I keep coming back to "all this for literally Donald Trump," but it fits. There's not some more competent aspiring autocrat who'd somehow "earn" or "win" this. This is how it has always gone: feckless/evil elites attaching themselves to the sociopath they believe will get them where they want to go.
An incompetent, vain, buffoonish moron actually makes a better vessel for advancing a corrupt, antisocial agenda. Nobody wants a competent autocrat, because he might actually have his own agenda and set of policy preferences that he expects you to serve.
