Occam’s Razor in an Era of Declining Public Trust - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

Peter Bergen : Public trust in institutions like the Catholic Church , Wall Street, Congress and the Supreme Court is in free fall.

He says there is a danger of anti-institutional sentiment going too far in this populist age.

The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inexplicably added to a high-level group chat earlier this month on the encrypted commercial messaging app Signal .

The chat, comprising top-ranking Trump administration officials such as Vice President JD Vance , Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth , and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz , debated and discussed U.S. strikes on Iran -backed Houthi rebels in Yemen .

The simplest explanation, per Occam ’s razor, is that a Waltz staffer messed up — badly — by adding the wrong person styled “ JG ” into a group chat.

Don’t ascribe to malice that which can be otherwise explained by rank incompetence.