Trump's attacks on universities get darker, with shadows reaching our shores

The politicians aren't idiots, they don't actually believe anything they say.

The idiots are the people whose support they politicians are courting.

whether you pretend to be an idiot and do idiotic things or are an idiot and do idiotic things doesn’t matter, the outcome is the same.

Matter of fact pretending to be an idiot and doing idiotic things might be worse cause you know better, an idiot’s excuse would be that that’s all they know to do.

This was true 8 years ago. Now I wouldn't be so sure about it anymore. I wouldn't make a bet that there isn't a single Republican out there who truly believes in some of the crazy stuff they are saying.

But of course the survival of crazy policies hinges on people willing to elect politicians who will implement them. And that in turn hinges on how well you disinform them.

The recent signal leak shows that they really do believe this stuff. insert american flag and prayer emojis

The vice president writing they were going to pray makes me think the editor of the Atlantic was intentionally added to the chat.

I don’t see how it could be believable that Vance is actually religious and isn’t just using it as a way to get votes.

Some of them are. Have you ever heard anything said by the current US president? It's just incoherent rambling.

Then we also have the Signal chat, and even biographies and books by some of the others that makes it clear done of these people are genuinely dumb as fuck.

For what purpose? And if it was just for that, why did they also share classified information?

Maybe publicity? The group in charge knows they can do no wrong, and I would bet their voters liked the rhetoric in the chat. Maybe they use controversy as a tool to keep people distracted (or even lead them to check out).

The question is what consequences will it have. I have only seen good outcomes for the administration from the chat debacle. It is worrying, this could have led to a VP resigning.

I find it very believable that he became legitimately convinced of whatever odd sect Peter Thiel created that justifies extreme wealth hording, because it brought him into Peter Thiel's orbit which has clearly served him well.

People are really, really good at believing things that benefit themselves.

Well they have completely redefined what Christianity is, so in a way it doesn't surprise me that they need/use this redefined religion to provide "spiritual" comfort while performing these acts.

Yes the cynicism is there, but the "praying" is the means by which the subject performing the acts is able to feel authentic while performing them.

Also they're all performing for each other, too.

> Have you ever heard anything said by the current US president? It's just incoherent rambling.

Which is ironic considering all we heard from MAGA/Fox for the last 4 years is that Biden was incoherent and senile.

Agreed, absolutely everything done needs to be viewed through the lens of what will the ratings/viewership be. Everything makes more sense. Just think of the public spectacle, interviewing world leaders in the pulpit at the Whitehouse for example. It's a live TV show.

The "balling out Europe" stuff again. Their goal is to ultimately normalise the idea that the EU is an enemy in advance of the Greenland invasion. The leaking of clarified information doesn't matter because A) US service personal are expendable and B) the involvement in Yemen is now only to keep up appearances of being allied to Saudi Arabia who will in the long term also get the same treatment as the EU because their fuel output competes with US/Russia.

From the outside they both come across as incompetent and senile and it's hard to believe those are really the people at the top.

It doesn't really matter if Biden was a drooling vegetable, if his appointments were competent at doing their jobs.

These guys are, sadly competent at... Well, a few things, but none of them include 'good governance'.

It’s hard for me to consider a successful propaganda campaign as ironic. The word you’re looking for is either hypocritical or malicious.

It did matter in the election.