Why is there an expectation of government to act rationally when the population can’t? If the leaders of Sweden tell their population to wear masks in public t

Why is there an expectation of government to act rationally when the population can’t? If the leaders of Sweden tell their population to wear masks in public to get to R0, they’ll do it. In Merica, we cannot trust our peers to be rational. That said, metros like SF should have done better to argue for opening because we developed better testing and our numbers were low.