I'd synthesize those as: "There is a lot of chaos with no central plan, but every small piece happens because someone believes they will benefit."

In other words, a lot of this depends on what scale/scope is being inspected. On the high level, the world is chaos rather than a meticulous and inscrutable plan of the Illuinati Shadow Cabal. On the low level, people do things for reasons, even if they're dumb ones.

With respect to the "current political climate", I'd like to suggest that a lot of dumb or seemingly "against their own interests" stuff is due to people prioritizing costly in-group loyalty signals. Their interest in staying good with the tribe is just higher than their interest against a dumb national policy.