PUBLISHED
June 22, 2025
KARACHI:
Not long ago, I stumbled upon an old clip of George W Bush hosting Vladimir Putin at his Texas ranch. Bush, in his usual casual swagger, spoke in awkward metaphors, grinned too often, and seemed unable to put together a sentence without either fumbling or reaching for something vaguely Texan. “I looked into his soul,” he said of Putin, almost as if he were describing a horse instead of the president of a former Cold War rival. The moment felt surreal, borderline comical. But it triggered a question I haven’t been able to shake since.
How could someone who came across as so visibly foolish rise to become the president of the most powerful nation on Earth?
At first glance, it feels like a fluke. A lucky son of a political dynasty who stumbled into the White House. But as I followed the trail, what I found was far more disturbing. Bush wasn’t alone. And it wasn’t just incompetence. It was a pattern. One I’ve since come to think of as ‘the rise of the weaponised fool.’
This isn’t about one country or party. It’s a global phenomenon. Donald Trump in the US; Narendra Modi in India; Imran Khan in Pakistan; Boris Johnson in the UK; Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. And now Javier Milei in Argentina. They all look and sound different. But they all rely on the same formula. Appear foolish. Speak in slogans. Bypass logic. Stir emotion. Dodge accountability. Win.
The fool, it turns out, is not a bug in modern politics. He is a feature.
Each of these leaders has embraced a carefully constructed image of being plainspoken, relatable, even laughable. They confuse, distract, and entertain. They dominate news cycles with outrageous quotes and absurd posturing. Trump suggests nuking hurricanes. Milei brings a chainsaw to rallies. Khan fumbles through basic policy questions and then claims divine inspiration. And yet, their supporters love them not despite these things, but because of them.
When I first started writing about this pattern, I thought it was just the failure of political institutions. But then I discovered the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis. In 1943, Bonhoeffer wrote something that struck me like lightning. He said, “Against stupidity, we are defenseless.”
Bonhoeffer wasn’t talking about intelligence in the academic sense. He was describing a kind of moral blindness that overtakes people when they stop thinking critically and surrender to collective emotion. Stupid people, he argued, are not always unintelligent. But they are willingly passive. They let others think for them. And the most dangerous part? They believe they are being righteous.
He wrote, “In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.”
That’s when it clicked. These leaders aren’t winning despite looking like fools. They are winning because the mask of foolishness is an effective shield. The world is far more forgiving of stupidity than of evil. If you make a monstrous decision but look like you bumbled into it, people shrug and say, “He’s just dumb.” But if you look calculating and precise, you’re a threat. In a strange way, the fool is safer than the villain.
This is how Bush was able to start two wars, let 9/11 happen on his watch, launch torture programs, and crash the global economy and still be remembered by some as a well-meaning doofus who painted dogs after retirement. His gaffes became a brand. The chaos became a distraction.
Milei is perhaps the most exaggerated version of this trend. He acts like a TV personality, makes exaggerated faces, yells about socialism like a cartoon character, and simplifies Argentina’s economic collapse into “the fault of the left.” He speaks with all the nuance of a viral meme, but now sits at the top of a country in crisis. He offers no clear path, no real plan. Just volume. Just vibes.
Why is this so effective for the political right in particular? Because conservatism has always positioned itself as defending “the common man” against elites. So what better avatar than a leader who looks like the common man, speaks clumsily, mistrusts experts, and presents himself as a victim of the system? A leader who says, “They’re not laughing at me, they’re laughing at you.”
In this theatre of absurdity, the opposition rarely stands a chance. Because they try to argue with facts, present white papers, offer detailed policies. But you can’t win a rap battle with a research paper. The fool doesn’t respond to logic. He drowns it.
The media tries to fact-check, but ends up amplifying. The institutions try to prosecute, but only deepen the narrative of persecution. The public tries to resist, but often ends up confused and exhausted. In this fog of performative stupidity, real damage happens quietly, to democracy, to rights, to the rule of law.
Meanwhile, powerful players lurk in the background. Billionaires like Elon Musk, who publicly mock these leaders but privately align with them. Trump’s trade war made no sense economically, but it handed power to American monopolies. Modi’s populism is embraced by India’s corporate elite. Khan’s posturing distracted from disastrous economic management, but made great television. These leaders are not puppets. They are willing performers. But they are not pulling all the strings either.
As Bonhoeffer warned, the battle is not just political. It is moral. The danger of the weaponised fool is not in how he thinks, but in how he teaches others not to think. In a world where simplicity is power, where memes defeat reason, where loyalty replaces law, stupidity becomes a political tool. Not a condition. A strategy.
So what can we do?
First, we must name the pattern. Laughing at these men only makes them stronger. We must expose the method behind the madness.
Second, we must stop underestimating what looks like buffoonery. Beneath the chaos is calculation.
Third, we must build movements that speak to emotion without surrendering to stupidity. People want clarity. But clarity does not mean shallowness. We must learn to communicate better without dumbing things down.
Because the age of the fool is far from over.
And if we keep mistaking the mask for the man, it will be us, not them, who end up looking foolish.
Suhaib Ayaz is a freelance contributor
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author
