Don't underestimate 'stupid'

Three traits define governance and policies of Trump regime - Delusions, stupidity and vindictiveness. And stupidity is the dominant trait.

World's richest man, Elon Musk is wearing sunglasses at indoor CPAC rally and waving a chainsaw - a symbolic gesture to cut down and dismantling government - in name of efficiency. 

Noah Smith wrote a long article about possible motives of Trump regime for making radical shifts to long standing policies, especially international policy. Smith made certain valid points and reasonable assumptions. At one point, he assume in his hypothesis that Trump regime (despite all the chaos) may have a definitive purpose to international policy BUT they are stupid and bungling everything. In the hypothesis, Smith says that Trump regime wants to wean of Russia from China, and focus to tackle China as arch-nemesis of US. But Trump regime is stupid and doesn't know how to do things.

I have written my own theory of Trump regime and tried to elaborate stuff from a broader perspective. Among other things, my idea is that US is undergoing restructuring in its polycentric oligarchical power system and tech industrial complex has now become the dominant power faction. The oligarchs of tech industrial complex do not share the mentality of oligarchs of Defense industrial complex and 'deep state'. 'Deep state' is something like a fusion of defense industrial complex, old military and diplomatic aristocrats (spooks, generals and bureaucrats), and some other players. They have mentality of cold war and American hegemonic ambitions. Thus they always had a hardline stance on foreign policy. Tech bros don't have this thinking of long standing inertia, of looking at things from rigidly mono perspective of American exceptionalism and hegemony which has been a foundation of post world war 2 period. 

But here i emphasize on the factor of 'stupid' in the whole equation. I have stated in my thesis that Tech bros, the billionaire oligarchs may actually be delusional fools and fanatics who are detached from objective reality of the world. Do not presume that richest people in the world, the tech oligarchs or any other type of oligarchs, are really smart people on basis of their accumulated wealth. On many things, they can be as stupid as ordinary man of the street. In fact, they can be more stupid and their stupidity can be much more dangerous because of great influence they have due to their wealth, and also due to super-inflated self confidence in their beliefs. This is a toxic mixture.

Also, some experts are attributing ideology and motivations to Trump regime. Like historian Branko Milanovic attributes Trump with nationalism and Neo-Mercantilism. My own thesis on Trump is here. In case of Trump, the ideology is not relevant and i don't really see any ideology at all. Trump can take any position today to his convenience. Tomorrow he can take a completely different position if it suits him. Psychopathology of Trump is the crucial area to analyze his policies and behavior. Here Dr Bandy Lee's analysis is a great reference (1, 2). 

Another hallmark of Trump regime is criminality, complete disregard to rule of law. This is not surprising at all given they have come to power by trampling upon the rule of law, several indictments and impeachments. Trump regime has no restraints and no sense of legality. They would do what they please. The people in regime are of highly disturbed and chaotic personality which they project on the world. 

So all in all, we have people in power in America who are highly stupid with unrestrained fanatical will to do things what they want.

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