovernance in California, a state that not too long ago was the envy of the republic, is one of the sharpest and clearest reminders that America is indeed in the throes of a crisis that threatens its survival. 

It takes a particular type of destructive narcissism to believe that burn victims quietly desire salvation from people who look like them. This is not something that a well-adjusted person in a healthy society thinks. It’s the type of belief that exists only in a society that has embraced a warped and ultimately destructive notion of “good” and “virtue.” Moreover, a healthy society would not award a position of power and authority in the public service sector to a person who believes public safety should be identity-based. It certainly wouldn’t grant a position of power and authority within a fire department to someone who holds contempt for fire victims.

The United States can withstand a great deal. It has survived the demands and strains of two world wars, a failed “war on terror,” a war for independence, the Great Depression, and even a civil war. 

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However, it cannot withstand a culture of ignorance and incompetence, nor a culture of leadership in which constituents are treated with contempt and those in charge increasingly cater only to boutique anxieties.

No great country can.

Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.