There's nothing invalid about meritocracy, but that's not what we have. We have some other kind of "ocracy": government by the lucky. I lack the Greek literacy to name the phenomenon correctly but that's what it would translate to in English.
Neither Trump nor Musk has any business running anything more impactful than a used car lot or a corner Starbucks franchise, but their competition was permanently out to lunch in both cases, and here we are. How can anyone be surprised when two merit-free, chaos-loving narcissists fail to get along?
“ For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”
Meh, tell it to Darwin. Heat death will come for us all in the end, and there is no refuge to be found in our navels. Why accelerate it by embracing mediocrity? We should identify talent, reward it, and do the best we can with what we have, while we can.
The part about "identifying talent" is where people seem to lose the plot, unfortunately.
Neither Trump nor Musk has any business running anything more impactful than a used car lot or a corner Starbucks franchise, but their competition was permanently out to lunch in both cases, and here we are. How can anyone be surprised when two merit-free, chaos-loving narcissists fail to get along?