{"id":38899,"date":"2026-03-19T13:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38899"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:11:28","slug":"briefly-we-are-at-the-mercy-of-the-dumbest-of-the-dumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38899","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: We are at the mercy of the dumbest of the dumb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trump-master-of-destruction.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-38900\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trump-master-of-destruction.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"920\" height=\"518\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trump-master-of-destruction.jpg 920w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trump-master-of-destruction-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trump-master-of-destruction-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us \u2014 and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb \u2014 who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools \u2014 lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin \u2014 and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us \u2014 and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38899\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-briefly","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-a7p","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38899"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38903,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38899\/revisions\/38903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}