""You see?" Kyriaco said. "Why do you take these risks? Why do these idiots risk world war? The US minister, why did she go to Taiwan?" He was talking about Nancy Pelosi. "Do the Americans really think that it is in their interest to provoke the Chinese?"

"I tell you something," he said. "America used to be so powerful. But it is not so powerful today, not like it was. You have Russia, and China, and India. Not everybody does what America tells them to do. Do you ever think about that?"

Yes, I told him, I do.

"No, not you," he said. "I mean your government. This Biden, my God. What an idiot!" He slapped the steering wheel. "Listen, my friend, the world is not what it used to be. A lot of people who used to love the Americans don't do it anymore. People see that you start so many wars, and make life hard for a lot of people. Nobody believes you anymore."

I told him that back in the US, more and more people disbelieve our government, and institutional authority. I mentioned to him what Viktor Orban said recently, about how the economic and energy crisis brought to Europe via sanctions on Russia could result in the fall of governments. Yes, said Kyriaco, that absolutely could happen. We in the West are sleepwalking into catastrophe.
....
I know, I know: he's a taxi driver, not a credentialed Expert. But you will recall that credentialed Experts led the West into World War I. Credentialed Experts led America into the disaster of the Vietnam War. Credentialed Experts led us into the Iraq War. I have rather more confidence in the instincts of the Cypriot taxi driver than I do in Washington think tanks and the mandarins of Brussels."
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/i-have-never-seen-such-idiots/