Most people think they understand what they perceive as simple data. Usually they miss both complexity and probable inaccuracy. This leads to faulty reasoning about what the universe looks like.
This includes politicians, who sometimes feel that they need to do something, especially when most other people of equivalent rank seem to be doing something.
I would combine the politician observation with a general poor intellectual formation of people, a tendency to be more emotionally driven than normal, and oddly enough a fear of death.
Young people don’t fear dying,, to some degree usually believing that they are temporarily immortal, but may fear parents or grandparent’s dying . Older people are generally either reconciled to dying or reconciled to eventually loosing the fight with death. Those most likely to go from this are those who are most likely reconciled, but many people in low-risk groups are having nervous breakdowns over risks that they vicariously take on.
When politicians can stay in Congress after saying Guam was in danger of capsizing is it any wonder that official stupidity endures and prospers?