I watched Harry Potter with my nephews. They’re young and asked a lot of questions because they don’t understand everything. But their questions made me think about something….
Voldemort was a little dumb isn’t it? Even if he was Slytherin’s descendant.
I mean, with his lineage, his charisma, intelligence etc, he could have started to work at the ministry, gain influence by himself during his career ( he had good connections: Slughorn, his Slytherin’s peers etc). And while working at the ministry, he could have started to discriminate Muggleborns in a more subtle way. He was a good speaker, he could have sugar-coated his decisions to make some "pills" easier to swallow. And for his dream of immortality, He could have created horcrux in random objects harder to find and why not use the symbolic objects as decoys. It would have been more Slytherin isn’t it?
But instead, he acted a little like a gryffindor: symbolic objects easier to find as horcrux. And less subtle actions: terrorist attacks.
At least, his comeback was a little more subtle: stay “invisible” and let the ministry discredits his enemies. After that he became visible and by that discredited a government who was unprepared making it easier to invade.
