Trump Personifies the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
How a 50-year-old treatise by an Italian economic historian makes sense of our utterly senseless moment
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Fifty years ago, in his most famous work, the prolific intellectual Carlo Cipolla argued that stupid people, as a group, are “much more powerful than the mafia, or the military industrial complex.”
Today, as we witness one of the dumbest wars in history unraveling in Iran, an inept health and human services secretary working to bring back measles and polio, a Republican Party wherein only 20 percent view the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a violent insurrection but 71 percent deny Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and an administration that refuses to properly regulate AI and crypto industries that threaten the economic well-being and safety of all, Cipolla’s contention is as apt now as when he first proposed it in The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, in 1976—an era when the country, and indeed the world, was similarly roiled by sociopolitical rage and seemed on the brink of a catastrophe.
An Italian economic historian and UC-Berkeley professor who’d seen fascism firsthand and was writing in the wake of the Vietnam War, Cipolla wanted to determine how advanced societies commit truly stupid acts. Originally crafted for his friends, but selling over half a million copies once published, his treatise lies somewhere between satire and serious scholarship, involving a bit of humor and speculation while also applying the laws and language of scientific inquiry and a valid argumentative style. As he wrote in the introduction:
Let me point out at this juncture that most emphatically this little book is neither a product of cynicism nor an exercise in defeatism—no more than a book on microbiology is. The following pages are in fact the result of a constructive effort to detect, know, and thus possibly neutralize one of the most powerful dark forces that hinder the growth of human welfare and happiness.
Cipolla divided people into four groups: the helpless, whose actions harm themselves but benefit others; the intelligent, whose actions benefit themselves and others; the bandits, who enrich themselves while harming others; and the stupid, whose actions harm others while producing no benefit to themselves. This latter group is Cipolla’s main concern. “No matter how high are one’s estimates of human stupidity,” he wrote, “one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid; b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one’s activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.”
Undoubtedly, you’re pondering all of the stupid people you know. But the real danger, Cipolla contended, is when stupid people gain power, exponentially increasing the danger to us all. In this scenario, the stupid will have at their disposal means of destruction created by the intelligent—armies, weapons systems, monetary levers, media influence—and will oversee industries often controlled or influenced by bandits, weakening the institutions designed to monitor them. Imagine, if you will, if an extraordinarily stupid man were to somehow become secretary of defense, jeopardizing both our soldiers and our position in the world while also promoting a testosterone-based culture that could damage our forces for years. To avoid this, Cipolla said, it is the job of the intelligent to keep the stupid in check. If they fail to do so, societies head downhill fast.
Such a fate is not easy to avoid in democracies, which are plagued by the stupid. “Within a democratic system, general elections are a most effective instrument to ensure the steady maintenance of [stupid people] among the powerful,” Cipolla wrote. This is because politicians often have to appeal to the stupid in order to maintain power, ensuring that stupid politicians will always make up a fraction of government officials.
We cannot say for sure what Cipolla would have made of President Trump’s efforts to build a giant ballroom at the White House, his spending countless hours posting social media memes of himself, the nearly $200 million taxpayers have footed for his golf outings, or the UFC and Grand Prix events he hosted at the White House. In fact, it’s difficult to even say whether Trump is more a bandit or just plain stupid—or whether his administration is filled with more obvious bandits who are simply in it for themselves, like Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio, or crazy idiots who actually think they’re doing some good while sailing us toward disaster, like Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. But it’s likely Cipolla, who died in 2000, would’ve given high marks on the stupidity scale to the administration overall, and seen it as a validation of his theory.
The theory rest on five “laws,” which are as follows:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people infallibly turns out to be a costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
The second rule—the idea that stupidity is universal among groups and independent of other characteristics, including wealth, education, and social status—is somewhat counterintuitive, but think about some of the Ivy League fools we see in government today: Ted Cruz (Harvard), RFK Jr. (Harvard), Sam Alito (Yale), Clarence Thomas (Yale), Josh Hawley (Yale). Or rich morons like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. In fact, even more dangerous than a stupid person with power is a stupid person with power and credentials—they’re more likely to think they actually know what they’re talking about.
Cipolla allowed, as well, that certain people may shift from one classification to another. Andrew Carnegie, for instance, might be considered a bandit for the first half of his life and an intelligent benefactor for the latter half. Some people might even seem helpless one day and stupid the next. To account for this, Cipolla ruled that we must go by overall average behavior, and he created a four-quadrant chart—like New York magazine’s “Approval Matrix”—for mapping people according to their helplessness, intelligence, banditry, and stupidity.
Among the helpless Cipolla counted those who are self-sacrificing as well as those who are perhaps just plain hapless, so the name is a bit of a misnomer. It would mean that Clara Barton, Henry David Thoreau, and Martin Luther King might be a part of that category, though one could argue, too, that each received the benefit of working toward a more just and equitable society. It’s also difficult to say that they were not intelligent, as they clearly were.
If we were to do a current-day chart, you would find most of the Trump administration leadership in either the “bandit” or “stupid” quadrant—though their exact coordinates on the chart would undoubtedly be a matter of debate. Some might reasonably argue that Trump himself should be on the stupid side. I’d put him close to there, as many of the things he does are just plain stupid. But I contend that his utter stupidity cannot match his unadulterated greed, so I would put him in the “bandit” quadrant but right beside “stupid”—and as far away from “intelligent” as possible. Other top Republicans in that quadrant might include Mike Johnson, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, JD Vance, and Kash Patel, while those more worthy of the “stupid” quadrant are RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth, and Tommy Tuberville.
What puts the United States in an unusually dangerous position, though, is the peculiar mix of smart and stupid we’re experiencing right now. The scientists who built the atomic bomb and helped us win World War II were keenly aware of the dangers posed. After the war, Robert Oppenheimer advocated for limitations and cooperation, understanding the nuclear age we had entered. Harry Truman—a capable president—was smart enough to put our nuclear program under civilian control.
Compare that to Washington’s utter failure to regulate AI, even though the leading AI firms themselves are warning that their technology could destroy humanity. As the most advanced AI models become increasingly emboldened, breaking out of their sandboxes and attacking government websites, the GOP-controlled Congress has largely looked the other way while Trump babbles about renaming artificial intelligence as “super intelligence.”
It’s like we built a hydrogen bomb, then entrusted Gordon Gekko to make a profit off it and Barney Fife to monitor him. What could go wrong?
Everything, according to Cipolla’s theory. “In a country that is moving downhill,” he wrote, the “fraction of stupid people” remains constant; “however, in the remaining population one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity ... and among those not in power an equally alarming growth in the number of helpless individuals.… Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the [stupid population] and makes decline a certainty. And the country goes to Hell.”
It may be too soon to know whether we’re on that course in the U.S. We may not know until it’s far too late. But it’s alarming enough that Cipolla’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek theory from a half-century ago seems perfectly apt to the state of America today.
NO SURRENDER — Ilhan Omar Fires Back at Donald Trump After Federal Agents Search Her Home
Ilhan Omar is refusing to back down after federal agents searched her Washington, D.C., home in a criminal investigation—an extraordinary development that has reignited her long-running confrontation with Donald Trump just weeks before the midterm elections.
The Minnesota Democrat responded with a defiant message: “I will not be silenced.” She accused the Trump administration of using federal law enforcement to target political opponents and described the search as another escalation in what she called a decade-long campaign of intimidation.
The statement immediately raised the political stakes. Omar is not simply disputing the circumstances surrounding the search; she is challenging the administration’s conduct and demanding that the public examine why federal agents took such a consequential step so close to an election.
But the central questions remain unresolved: What exactly are investigators looking for, what evidence supports the inquiry, and will the search trigger a broader confrontation between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration?
‘I Will Not Be Silenced’: Omar’s Defiant Response
On October 12, after news of the search emerged, Omar posted a response on social media that began with a brief reassurance: “I’m ok.”
She then delivered a much sharper political message, accusing the administration of targeting political enemies and weaponizing federal law enforcement.
“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” Omar wrote, describing the search as the latest escalation in what she characterized as political intimidation. She ended with a declaration that quickly became the defining line of her response: “I will not be silenced.”
Her congressional office issued a separate statement calling the search an “outrageous abuse of power” and an “unprecedented escalation” in the use of federal law enforcement against political opponents. The statement said Omar had done nothing wrong and argued that no president should be able to use the federal government to intimidate political adversaries.
Those are Omar’s allegations and her office’s position. The search itself was carried out under a judicially authorized warrant, according to the Justice Department. Whether investigators uncover evidence of wrongdoing—and whether the search was justified by the facts of the case—remains to be established.
What Happened at Omar’s Washington Home?
Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, searched Omar’s Washington residence early Monday, October 12.
The Justice Department confirmed that agents executed a search warrant authorized by a court as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Officials did not publicly disclose a complete account of the evidence being sought or all the details of the inquiry.
Reporting by CBS News and The Washington Post indicated that investigators were examining immigration paperwork dating back to Omar’s childhood. The documents reportedly involved paperwork completed by her late father when the family came to the United States as refugees from Somalia.
The details remain limited, and the reported focus of the investigation should not be confused with a finding of guilt. A search warrant authorizes investigators to look for specified evidence; it does not establish that the person whose home is searched committed a crime.
Omar has repeatedly rejected allegations against her and portrayed the renewed scrutiny as politically motivated. Her office’s statement following the search reiterated that she had done nothing wrong.
As of the latest reports, authorities had not publicly laid out a complete evidentiary case against the congresswoman. That leaves a critical distinction at the center of the story: the investigation is real, but its ultimate findings are not yet known.
Why the Timing Has Become a Political Flashpoint
The search took place less than a month before the November midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. That timing has intensified questions from Democrats about whether the action could influence the political environment surrounding Omar’s reelection campaign.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats raised concerns about the search, while senior Democratic leaders condemned the action and questioned the use of federal power against a sitting member of Congress so close to an election.
The criticism centers on more than Omar’s personal dispute with Trump. It touches on a broader principle: federal law enforcement must be able to investigate potential crimes, but its decisions should be grounded in evidence and applied without improper political influence.
The Justice Department has confirmed the existence of a court-authorized search but has not publicly provided a full explanation of the investigative rationale. Without that information, it is not possible to establish from the public record alone whether the timing was politically motivated or driven by investigative necessities.
That uncertainty is likely to keep the controversy alive. Democrats are demanding answers about the decision and its timing, while the investigation itself remains ongoing.
A Long-Running Clash Between Omar and Trump
Omar has been one of Trump’s most prominent congressional critics. Their political conflict has repeatedly drawn national attention, with disputes involving immigration, national identity, federal enforcement and the congresswoman’s background.
Trump has frequently criticized Omar in public, while Omar has accused him of spreading false claims and using inflammatory rhetoric against her and the Somali American community.
In the days before the search, Omar had also criticized Trump’s rhetoric about Somali Americans. The latest federal action therefore arrived against the backdrop of an already bitter political relationship—not in isolation.
Still, a history of public hostility does not by itself prove that a federal investigation was politically directed. Establishing improper interference would require evidence about how the investigation was initiated, authorized and conducted.
That distinction matters because the controversy involves two separate questions: whether investigators have a legitimate basis to pursue the case, and whether the administration has handled the matter in a politically appropriate way.
Both questions deserve scrutiny, but neither should be treated as settled before the relevant evidence is available.
Democrats Demand Answers as the Investigation Continues
Omar’s response has been echoed by Democratic colleagues who say the search raises serious concerns about the use of federal power. Some have called for accountability and greater transparency about the investigation.
Their criticism is also shaped by the election calendar. A federal search involving a sitting member of Congress in the final weeks before voters head to the polls is certain to draw heightened political attention, even when authorities have a judicial warrant.
The administration’s position and the investigators’ evidence will be crucial to determining how the controversy develops. If officials disclose a clear evidentiary basis for the search, that information will help the public evaluate the government’s actions. If significant questions remain unanswered, pressure for congressional oversight may intensify.
For now, the public has only a partial picture of the investigation. Officials have confirmed a court-authorized search, but have not disclosed all the evidence or publicly established that Omar committed a crime.
What Happens Next for Ilhan Omar?
The immediate questions are whether investigators will release additional information, whether Omar or her representatives will provide further details, and whether congressional leaders will seek formal oversight of the search.
Omar has made her own position unmistakable: she intends to continue speaking out and views the search as an attempt to intimidate a political opponent. The Trump administration’s critics have embraced that interpretation, while the legal justification for the search must ultimately be evaluated through the evidence and applicable law.
The coming days could bring more details about the investigation, new statements from lawmakers and further debate over the role of federal law enforcement during an election season.
For now, the most defensible conclusion is also the most consequential: a federal search has triggered a major political confrontation, Omar has publicly challenged the administration’s motives, and key questions about the investigation remain unanswered.
Her “I will not be silenced” declaration has become a rallying cry for her response. Whether the dispute grows into a wider congressional battle will depend on what investigators reveal next—and whether the government can explain its actions in a way that withstands public and legal scrutiny.
