If the question is asking about Trump, Orban, Putin, or your other favourite dimwitted world leader, it’s because these people usually don’t actually want to fuck everything up. They want to make their country (or their notion of the groups of people they regard as their country) prosperous and glorious. But they’re just unable to take in the fact that their policies and leadership are actually leading them further away from this goal. It really is just a deadly combination of incompetence and inability to self-criticise.
In the case of Trump, who is a pre-eminent example of this, he really does think that tariffs will make the US richer. He is a moron, of course, but that’s what he thinks. He doesn’t “know” that tariffs will damage the American economy and America’s international reputation, because he doesn’t grasp the concept at all. Anyone who has observed his thinking for any period of time after he got into politics can observe that it is very feelings-driven and not very fact-based. And a lot of his government’s policy is also ego-driven, which explains why it is seemingly always falling for Russian propaganda and why he wants to be on good terms with Putin. Though Putin is no universal genius either, one thing that he is very good at, as a result of his KGB training, is manipulating others to get what he wants. It certainly does help Putin a lot that Trump is pretty easily manipulated. And as for Trump’s comments about wanting to take over Canada, take over Greenland, take over Panama, &c. &c., most non-US observers describe that as clear evidence of his mental decline. J. J. McCullough, a Canadian political commentator, described it as being “obvious” that Trump is “losing it”.
And ironically, since Joe Biden’s mental competence was called into question in the last US election, while Biden’s senility manifests mostly in the form of stutters, speech blunders, and random mostly-inert goofiness, Trump’s senility seems to manifest in a desire to take over the world and become God-emperor of Mankind, which is objectively more dangerous for a world leader.
If the question is asking about Trump, Orban, Putin, or your other favourite dimwitted world leader, it’s because these people usually don’t actually want to fuck everything up. They want to make their country (or their notion of the groups of people they regard as their country) prosperous and glorious. But they’re just unable to take in the fact that their policies and leadership are actually leading them further away from this goal. It really is just a deadly combination of incompetence and inability to self-criticise.
In the case of Trump, who is a pre-eminent example of this, he really does think that tariffs will make the US richer. He is a moron, of course, but that’s what he thinks. He doesn’t “know” that tariffs will damage the American economy and America’s international reputation, because he doesn’t grasp the concept at all. Anyone who has observed his thinking for any period of time after he got into politics can observe that it is very feelings-driven and not very fact-based. And a lot of his government’s policy is also ego-driven, which explains why it is seemingly always falling for Russian propaganda and why he wants to be on good terms with Putin. Though Putin is no universal genius either, one thing that he is very good at, as a result of his KGB training, is manipulating others to get what he wants. It certainly does help Putin a lot that Trump is pretty easily manipulated. And as for Trump’s comments about wanting to take over Canada, take over Greenland, take over Panama, &c. &c., most non-US observers describe that as clear evidence of his mental decline. J. J. McCullough, a Canadian political commentator, described it as being “obvious” that Trump is “losing it”.
And ironically, since Joe Biden’s mental competence was called into question in the last US election, while Biden’s senility manifests mostly in the form of stutters, speech blunders, and random mostly-inert goofiness, Trump’s senility seems to manifest in a desire to take over the world and become God-emperor of Mankind, which is objectively more dangerous for a world leader.