>The LSD has an estimated $5B in annual revenue, with an estimated $100B in funds, and protestants can make claims to nearly every US president.
Importantly, this is the LDS, not the LSD. Do rationalism's thinkers engage seriously enough to be able to make important cultural contributions? Or do they have such a surface-level view of everything (too much breadth, not enough depth – too much depth is unpractical, and practicality is key for rationalists) that even in this post they cannot be bothered enough to cross the t's and dot the i's enough to avoid a confusion between a psychoactive substance and an influential religious institution?
More to the point, rationalism's great age has passed. Rationalists did carry import in the post-Reformation era, but in philosophical concepts, we have long left the era of classical Enlightenment behind. We have even left Modernism behind, which was arguably born out of Rationalism. We are at the tail end of postmodernism – of course you don't find "highly successful" "rationalists" in the post-modern age. While you don't necessarily have to be conversant (or even aware) of Barthes' structuralism, "success" (at least, in the sense that is discussed in this post – cultural import, legacy, etc.) is dependent on living and breathing postmodernism.
Like a fish in water, you don't have to know what postmodernism is, exactly. I do not think any TikTok star knows what postmodernism is. But they intuit that they must be a chimera that is the product of its audience, that the signs they create must be readily meme-able and able to live a life outside of their author. Rationalists do not breathe in this water – their hierarchical approach is stuck at the turn of the last century, and so they will not find themselves carrying import at the beginning of this one.