I respect all the sourcing and data, and I'll read the second and third articles in detail later so thank you for that. Your name is "hindsightbias", however, and you're citing "Americans who thought invading Iraq was a great idea" as a sign of stupidity?
Which I've always more associated with the Crazification Factor than outright stupidity: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor
But it always helps to have Cipolla's Basic Laws of Human Stupidity bookmarked: https://qz.com/967554/the-five-universal-laws-of-human-stupi...
72% of Americans thought invading Iraq was a great idea. https://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-america...