It's easier to understand if you consider they might literally be agents of a foreign government.

Thought terminating cope from people unwilling to accept that they live in a nation full of cruel oinking swine, enough to control the government at the moment. No, they must be foreign assets. Thinking that way makes it easier to ignore the fact that the American individualist (read: selfish and cruel) ideology is baked into every aspect of the country's propaganda. Much easier to ignore it, write hagiographies that have the greed that drove the smugglers and wealthy elite to found this country's morals replaced by rapping stage actors. Craft narratives that the crumbling of the fine character of a nation practicing racial segregation until only half a century ago is actually the crafty infiltration of the savage slavic mind.

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NalNezumi a day ago | parent | next [-]

Apologies in advance for off-topic but I couldn't help but reading your sentence with the tone of a rapper. Like Deltron 3030 or Aesop rock. I think it would sound great.

If there's a text to speech for rapping I'd really love to insert your sentence.

	▲	k12sosse 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm sure this will get me an angry message from HN's HOA but here you go (couldn't find direct contact methods in your profile) suno.com/song/56c551ae-4162-407c-855a-28dc21b9d9e5 'inspired by' edition suno.com/song/da442a4a-0060-473b-b0b0-121076bdb5b8
	▲	k12sosse 20 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It was flagged for moderation.

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walrus01 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I have no idea what your personal background is but it's very interesting that without me saying it or even alluding to it, you jumped directly to what is your presumption of what nation-state ("slavic", presumably you're thinking Russia) that might be controlling foreign agents.

You know it's possible for some groups of people to be a mixed bag of cruel, venal, greedy, feckless, foolish and compromised, right? Of course it's not likely that everyone in the administration is literally a recruited foreign asset.

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anon7725 a day ago | parent [-]

I believe their point is that the talk about foreign interference is a red herring. The current administration reflects a deeper rot in the culture.

"As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

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burnoutdv a day ago | parent [-]

I would say that the current maga goverment of the USA is the result of the culture, not the other way around. There might be _some_ funny business around the elections but overall the people that fall to/want exactly this government are not few

	▲	krapp 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		MAGA was just the normalization of politics which have existed within the American right and Evangelical Christianity since at least WW2, and which reached an inflection point with 9/11 and Obama's election. None of it is new and none of it is a foreign plot. Trump isn't a Russian asset, he's an avatar of America's hatred of itself.

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hamper653 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Never see malice where incompetence is a sufficient explanation.

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walrus01 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Could be a core cadre of 5% of clearly compromised or foreign agents recruiting a vast amount of fools and putting them in the positions where they can do the most damage.

	▲	hamper653 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Or it could be a core cadre of 51% of clearly foolish Americans electing a vast amount of fools and putting them in the positions where they will do the most damage.

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throw0101a a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Never see malice where incompetence is a sufficient explanation.

¿Por qué no los dos?

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conception a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are making hundreds of millions of dollars on the grift. They seem quite comptent.

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no-name-here a day ago | parent | next [-]

Hundreds of millions dramatically undersells what happened in Trump's ~first year back in office:

Trump personally made $3 billion during his 2nd term's 1st year. [1]

19-year-old high school graduate Barron Trump earned $150 million dollars. [2]

Also, Trump's children stand to profit from a $1.6 billion mining deal that Trump cut as president this term - 'Kaz Resources'. [3]

Also, "The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr." - 'Vulcan Elements'. [4]

Also, "Trump’s Sons Land Massive Pentagon Deal as They Flaunt Corruption" via "Powerus" a company founded last year and which merged with a golf club in March. [5]

The Trump family cryptocurrency company received a $500m investment by the Emirati royal family, before the Trump admin announced that the Emirates would be allowed to import enough Nvidia AI chips to build the largest AI campus outside the US. [6]

Edit: As alluded to by walrus01, "The double life of Jared Kushner, mixing business with politics as emissary for his father-in-law Donald Trump … Ivanka Trump's husband has a career as an unofficial diplomat and a master dealmaker, juggling billions and focusing his activities on the Middle East and Near East. His latest coup, carried out with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, was the $55 billion acquisition of video game giant Electronic Arts." [8]

While Trump and his family have made billions during Trump's first year back as president, for an example of how Republicans treated Biden family finances: in 2018, while Biden was out of office, Biden received a check from his brother with "loan repayment" written on it for 200K. Despite that Biden was not in office then, and the small amount (compared to not just thousands or even millions, but billions that Trump and his family have made in Trump's first year back in office), 5 years later, in 2023, Republicans were still investigating that $200K loan repayment. [7]

[1] https://theweek.com/politics/donald-trump-presidency-wealth

[2] https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/how-did-barron...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/28/world/europe/trump-lutnic...

[4] https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-vulcan-de...

[5] https://newrepublic.com/post/209840/donald-jr-eric-trump-mil...

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/02/trump-uae-cr...

[7] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/31/politics/fact-check-evide...

[8] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/10/07/the-dou...

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walrus01 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Heck, all of that is like the tip of an iceberg, before anyone even googles like "kushner + saudis"

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psadauskas 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But, what about Hunter Biden's laptop!? /s

	▲	no-name-here 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's actually an excellent example - perhaps the closest thing to something real for Joe Biden to come out of the laptop was that in 2017, while Joe was a private citizen and held no office, an email between his son and his son's business partners had proposed Joe take a 10% share in a foreign deal his son was negotiating. 6 days later in 2017, Hunter replied that Joe had replied "an emphatic NO" when the idea was presented to him. https://www.vox.com/2020/10/22/21529237/hunter-biden-debate-... Republicans spent years focusing on a potential deal that Joe had quickly said no to, which was while Joe was out of office anyway. Meanwhile Trump in both term 1 and term 2 has been actively getting foreign income, but crickets. (I realize you said /s.)

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hamper653 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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spit2wind a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some direct quotes are,

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.

We want to put them in trauma.”

That was Russel Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget and key author or Project 2025.

Trump also said, "a whole civilization will die tonight".

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hamper653 a day ago | parent [-]

These people aren’t very bright, are they?

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Timon3 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They've successfully planned and executed a takeover of the US government that will take decades to undo, if it's even possible at all. Of course they are bright, you don't stumble into causing this much damage.

They are simply thoroughly evil. This is easy to mask as "stupid", but stupid people wouldn't be able to be so consistent.

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Gud 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They are capable of executing in their own self interest. I doubt they have full understanding about the 2nd and 3rd order effects of their actions.

I wouldn't call them stupid, but they are hardly bright.

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Timon3 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe you've seen something I haven't, but why do you think that regarding e.g. Russell Vought? His primary goal has long been to swing the US towards Christian nationalism, and he has made enormous strides towards that. People like him are well aware of the negatives consequences these decisions have, but to them it's worth the pain.

I can't truly say since I've never talked to him (and I hope it stays that way), but IMO I simply cannot imagine someone doing everything Russell Vought has done to America, without being fairly smart. Maybe he's just acting as a proxy for smart people, but someone behind Project 2025 etc. objectively must be very intelligent.

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walrus01 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There's a reflexive tendency to assume that anyone implementing cruel and bigoted policies must also be stupid, regretfully, this is sometimes not the case. As you have so accurately described, it's a very careful and calculated plan to move towards a desired end state. Whether that desired end state goal looks something like Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale, and whether you're supposed to like that, or abhor it, totally other question...

	▲	hamper653 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is it though? Desiring such an end state sounds pretty stupid to me.

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hamper653 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, Americans have consistently elected these people, haven’t they? This is easy to mask as "evil", but…

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Timon3 18 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't know what you're trying to say. Evil people can run for elections and receive votes.

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hamper653 17 hours ago | parent [-]

But not-very-bright evil people can’t?

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Timon3 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course they can, but as I already said, you don't stumble into causing this much damage. Damage caused by genuine stupidity would be distributed more randomly.

	▲	hamper653 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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lazide 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

	▲	hamper653 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed.

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lazide 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That is exactly how you end up in this situation.

There are actually malicious people in the world, and many of them like to pretend to be incompetent as a smokescreen.

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dandanua a day ago | parent | prev [-]

more likely alien race