I'm not a complete idiot... but I put that down to laziness on my part. I've always been an underachiever.
First of all, I don't believe there is any endgame here. I don't believe in conspiracies or the plans of secret cabals to forge the destinies of humankind ... I believe that if things turn crappy, it's because, in our hearts and minds, people are just pretty stupid. If given the chance, we will always do the wrong thing.
I also believe very strongly that no one enters a life in politics without the desire to control their fellow men. Even if they have convinced themselves that their desire is altruistic, it's still a desire to make people do what you want them to do. It matters not to them whether that comes by cajole, by coercion, or by raw, naked force.
People on the periphery of politics, like State Legislators and Bureau-level appointees now find themselves in the exulted position of having a national platform from which to make their pronouncements.
There hasn't been a single time in US History before now that a C-list bureaucrat like the Director of NIH or the CDC have achieved the rock-star status they enjoy today. There hasn't been a single time when a State Governor or state legislator got a national forum and the power to control interstate commerce, making decree after decree that affects the lives of millions. Normally, for anyone to know the name of a legislator outside their own state, he would have had to have killed a girl or got caught accepting huge bribes ... or stopped little, Black girls from going to school.
As I said, I don't believe they have an endgame here. I don't even think they have a plan at all. I do know that at this moment in time they are experiencing fame and power previously unattainable by someone of their status and they aren't likely to give it up. They will want to keep expanding their power for as long as they can.
I don't believe their power will be absolute. Not even the Soviet Russians or The Nazis were able to achieve absolute power. There was always a fraction of the population that fought against them and refused to submit ... even if that refusal was passive.