In 2017, ProPublica described the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, under Ben Carson as “the perfect distillation of the right’s antipathy to governing.” It was an apt characterization given that Carson repeatedly advocated for harmful budget cuts, sought to triple rents and foist onerous work requirements on the country’s poorest tenants, and impeded fair housing enforcement. Everything he did ran counter to HUD’s mission.

It’s taken years for President Joe Biden’s administration to clean up the mess left by Carson, and the 2024 election threatens to undo all of that hard work. But a return to Trumpism threatens more than a mere reversion: The truth is that his wayward administration did not accomplish all the destruction it intended. It’s frightening to contemplate how much more Carson—or someone who shares his reactionary worldview—might pull off if would-be dictator Donald Trump wins a second term.

The first thing to remember about Carson’s time leading HUD is that, at least initially, he didn’t want to take the job. Carson demurred because even he and his inner circle knew that a retired pediatric neurosurgeon with no public policy experience of any kind was wholly unqualified for such a role. “Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water,” Carson said in the wake of Trump’s victory in November 2016. But he took to his task like a bull in a china shop, inflicting damage on the very agency he was tasked with overseeing.

Remarkably, Carson made no effort whatsoever to learn the basics of housing policy. Perhaps the clearest example of his refusal to take the job seriously came during a May 2019 congressional hearing at which Representative Katie Porter asked the HUD chief about the agency’s approach to “REO” (real estate owned) properties.

Porter was referring to foreclosed homes repossessed by banks and other lenders. Any remotely qualified housing official would be familiar with the concept. Carson, however, had no idea what Porter was talking about. “Oreos?” he responded. Even after Porter informed Carson that she wasn’t talking about creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookies and spelled out the acronym, he still couldn’t name what the “O” stands for.

Shortly after the hearing, Porter called Carson’s lack of familiarity with REOs “unsettling,” noting that the term was central to “one of HUD’s most dire current failures.” When a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA, enters foreclosure, HUD can pay a claim to the lending institution, which transfers control of the property to the agency. But this conveyance process came under heightened scrutiny several years ago because, as Porter wrote, too many FHA-backed homes were “being forced into unnecessary foreclosure proceedings,” becoming REOs and then HUD properties, after which many of them sat vacant for months on end.

During the same hearing, Representative Nydia Velázquez asked Carson how many families nationwide were on the waitlist to receive public housing or rental assistance from HUD. Carson guessed a few hundred thousand. Alas, researchers put the true figure at more than 4.4 million. As Porter wrote, “This was not just a factual error; it underscores the secretary’s failure to grasp the magnitude of the problems faced by the department he is supposed to oversee.”

Making matters worse, Carson left key HUD leadership positions unfilled for months while swiftly promoting loyal right-wing operatives with no housing experience. Naturally, this was perfectly consistent with Trump’s faux-populist antagonism toward experts—a convenient cover for engaging in blatant corruption and swindling.

For his part, Carson brought his wife, Candy, and son, Ben Jr., to HUD’s offices so often that The Washington Post asked whether Ben Jr., who owned an infrastructure investment firm, was “wielding interest over decisions that might benefit his company.” Three months after Carson’s son invited an official from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, to an event in Baltimore, CMS awarded a $485,000 contract to Myriddian, a consulting company founded and led by........

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