Just to lower the temperature, I'll use a non-political example. My grandfather, long since departed, was a master salesman. He sold all sorts of stuff door to door, including the highly dubious Kirby vacuum cleaners, before ending up in real estate. He was an incredibly good manipulator of people, but he was a very bad planner. He once famously sold the same piece of property to two different people, just for the thrill of the sale. (My grandmother had to sort it all out after.)

Being good at manipulation and bad at planning were deeply related in him and some other scoundrels I've met. Why? Because if you don't care at all about facts or repercussions, you can devote 100% of your attention to telling other people what they want to hear, what they'll believe. And it works the other way, too. If you're very good at talking your way out of problems, you never need to learn things like being disciplined or facing facts.

So yes, it is perfectly possible that some goof bumbled his way into the most powerful office in the world. My grandfather, thank goodness, was never very ambitious, so he had a pretty small blast radius. I shudder to think what harm he could have done if he had actually applied himself.

Yes, and in light of anecdotes of how decisions are made in the current administration: double yes