The populist wave is global and its causes are complex. But in the case of the US on top of it all, our populists happen to be clowns and morons.

I think the reasonable mind struggles to deal with the current obvious stupidity even within a populist frame, and hunts for a hidden explanation. It’s a lot scarier to believe that the world’s biggest economy and military and nuclear arsenal are somehow in the hands of not just authoritarians, but crooks and morons.

But it’s true. Britain did it too, it happens.

So why do they do it? To play out some idiotic meme-driven culture war, reduced through these people’s small minds to caricature. They don’t think about second order effects, they lack the sophistication for that.

It’s terrifying.