And of course many politicians develop weird super-position personalities, where they sort-of-know and sort-of-lie to themselves such than an impartial observer can rarely conclude either ‘they’re lying’ or ‘they’re deluded’: it’s a bit of both. It’s how many cope when promoted to jobs far beyond them. And it’s very poorly understood among business elites who always overrate the rationality of political players and underrate the prevalence of this *super-position-personality* phenomenon which means widespread avoidance of the real issues in meeting after meeting to an extent the median business elite has little experience of outside companies heading for bankruptcy.
Having been in a couple of these rooms - and a lot more inside academia - it's hard to disagree with this sharp observation. Sometimes, it really is more bonkers than the rest of us can ever imagine.