The Pierre Principle, By J.L. Reiter
Many years ago in high school English class, we read excerpts from Lawrence J. Peter’s 1969 book “The Peter Principle.” His concept stuck with me over the decades because I have seen it play out, over and over, in the private and public sector. The idea is that people rise to their level of incompetence; they keep getting promoted until they suck at their jobs. The best forklift-driver in the warehouse could make a terrible supervisor. A great beat-cop might not hack it as a detective. The best sous-chef might be a failure as chef de cuisine. A competent senator might make a terrible president. You get the idea.
In this article I will coin a corollary to the Peter Principle: the Pierre Principle.
The Biden administration believes in “equity,” or equal outcomes, rather than equal opportunity. “Equity” is the spawn of Critical Theory, and in brief, it posits that anything short of equal outcomes and representation in every field of endeavor (excluding professional sports, music, and selected others) is the result of ‘systemic’ racism, oppression, or injustice. To fix this, in the words of Ibram X. Kendi, “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Under this worldview, standardised tests are eliminated or discounted; grades don’t matter; entrance test scores to elite institutions like universities, medical schools, and law schools should vary by group (with lower-scoring groups being given preferential treatment); and hiring preferences should be extended to favored groups to make up for the fact that their ancestors were discriminated against. Last, but most important: for the political left, no one holding the right “intersectionality” cards can be held accountable for their job performance.
Here’s how this has played out in practice in the past couple of years.
Biden told the country he would choose a black woman for his running mate. That’s a maximum pool of 6.5% of the population (far smaller when controlling for age, education, relevant experience, and all the other factors going into such a vital political choice). Hence, we got Kamala Harris. She is far from the worst Veep in U.S. history, though she’s in the running for least eloquent. Her achievements so far, not least as Biden’s legate for the illegal immigration crisis, are … unremarkable, shall we say. Her inability to articulate coherent thoughts compares unfavorably to anyone in the administration except the president himself.
Still, vice presidents are not held to a high standard, unless they are obvious future contenders for the presidency. Biden running for a second term is in doubt due to his evident physical and cognitive decline, and even the president refused to commit himself in his recent 60 Minutes interview. As his VP, Harris is the logical successor. As she is a woman, and of color (two of them – Indian and African), the Democrats will be extremely reluctant to move her aside for the odious blow-dry Gavin Newsom or any ‘traditional’ (meaning one that could win) candidate. Watching the left squirm between their commitment to “anti-racism” and “equity” on one hand, and their desire to retain the White House in 2024 on the other, is going to be sublime.
Biden made the same commitment in appointing Ketanji Brown-Jackson to the Supreme Court. He could have elided his choice to discriminate against 94% of qualified judges simply by committing to pick the best candidate and then choosing her. No one would have been fooled, but it would have preserved the fiction that the job belongs to the best qualified, politically acceptable candidate the president can find after considering all possibilities. But today’s Democratic party is incapable of doing anything without first signaling virtue. At least Brown-Jackson had the right education, training, and some experience. Of all Biden’s high-profile “equity” hires, hers may be the least dubious.
Then there is Dr. Rachel Levine, “the first female four-star admiral in the history of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps” according to the New York Times. Levine was a Pennsylvania doctor and unremarkable health official – oh yes, and a man - until his late 50s. Levine was plucked from obscurity to stardom because of a late-life self-identification as a woman. Levine’s public remarks are unimpressive. Levine’s comments on “life-saving” “gender-affirming care” fly in the face of facts and research now recognized by the UK, Sweden, and other countries, as well as an increasing number of Americans. As a transgender woman and activist, Levine has no credible objectivity on questions of gender ideology, such as when/whether to castrate, sterilise, or surgically mutilate children who believe they were born in the wrong body.
Levine supports the Biden administration’s interpretation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act to include “sexual orientation and gender identity,” which means the taxpayer is compelled to pay for the drugs and surgeries of people who believe they can transition to the opposite sex, the mastectomies of girls who think they are “non-binary,” and other practices they may object to on a variety of reasonable grounds. Levine believes in the standards of care set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a group founded and led by committed transwomen/activists yet inexplicably trusted as a neutral reference by doctors, politicians, and the media. Their latest Standards of Care for 2022 looks likely to include “eunuch-identifying people,” or boys/men who want to be rid of their genitals. In keeping with the Biden administration’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, voluntary castration may soon be covered by government-funded and private health insurance.
Nothing in Levine’s career suggested appointment to a senior, highly-influential post in the government health bureaucracy. Biden’s choice was an obvious gift to the far-left of his party, another “first” this-or-that on their endless list to overturn the old order.
“Peter” in French is “Pierre,” which brings us nicely to White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP), after whom we name the Pierre Principle. It is this: people hired under the doctrine of “equity” are far less likely to be removed or transferred for incompetence than those hired through equal opportunity and fair competition. We’ve already discussed Harris, but as an elected Vice President, she can’t be fired. Rachel Levine, however, is protected by the Pierre Principle.
So is KJP, though she is manifestly incompetent at her job. A blind comparison of her press conference transcripts compared to any other press secretary in the past 25 years would make this apparent. KJP has some education and experience and could no doubt adequately occupy one of many other White House staff positions in this administration. But she can’t think on her feet, she can’t speak in full and clear sentences unless reading from her binder, and she hasn’t mastered the necessary subject matter to handle routine questions from the press. Those are basic job requirements for a press secretary.
Press secretary in the White House is one of the most difficult in America. It takes the likes of Jen Psaki, who though lacking the charm of a puff adder, sure took care of business. I couldn’t do it, and likely neither could you. However, it’s KJP’s job. Cleaning up after “Joe’s ability to fuck things up,” in the words attributed to Barack Obama, is skilled professional work. KJP simply lacks those skills. A less racist (sorry, "anti-racist") administration would gently tell her so and allow her to more appropriately use her skills in another job.
By keeping her in place despite months of evidence that she can’t hack it, Biden is confirming the Pierre Principle. He’s also manifesting what George Bush (in the words of David Frum) called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” If Biden truly believed that both sexes and all races should be treated equally, he would have canned or transferred KJP within weeks of seeing that she hit the ground crawling and was never going to catch up. Biden (or Ron Klain) doesn’t believe that, so he will stick with her through cringe-worthy performance after performance. As a black, immigrant, gay, woman, she has four stickers on her intersectional bingo card, which is a winning hand in modern American job competition. In the Biden administration, it trumps all else. How can he possibly fire or demote her?
America will only truly have conquered racism when people like Levine and KJP are judged for their performance and not their immutable identity traits. In the meantime, we have to live with not just the Peter Principle, but now the Pierre Principle.