I had this same thought. What if they’re not actually all that savvy? What if they just had a lot of very un-savvy people telling them they were great, and they believed them and so the kept going. Moving forward with the belief that what they were doing was a good idea because they’d heard so many voices telling them so.

That sounds much more believable than 12th dimensional chess mastery from a guy who spends his days watching Fox news and believing in apocalyptic conspiracy theories. They probably think they’re geniuses. Their supporters probably think they’re geniuses. Technocrats think they’re geniuses. I think everyone is imagining things. I don’t see genius. I see luck. Dumb, right place at the right time luck.

The idea that the US government had some kind of shadowy overseer that shapes its destiny is thoroughly smashed now (you mention a kind of paternal overseer later on). It’s fully democratic and any idiot with enough idiots backing them up can get in and run the place.

Fox Mulder was wrong, the truth wasn’t out there. It was right out in the open all along and more dull than anyone could have possibly imagined. Even Trump couldn’t have predicted it. The system actually works.