I agree completely with the point of this article. Democracy requires an educated voting populace. That result can be achieved by depressing the vote of stupid people or by growing fewer stupid people. By "depressing" I don't necessarily mean anything nefarious, e.g. suppressing, but rather, running the country well enough that apathy and just voting for the incumbent is not a bad use of most people's time. The Republican party's obstructive filibuster program has made Congress so unpopular that apathy is not an option. But when stupid people start caring about politics, bad things (read, Trump) happen. So education it is.

I do have one quibble.

First, the people are stupid enough to believe that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still in power.

People are not stupid to believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine under Trump. They are stupid to believe that the reason for Putin not invading Ukraine while Trump was president had anything to do with Trump's (non-existent) competence. Putin did not invade Ukraine while Trump was President because Trump was already his ally in undermining NATO. Trump was too valuable an asset to disturb.

The less aggressive Putin is, the less valuable NATO seems. Thus, I believe Putin has played into Biden's hand by demonstrating why a strong NATO is important. The stupids here will think NATO is "weak" for not starting a shooting war over Ukraine, but I see little chance that Putin will attack a country with Article 5 protection.