Possibly this, but, without getting too far into the weeds, I think the incompetence is the idea that law enforcement or the country at large is a problem or puzzle that has a definitive solution.
Dumb and more than likely irrelevant, but I view America as a four dimensional Jenga tower where some pieces are glued together, some shudder if you start to pull a piece two feet away from it, and the entire tower wobbles if players speculate too loudly about the current state of the game. The argument of whether or not various aspects of our present condition were intentionally baked in or a result of incompetence assumes that there exists a holistic picture of how the country "works" that various architects of law enforcement, economic policy, etc. were and are working off of. I've always thought people are funny because we're just smart enough to kick the can around until we have some terribly complicated problems, but not remotely smart or well tempered enough to permanently solve them.
