I had hoped to spend the past two weeks writing about a topic other than politics. But suddenly, it was 2017 all over again.

My phone lit up with alerts that sounded like headlines from the Onion.

For director of national intelligence, Donald Trump had tapped Tulsi Gabbard, whose parroting of Russian propaganda was so reckless that Mitt Romney called it “treasonous.”

To run the Pentagon, Trump had tapped Pete Hegseth, a Fox News weekend host with no major managerial experience who just five days earlier said “we should not have women in combat roles” because men are “more capable.”

For secretary of health and human services, he selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has claimed antidepressants cause school shootings, chemicals cause people to become transgender and vaccines cause autism.

And to be attorney general he chose Matt Gaetz, just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to release its findings on what The Post has called “his dealings with a then-17-year-old girl.” Gaetz has withdrawn, but the fact remains that Trump named his personal defense lawyer to be the No. 2 Justice Department official.

Smooth transition? Trump doesn’t do smooth. He is going to Make America Gape Again — and, after just two weeks as president-elect, he has already begun producing one car wreck after another.

His ambassador to Israel is going to be former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is on record saying: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There is no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. They’re neighborhoods. They’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

His choice to be secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (Florida), is relatively conventional — but this set off a campaign to get Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, appointed to Rubio’s Senate seat. Beating this drum has been, among others, Elon Musk and, bizarrely, Musk’s mother.

Musk, after his super-PAC spent some $200 million getting Trump elected, is now requiring payback: He has been Trump’s sidekick: sitting in on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, joining Trump on a visit to the House Republican caucus, hanging around at Mar-a-Lago and entertaining Trump’s granddaughter. Trump appointed Musk to run the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which is a nonexistent government department apparently created to form the acronym “DOGE,” which is also the name of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency.

Musk has already announced a goal that would, if implemented, cut all government functions except defense, Social Security and Medicare by about 75 percent. His DOGE co-director, Vivek Ramaswamy, has floated a plan that would eliminate veterans’ health care.

Those who were wondering what the second Trump term would look like didn’t have long to wait. We’re already back to the chaos, caprice and overreach. Any hope that he might moderate — in truth, this was never more than a fantasy — has already been dashed.

But there is some good news in the way Trump has produced mayhem and confusion right from the start. One of the greatest concerns about Trump’s second term was that he would be more competent this time around. But we can already see that there is no learning curve for Trump. His administration is going to be just as incompetent as it was last time — maybe more so.

His presidency will resemble Fox News: constant vitriol, cultural warfare and perpetual sense of crisis.

Trump is already signaling wild power grabs. He is preparing to fire all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing them with more malleable generals. Kennedy has proposed that 600 people at the National Institutes of Health be fired on the first day of the Trump administration.

Trump himself is already making noises about serving beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms, telling House Republicans: “I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say he’s so good we got to figure something else out.” Trump also demanded that senators shelve their constitutional advise-and-consent powers and instead “agree to Recess Appointments” for his nominees.

Trump allies in Congress are pledging full compliance. “His mission, and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word,” Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas) told reporters. “If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet and scratch our heads.”

And the man sowing all this chaos? He is as erratic as he has ever been. On social media last week, Trump has attacked former aide Anthony Scaramucci (“a major loser”) and “Crazy Liz Chaney” (sic), while continuing his personal enrichment schemes (“Get a copy of my newest book, SAVE AMERICA today!”), reposting a demonic image of Harris along with a claim that he won a “historic landslide,” and expressing whatever else pops into his disordered mind (“The NFL should get rid of the ridiculous new Kickoff Rule!”).

It’s all deeply unsettling, yet at the same time it offers a kernel of hope: The man is just too unstable to be competent.

Dana Milbank is a columnist for the Washington Post.