https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/ I can't believe they're actually this stupid.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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That’s because it won’t appear to him. He spent probably all of his life in a fucking dreamworld getting told how great and smart he is up until the point where he actually started believing it.
Its hyperreality, as Adam Curtis shows in his documentary mostly focusing on Putin... but the Trump admin is actually too stupid to realize ... that that is what it is, they fell for their own bs, sheltered and curated worldviews because they are so, so skilled at (really, privileged enough to be able to) surrounding themselves with yes men and sycophants and cult members.
I mean, a big element of it is falling for much of Putin's actually intentionally constructed hyperreality... but the Trump admin and MAGA people are actually too stupid to even been correctly just... generally cynical, and the result is honestly more akin to a 1944/45 Nazi movement that has leaders and followers mostly just still in denial/cognitive dissonance and grandiose cult like faith at the same time.
But the MAGA hyperreality ... isn't centrally planned or directed. Its ... basically an accidental consensus of a bunch of idiots screaming different kinds of idiocy into the void loud enough, and the kinda sorta generally agreed on hyperreality is whatever ends up echoing the loudest and most clearly.
They can't even project stability or competency, even as hollow suits, even as a false but semi-convincing front.
Just go look at the last two weeks ish of public appearances of Trump and his cabinet and Elon.
Half of them are having emotional breakdowns, manic episodes live on air, Hohman, whatever, the DHS goon leading deportations... either he was fucking drunk, or his dentures were falling out of his mouth, a reporter/news host asks him a question and he gives like a 75 word rambling response, maybe 10 of the words actually intelligible.
The inmates are running the asylum.
... Oh well, at least I've personally passed through the intense despair and depression phase of knowing this was coming, and am now just laughing at how truly stupid and farsical this all is, and how it is honestly, precisely what Americans deserve for either being idiot cult members, apathetic, or placing their faith in an utterly incompetent Democratic party that just still thinks its 1992, or squabbling over inane idpol differences.
We are apparently actually so stupid, irresponsible and/or more concerned with petty nonsense issues that we are just actually going to have to go through the fire of either overthrowing these malevolent morons, or just acquiesce to all becoming true debt serfs and burn to a crisp.
i will just make here a small correction, on the sense that i personally don't believe that putin and the russian elites live in some sort of hyperreality. i do believe that they assess reality, but one can question this assessment. however trump and his cronies really shat on their pants because they truly freaked out on a small denture on their shining armor: people questioning why the u.s. is the way it is, people organizing, making strikes, protesting against racism, and then of course luigi happened. they totally freaked out because they didn't wanted to even have the "nightmare" of being toppled down of their positions (economical, social, etc.)
I think I agree with you but maybe didn't explain my stance so well.
Putin and his immediate orbit are ... largely, but not entirely, successfully creating a hyperreality for everyone else to live in and experience, they purposefully engage in it as an intentional tactic, to sow confusion and chaos around everything, and then at least project into that chaos that they are stability.
Trump and his immediate circle... are too fucking incompotent to engage in creating a hyperreality as an intentional tactic... in the sense that they actually believe in half of the insane bullshit they throw out into the world, and they are not actually capable of projecting themselves as that island of stability.
Putin and co largely do not live in the hyperreality they create, at least not anywhere near to the extent Trump and co do.
Putin usually knows when he's lying or promoting an utterly dubious notion.
Of course there are some utter nonsense ideas that Putin seems to truly believe, what with his personal idea of how Russo/Slavic history, and identity actually work, and his initial vast overestimation of the capability of the Russian military.
But Trump... doesn't even know enough, in most instances, to even know if he is intentionally lying or not.
Trump himself is to a much greater extent, completely lost in the hyperreality he initially created, and can no longer wield it as a political/psychological weapon/tactic with intentionality.
To torture a metaphor:
Trump is lost in the sauce, utterly drowning in it, Putin just has a daily foot bath in the sauce.
i'm ok with that, it's a good summary.