Donald Trump is a dangerous moron and nobody should ingest or inject bleach

That much should be obvious, but some followed his instructions in an act of seemingly astonishing gullibility and stupidity. It's easy to dunk on them...

It's worth remembering something, though

Over and over and over and over again in capitalist societies, we are taught to conflate success with diligence and intelligence. We are taught that we live in a meritocracy, and thus that if somebody is wealthy or famous or powerful, they achieved that on their own merits

So slowly we internalize the idea that you can't just fail upwards, and so those who hold power did something to earn power. That they are smarter, better, more capable. That they got to their station in life for a good reason.

Do you see where this is going?

So then, if you have internalized that belief and the most powerful person in the country says that something is safe and effective, and you are sick and desperate, maybe what seems obvious to us - that this is dangerous and stupid - seems credible...

After all, if you're operating under the base assumption that successful and powerful people are so because they're smart, maybe that powerful person's dangerous idiocy doesn't seem so idiotic. That's the trick. It's not just people being dumber than rocks

So don't drink bleach, don't listen to Donald Trump's medical advice. Obviously.

But also, start to question the underlying assumption that successful people necessarily earned their success and necessarily know what they're doing. Some do, many don't

Please recognize that, yes, part of the responsibility to not drink fucking bleach is on the individual, but that this also illustrates a wider societal problem with trust, authority, power structures, and the assumption of a meritocracy

Thank you

Some people are incredible at what they do, and achieve success. Some people are experts in a field who should be listened to.

Some people are awful at what they do and achieve success.

Some people are great at what they do and never go anywhere.

It is important to not automatically conflate success with capability. It's important to scrutinize the powerful, and critically evaluate whether or not their expertise matches their authority.

A couple of related concepts that you might enjoy reading about:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-False-Authority

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis