Krugman talks about the incompetence of Stephen Moore, Economists to Republicans. He quotes Hannah Arendt about how authoritarians prefer stupid loyalists to competent officials.
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
This gibes with the book I'm reading on the Return of Great Powers, with a focus on disastrous decisions like Putin's invasion of Ukraine. But if you're a dictator, you don't have people telling you the truth, so you make error after error. Trump is doing and will do the same.
The reason liberal democracy is the preferred form of government is precisely because it can self-correct, and it is for precisely this reason that I'm really worried about GOP efforts to inoculate themselves from accountability with gerrymandering.
UPDATE: Paul Campos notes Trump's manifest cognitive decline.
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