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This is perpetually one of my last favorite patterns in humans. Declaring someone an idiot when they’ve never met them and they’re one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet. Not referring to Sam here.

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If you refer to Trump, when people say idiot, I don't think they refer to his intelligence in the sense of appealing to people's base instincts - he clearly has good political intelligence. It refers to his understanding of subjects, his clarity of thought and expression, and often a judgment of his morals, principles, and ethics.

If you don't - there was no need to be coy. And you act as if failing up never happens in real life.

It's a reference to most any major political figure. Someone somewhere thinks they're an idiot, and usually a lot of people. And most of them don't have the nuance you have. They think they're universally legitimately stupid people.

Failing up definitely happens but given the massive number of failures you'd have to succeed through to be US president, as an example, it's not what's happening there.

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