It's not that they want to spoonfeed political ragebait specifically, I think. They want eyes on their ads, because that generates revenue. It's just that political ragebait keeps many people more engaged. More views = more ads seen = more money. Means to an end. It's a very cynical worldview.
People can be on the spectrum, from a very different culture, foreigners that don't have English as their first language, or from a different generation with different slang and references. There are lots of reasons why someone might be intelligent but not get your subtlety or references.
Indeed it's not great, tho recently it's been upgraded to 3 major OS upgrades and 4 years of security updates. For a flagship phone that is still not much, but for me the minimum I'd be happy to invest in.
Of course they also have cheaper phones, which may cover your needs.
It's not that they want to spoonfeed political ragebait specifically, I think. They want eyes on their ads, because that generates revenue. It's just that political ragebait keeps many people more engaged. More views = more ads seen = more money. Means to an end. It's a very cynical worldview.