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Comment by kubectl_h | Hacker News Reader

> "I just don't see Trump being a warmonger, but Kamala, she very well could be."

It's not Trump that will be the "warmonger", it's the people he empowers. Trump is a shallow personality -- all he wants is attention, he does not have an ideology. For the boring part of actually enacting policy he defers to supplicants and this time around his supplicants are more unserious and self-interested than the first time around.

This is just basic 2nd order reasoning that it seems like so many people in this country lack.

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All the Republicans who were against him being re-elected are the warhawk wing of the party. There is zero evidence of him being inclined to be a warmonger, and a lot of evidence (and history) to the contrary.

> all he wants is attention, he does not have an ideology

This is not demonstrably true. He's had a consistent ideology since the beginning- MAGA and now MAHA too.

I used to think Trump was shallow, for maybe a few months in 2015. The problem with that is if you think Trump is shallow, it means all the people who voted for him and love him are stupid. In fact, you implied you think this:

> This is just basic 2nd order reasoning that it seems like so many people in this country lack.

Your operating philosophy cannot be that everyone who disagrees with you is stupid.

Your point about supplicants can be equally applied to Kamala.

> Your operating philosophy cannot be that everyone who disagrees with you is stupid.

I don't think people are stupid. I think they don't think things through.

MAGA is not a coherent political policy. Project 2025 is at least soundly documented and is probably the set of policies we'll see out of this admin.

I googled MAHA and it doesn't seem like a thing beyond a boilerplate website and twitter account nobody follows and some videos from RFK. Again, not a policy, just a platitude like MAGA and an unserious one at that.

"Those people don't think things through" then parroting the objectively false Project 2025 nonsense.

OK then, think this through - Trump has said the parts of P25 he's read are stupid, he doesn't support it, and it's from a group of people who don't work for him (some of them used to but none did when it was published). It's bog standard DC think tank pablum that nobody cares about.

Even supporters of Trump routinely say that you shouldn't take him on face value, vis-a-vis tariffs, etc. Why should I take what he said about 2025 seriously? His son and VP are absolutely aligned with the goals of the Heritage Foundation.

It's exactly what he did with Roe, trusted and subsequently empowered people whose ideology is stronger and, frankly, unaligned with his and look what happened.

Dobbs didn't happen because Trump got hoodwinked by a bunch of social conservatives. Maybe I'm retconning this in my brain but overturning Roe has been a thing with the GOP for a long time, Trump always said he was going to appoint conservative judges and justices, and he's said since that he'd veto a national abortion ban.

It's unfortunate that on this issue most of the GOP is in the "never, ever" camp and most of the left is in the "any time, any place, for any reason" camp. We'd be much better off as a country if we allowed it before ~20 weeks electively, disallowed it after ~20 weeks unless the mother is about to die, and just moved on. That would keep us more liberal on this issue than 99% of Europe, still protect people from unplanned pregnancy, and result in net fewer abortions in the US.

Trump had no actual interest in who he nominated, he just followed the guidelines of organizations like Heritage. That's my point: Trump does not have an interrogative bone in his body and he can be manipulated into making decisions by much smarter people that are thinking multiple steps ahead of him.

If you voted for him, possibly still not stupid. Love him? Definitely stupid.

> Your point about supplicants can be equally applied to Kamala.

Ah yes, the district attorney with a long political career is exactly same as the reality TV star.

IMO Ex-president is a better credential than having a long political career, which often means, connected, corrupted and conformist.

And we can't think of any potential disqualifiers for this ex-president? Nothing at all?

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