Most average people assume competence and good faith from people in charge. Most people don't question, aren't skeptical, and go through life in a fog. That's not most people here, but it's like Gell-Mann amnesia applied to politics. 99% of the time, when politicians put forth a plan to do things in a domain you're competent in, they look like morons. It's exceedingly rare for them to do things well.

People trust elected officials, they trust institutions, they trust "experts", the media, the academics. A vast majority of people don't realize the scale of ineptitude amongst the people who wield power. Most of the "elites" are not overqualified geniuses, but instead average bumbling idiots who stumbled their way into office, or sociopaths, or physically attractive. Most political systems do not reward competence and diligence.

You could swap out all 535 congress people in the US for randomly selected citizens and I guarantee you that outcomes would improve. Things are going so badly because they're intended to go badly, because unethical people wield power for self enrichment and cronyism. The purpose of a system is what it does.