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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

Incredible how Trump ran on a "no wars" and "lower prices" platform. And that people actually believed it.

The Israeli lobby paid more than the voters.

To be honest, the Fell for it again award goes to a lot of voters across the world. It has become a routine part of politics. What is fascinating is how confidently repeating almost any claim, over and over, is often enough to make people eventually believe it. "He wouldn’t have lied to us"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

The value of the Trump presidency for his voters was never really about those issues, so much as who he was promising to hurt.

For the core of his base certainly, but he can't win with just them, it's not enough. He won because of the median voter that was mad at the incumbent party for inflation.

You know what else will blow your mind? Mass media excusing Trump from blame, followed by a good Republican showing in the midterms. Trump will be the only president to escape punishment for inflation. Mark my words.

The administration didn't even bother manufacturing consent this time and yet the media is acting like they did during the Iraq war. Democratic leaders are weakly pretending like they opposed the war but they really stalled the war powers resolution so it would happen before they forced the vote. Now they get to spend the first half of their statements condemning Iran and the second half weakly protesting about procedural issues and lack of an "exit strategy".

> administration didn't even bother manufacturing consent this time and yet the media is acting like they did

Which might suggest holes in Chomsky’s hypotheses.

> they really stalled the war powers resolution so it would happen before they forced the vote

The war’s timeline was moved back so materiel could be relocated and moved up because of Khamenei’s meeting. Democrats don’t control the Supreme Leader’s calendar.

This was an opportunistic war of choice pursued by one man. Partisan politics mean anything he does will be popular with Republicans and hated by Democrats, with all the electoral action happening at their margins while all the rhetoric is dominated by their cores. (The polling on this war isn’t black and white, either.)

It’s tempting to try and shoehorn this into one of the old narratives about there being a master plan. But sometimes nobody has a plan, they just sort of have a vibe.

This was an opportunistic war of choice pursued by one man

Completely agree. My problem is with his use of the entire nation's war fighting system and materials. We should at least have our elected representatives vote, after the Senate deliberates. None of that happened as you note. One guy, one vibe, one nation.

I expect a very bad showing for Republicans in the midterms. They will almost certainly lose the House, and it's actually becoming possible that they will lose the Senate (which seemed laughable to even consider a year ago).

It's really not about them "believing" it. They tend to "believe" any new reality they are presented with if given by the "right" person. And they will just as quickly discard those "beliefs" if they are told something different by the "right" person. Trump is that person for them right now. Ultimately there is no value that "conservatives" aren't willing to abandon other than maintaining the hierarchy. Everything else seems to be in service to that end. They fight hardest when new groups are receiving rights they didn't previously enjoy. It's never been about "fiscal responsibility". It's never been about "small government" or "states rights". They are quite happy to abandon all of those if a trans person might be be able to use a bathroom in peace.

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." ~ Maya Angelou

But at least we have the second coming of Christ soon, so none of that will matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

xkcd://2345

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