Rebellion by the incompetent will not lead anywhere

I disagree. Witness western democracies which have seen incompetent majorities lead populist rebellions to control powerful seats in government, including the highest. Incompetence in large numbers definitely leads to big changes.

There may be a very very small amount of competence orchestrating and puppetmastering, but the rebellion works best when the majority of its supporters act on impulse and stop reasoning and thinking critically about the consequences of their vote (or decision not to).

But the incompetent far outnumbers the competent and they've been seeing AI and datacentres as symbols of the forces that are harming their ability to feed their families. An easy way out of this is universal basic income and universal mortgage/rent freezes now.