“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” is technically known as Hanlon’s Razor.  Ramesh Ponnuru’s proposes a novel corollary:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
stupidity. This sound aphorism may have a less pithy political
corollary: Never attribute to strategy what can be explained by emotion.

I suspect economists and evolutionary psychologists will demur, but this rings true.  Our modern environment is so unlike our adaptive environment that acting on impulse is usually folly.