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Philosophy expert answers the question: Why does it seem like dumb people are always in power?

"Why can't we get a better class of leaders?"

via Canva/Photos

A candidate running for office.

As the old song by The Who goes, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” It’s a sentiment many of us feel every time a new mayor, governor, or president takes office, and we can’t help but feel that we deserve someone better. In a country with so many brilliant scientists, business people, educators, and public policy experts, why do the least impressive of us seem to rise to power?

Philosophy expert Julian de Medeiros, a popular TikToker and Substack blogger, recently wrestled with this question, and it must have been on a lot of people’s minds because the video received over 4.2 million views. “Why does it seem like so many people in power are so dumb? It's like, why can't we get a better class of leaders?” he asked.

@julianphilosophy

Why do stupid people have so much power? #chomsky #philosophy #psychology #power

Why is it that dumb people are always in power?

Ultimately, de Medeiros believes that power and intellect are often at odds. “I've thought about it a bit more, and I think this is my thesis: that power is inherently anti-intellectual. Because what does intellect do? Intellect questions power. It speaks truth to power. It critiques power. And power doesn't like that,” he says. “And so power has to speak to the lowest common denominator. It dumbs everything down."

"It's an anti-intellectual force. And that's why it seems like those in power are also the dumbest,” he concludes his video. The commenters further expanded on de Medeiros' thesis. “Also, intellectual people question and analyse everything. A leader needs to be invested in their opinion and abide by it,” one wrote. “Because those in power or seek power cares about the power only, so they make the decisions that keep them in power no matter what is the output,” another offered.

politicians, idiots, dumb people, anti-intellectualism, candidate, A candidate who wants your vote.via Canva/Photos

What is anti-intellectualism?

Another reason people who are a few fries short of a Happy Meal are often voted into office is that there is a deep vein of voters who are skeptical of intellectuals. These people tend to be populists who value “common sense” over intellectualism and may see experts or highly educated people as dangerous and out of touch with the common man. So, candidates position themselves against the “intellectuals” by either being their proud, dumb selves or by taking their IQ down a few notches while in public.

Theologian and philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906—1945) believed that dumb people often ascend to power because evil people have difficulty getting elected. So, they champion someone who may be more charismatic or connected and ride their coattails into power.

Finally, much like de Medeiros, Bonhoeffer believes there is a big difference between intellectualism and power. Therefore, once one attains power they are highly lifely to look like a buffoon. It’s as if, “Slogans, catchwords and the like… have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being,” Bonhoeffer says.

It’s sad to realize that the very nature of power means that those who hold office, whether we voted for them or not, will probably disappoint us at some point. But the good news from this understanding is that we are freeing ourselves from the constant disappointment of having leaders appear rather dumb. Now, whenever we meet the new boss, we can assume he's just like the old boss and be positively delighted if they wind up slightly smarter.

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Reality has hit. A small-business-owning mother's receipt that shows the pain of tariffs.

Here's what the new world looks like.

via Sofia Ramsay/TikTok (used with permission)

Small business owner Sofia Ramsay shares her tariff bill.

After the Trump administration raised tariffs on countries across the globe earlier this month, the bills are starting to come due, and we’re getting the first look at how this abrupt realignment to international trade will affect everyday working Americans. Interestingly, a poll in late January 2025 found that only 45% of Americans understand how tariffs work. Many incorrectly believe that the Chinese exporter pays the fee when the US imposes a tariff on China. However, in reality, when the U.S. imposes a tariff on Chinese goods, the American importer pays the tariff. The funds raised by the tariffs then go to the government, like a tax. Polls also show that those who understand how tariffs work are much less likely to support them than those who do not.

How do tariffs affect American business owners?

Sofia Ramsay, a mother who has owned a homemade jewelry business for the past 13 years, explained how the tariffs affect her small business, and it’s a practical explanation of how tariffs work. “I recently started doing a new program which is a subscription box that sends bead kits all about having a good time and celebrating friendships and bringing art into your life," she begins her video. “a lot of the materials that I provide for my subscription service are upcycled and reused just in order to keep up with trends and to keep up with supply and demand. Quite simply, I do need to import a lot of the materials.”

@sofiaramsay

The 🍊🤡 is still up there saying other countries will pay these bills. Tell me how this makes America great?

Ramsay adds that they have a great relationship with the factory she works with in China, but things started to become difficult a few weeks ago. It took over a month to get an expedited shipment of materials. Then she received a tariff bill from UPS. “It was a tariff bill on my import, now I'm happy to pay the price to do my business, but this is something I'm not prepared for as far as price increases,” she said. “I just don't think it's sustainable for my business to take on this level of expense.”

The cost of her tariff bill? $208 on $485 worth of goods.

That's a 43% increase in her cost of doing business, and the money went to the U.S. government. This was before the administration raised tariffs to 245%, which would have cost Ramsay $698.25.


Now that Ramsay's expenses have increased due to the tariff, does she pass it on to the customer? “I’m not willing to raise my prices, but I probably should raise them by 15-20% or so just to offset these fees,” she told Upworthy.

One of the goals of the tariff policy is to encourage Americans to source their products from U.S. companies. Or enable investors to increase manufacturing in the U.S. However, in a recent video, Ramsay explained why she can’t source her products from a U.S.-based company. The only company that does something similar is in New York City, and their products constantly change, so that she couldn’t deliver a consistent product to her customers. Further, the upcycled beads in New York originally come from overseas; they’ve just been handed around through separate transactions.

“I have to just be at the whims and fancies of whatever is available in this warehouse. It would be like if I had a fashion design company, if I was a clothing brand, and then I just switched to being a thrift store or vintage store or reseller, that would kinda pull the rug out from under my customer base,” she said.

Even though Ramsay is in a bind, being charged a hefty price for importing her products and without an option to source them from within the country, she’s optimistic that things may change. “I believe [the tariffs] are temporary and just posturing on the part of this administration. They have no plans to invest in domestic manufacturing,” she told Upworthy.

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Fox News viewers were paid to watch CNN and it actually changed their views

Political bubbles can break.

via Wikimedia Commons

Fox viewers changed their minds after watching CNN

The prevailing logic in today’s political world is that polarization is worsening because people live in media echo chambers where they are only exposed to outlets that mirror their views. People who live in echo chambers come to distrust any opinions outside their bubbles, especially when they're not exposed to conflicting information. This creates a scenario where the person becomes increasingly entrenched in their worldview.

One would assume that after a person becomes fully entrenched in an echo chamber, they have little chance of changing their views. However, a new working paper by researchers at Stanford and Yale universities has found that when people are removed from their bubbles, there’s a chance they’ll change their minds.

David Broockman of Stanford and Joshua Kalla of Yale conducted a study in 2022 where they paid regular Fox News viewers $15 an hour to watch CNN for around seven hours a week for a month. The researchers then surveyed them about their political beliefs and knowledge of current events.

anderson cooper, cnn, cable news, cooper live, newscasters, news programming, liberals, conservativesAnderson Cooper and David Axelrod speaking in the spin room following the CNN Republican Presidential Debate at the Olmsted Center at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

The study is titled “The manifold effects of partisan media on viewers’ beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers.” It was conducted in fall 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lead-up to the presidential election.

When the participants were polled, researchers found that they were five percentage points more likely to believe that people suffer from long COVID, 6 points more likely to think that other countries did a better job of controlling the virus, and 7 points more likely to support voting by mail.

“CNN provided extensive coverage of COVID-19, which included information about the severity of the COVID-19 crisis and poor aspects of Trump’s performance handling COVID-19. Fox News covered COVID-19 much less,” said the study.

sean hannity, fox news, red state, news bias, political polarization.Fox News host Sean Hannity. via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

After Fox viewers switched to CNN, their opinions on the social justice protests happening at the time changed. The switchers were 10 points less likely to think that Biden supporters were happy when police got shot and 13 points less likely to believe that if Biden gets elected, “we’ll see many more police get shot by Black Lives Matter activists.”

Many of the participants also realized that when it came to Trump, they weren’t getting the whole story. After switching to a steady diet of CNN they were less likely to agree that “if Donald Trump did something bad, Fox News would discuss it.”

“Despite regular Fox viewers being largely strong partisans, we found manifold effects of changing the slant of their media diets on their factual beliefs, attitudes, perceptions of issues’ importance, and overall political views,” the authors of the study said.

fox news, fox news van, new york city, politics, political coverageA Fox News van in New York Cityvia Wikimedia Commons

The study shows that Fox News isn’t just a media outlet that affirms its viewers' worldviews; it also feeds them a distorted version of reality that pushes them toward more extreme opinions. The good news is that some of these people can be changed when exposed to better information. It should also be noted that Fox News viewers aren’t the only ones living in information bubbles and that there are plenty of ideological traps that ensnare people on the left as well.

“Partisan media aren’t just putting a thumb on the scale for their side,” Brockman said. “They’re also hiding information that voters need to hold politicians accountable. That’s not just good for their side and bad for the other side — it’s bad for democracy, and for all of us.”

Two months after the study, it was found that the Fox News viewers reverted to their opinions before their exposure to CNN. Still, Brockman believes that the study offers some hope in a time of deep political polarization. “Even among the most orthodox partisans and partisan media viewers,” he said, according to Berkeley, “those who receive a sustained diet of information that helps them see the bigger picture actually are open-minded enough to understand that their side isn’t doing a perfect job, either.”

The study should give everyone hope that all is not lost and that America’s political divide may not be impossible to bridge.

This article originally appeared two years ago.

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Epic video of Mister Rogers addressing Congress resurfaces amid threats to gut PBS funding

"Looks like you just earned yourself the $20 million."

danieldeibler/YouTube

Epic video of Mister Rogers addressing congress for PBS resurfaces

PBS has been around for generations providing families with wholesome family entertainment, educational programming, and fair and balanced news. Many people rely on PBS for emergency alerts in rural areas as it can be one of the only broadcasting channels available in some places. But recently, Congress has brought up the idea of cutting critical funding to PBS and NPR, both of which are publicly funded as a means to keep people informed.

The services provided by PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) and NPR (National Public Radio) are public and partly funded by taxpayer dollars. Congress members are considering legislation that would essentially prohibit the federal government from allocating tax dollars to support public broadcasting. This proposal to gut funding led to the chief executives from PBS and NPR being questioned at length during a congressional hearing.

While some of the optics and questions from the hearing were amusing, the need to (once again) defend public broadcasting caused a decades old clip of Mister Rogers to circulate social media. In May 1969, Mister Rogers headed to Congress to stress the importance of funding for the newly formed Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes the government funding to PBS and NPR. At the time, Congress was wanting to slash their $20 million in funding to just $10 million—which would've had significant consequences for shows like his.

Fred Rogers was up against a tough crowd, but the PBS executive that introduced him prepped the Congressional committee for his kind nature.

mr rogers, pbs, npr, funding, defensepbs digital studios GIF by PBSGiphy

"Mister Rogers is certainly one of the best things to ever happen to public television and his Peabody Award is testament to that fact. We in public television are proud of Fred Rogers and I'm proud to present Mister Rogers to you now," the executive says.

If you've ever seen an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood then you're aware of his kind, gentle nature, but Subcommittee chairman, Senator John Pastore (D-RI), didn't know anything about everyone's favorite neighbor. The senator was quite rude towards him and appeared to be overall annoyed with Mister Rogers' presence—but that didn't deter the children's show creator.

Rogers shares how his program went from a $30 budget to a $6,000 budget with the help of additional funding before dropping shocking information.

"But $6,000 pays for less than two minutes of cartoons. Two minutes of animated, what I sometimes say, bombardment. I'm very much concerned as I know you are about what's being delivered to our children in this country and I've worked in the field of child development for six years now, trying to understand the inner needs of children. We deal with such things as the inner drama of childhood," Roger tells the subcommittee.

Mister Rogers delivers his whole speech in that familiar comforting cadence which clearly impacts how his message is received. You can watch the congressman relax and become more engaged in real time while Rogers explains what he does with his thirty minute kids show.

mr rogers, mr rogers neighborhood, pbs, pbs funding, fred rogershappy pbs digital studios GIF by PBSGiphy

"We made a hundred programs for EEN, the Eastern Educational Network, and then when the money ran out, people in Boston, in Pittsburgh, and Chicago all came to the floor and said 'we've got to have more of this neighborhood expression of care' and this is what...this is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child to help him realize that he is unique," he says in part.

By the end of the meeting Mister Rogers had won over the senator. "I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned yourself the $20 million," the senator says.

Watch Mister Rogers' full speech to Congress here:


There's no Mister Rogers this time to head to Congress and try to convince them not to cut vital public broadcasting funding, but it's important to remain hopeful. Communities still rely on the programming for news, alerts, and educational programs like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, (reruns of which still air on the network today).

For now, the fate of federal funding for PBS and NPR is still in the air, but the recirculation of Mister Rogers' congressional visit is reminding us exactly why public broadcasting is so important.

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