They don’t believe in competence because they’ve never experienced it. They think everything is narrative and spectacle.

It pleases their voters. All the MAGAs I know think scientists are scammers, funded by Bill Gates, brewing up "fake" viruses to reduce the population and insert nanobots to track their movements.

Everyone likes to think that their opponents are evil, highly intelligent, silently scheming types like the legendary Cardinal Richelieu.

In reality, mediocre thinkers with inflated egos and little understanding of long-term consequences are pulling the strings almost everywhere.