38 ms·

Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men.

by pm90 7mo ago

GJim 7mo ago
I don't think that is the whole picture. I suggest a significant cause is Trump's arrogance and only listening to the advice he wants to hear.
aa-jv 7mo ago
Its what happens when your nation state has been raised on an unhealthy diet of warrior narcissism.
orwin 7mo ago
It's not all. I tried as much as I could not commenting on it, but the delusions of _a lot_ of hn users on the subject, even a few whose opinion I respect, were unreal. People who are not MAGA btw. And I'm not sure most of those realise how delusional they were, even now. They will probably rewire their memory to forget what they believed 3 weeks ago, compress the time they were wrong. I initially thought the 'manufacturing consent' part of the war was botched, unlike Irak, but now to me it seems that people are much more susceptible to propaganda disguised as 'almost true' information on social media, and I am afraid I might be in the same boat.
- JeremyNT 7mo ago
  Their key insight is that you don't have to manufacture consent when so many voters just love the guy in the White House and will stand by him no matter what. Why waste time convincing anybody of anything, when support for the war will just converge on the president's approval rating anyway?
  - amanaplanacanal 7mo ago
    It certainly appears to be a cult of personality. If he had a massive stroke tomorrow, or one of his secret service detail took him out, could anyone around him pick up the baton and get that same level of support?
- tencentshill 7mo ago
  The facts are that this administration removed most of the top generals in the pentagon a year ago[0]. Notice the pattern in other areas of the administration when the opportunity for new appointments is created: Loyalty over competence and experience in almost every case. There are a few exceptions, but most were from His first term (Jpowell). [0]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fired-joint-chiefs-general-00205593 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fire...
- roryirvine 7mo ago
  It was certainly notable that so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid, ignoring the fact that America had facilitated the one-sided ceasefire imposed on Rojava just weeks before. A few more sceptical voices brought this up, and were told repeatedly that it didn't matter because the Kurds in Syria and Turkey are very different from those in Iraq & Iran. And there's certainly something in that - but it ignored the clunkingly obvious point that, if America had been thinking at all strategically, a bit more support of Rojava and would have demonstrated to all Kurds that "looking west" would be rewarded. It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. I suspect we'll see further such errors in analysis and response before the new reality fully sinks in.
  - generic92034 7mo ago
    Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside).
  - jmye 7mo ago
    > It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Another 1/3 don't think it, or anything past their TikTok feed, matters. The last 1/3 thought Team America was a documentary.
    - GJim 7mo ago
      > It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Sorry, but I don't think they do understand. America has managed to piss off Canada FFS. And lets be honest, you've got to work really hard to piss off the Canadians. Frankly, Americans (former) allies have seen the American people VOTE for Trump. Twice. Even if Trump goes tomorrow, the (former) allies know what a significant proportion of the US people want in a leader, and so may be in store at the next election.
pphysch 7mo ago
It is a ring of incompetent yes men, but behind those yes men is a nefarious foreign influence operation. These guys didn't arrive at their bad decisions by accident.
- pydry 7mo ago
  When you listen to the director of counterterrorism explain what happened in the run up to him resigning it fits pretty well the theory that Trump is compromised (possibly with kompromat) by a certain Middle Eastern country.
  - RugnirViking 7mo ago
    do you have a link?
    - pydry 7mo ago
      Look for the Tucker Carlson interview with Joe Kent. (Tucker Carlson is weirdly intelligent and thoughtful in that interview in a way i did not expect, but Joe said the most eye opening stuff... I have a lot of respect for him)
      - lyu07282 7mo ago
        There is this interesting split on the right on Israel, Tucker Carlson is one of the few large platforms talking on zionism. He also interviewed the US embassador to Israel Mike Huckabee who said they have a "biblical right to land from ‘wadi of Egypt to the great river’" (Greater Israel), he also reported on how Israeli is seeing Turkey as the next threat to eliminate after Iran. The left, not liberals but actual antiwar/antizionist left has been warning about Zionism and the Iran war for decades, nothing Tucker is saying is new, it's just nobody ever listens to those voices they have no platform are completely ignored in liberal media which is exclusively Zionist and pro-war. So when Tucker talks about it it's the first time most people ever hear this stuff, that's what makes Tucker so dangerous he is a white supremacists with a large platform who reads the room and recognizes the historic unpopularity of Israel, who has built a viable independent media platform for himself. Tucker is what an intelligent fascist Trump 2.0 would look like make no mistake.

Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men.

by pm90 7mo ago

Its what happens when you surround yourself with incompetent yes men.

GJim 7mo ago

I don't think that is the whole picture. I suggest a significant cause is Trump's arrogance and only listening to the advice he wants to hear.

aa-jv 7mo ago

Its what happens when your nation state has been raised on an unhealthy diet of warrior narcissism.

orwin 7mo ago

It's not all. I tried as much as I could not commenting on it, but the delusions of _a lot_ of hn users on the subject, even a few whose opinion I respect, were unreal. People who are not MAGA btw. And I'm not sure most of those realise how delusional they were, even now. They will probably rewire their memory to forget what they believed 3 weeks ago, compress the time they were wrong. I initially thought the 'manufacturing consent' part of the war was botched, unlike Irak, but now to me it seems that people are much more susceptible to propaganda disguised as 'almost true' information on social media, and I am afraid I might be in the same boat.

JeremyNT 7mo ago
Their key insight is that you don't have to manufacture consent when so many voters just love the guy in the White House and will stand by him no matter what. Why waste time convincing anybody of anything, when support for the war will just converge on the president's approval rating anyway?
- amanaplanacanal 7mo ago
  It certainly appears to be a cult of personality. If he had a massive stroke tomorrow, or one of his secret service detail took him out, could anyone around him pick up the baton and get that same level of support?
tencentshill 7mo ago
The facts are that this administration removed most of the top generals in the pentagon a year ago[0]. Notice the pattern in other areas of the administration when the opportunity for new appointments is created: Loyalty over competence and experience in almost every case. There are a few exceptions, but most were from His first term (Jpowell). [0]https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fired-joint-chiefs-general-00205593 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/cq-brown-trump-fire...
roryirvine 7mo ago
It was certainly notable that so many HNers seemed absolutely certain that the Kurds would come to the USA's aid, ignoring the fact that America had facilitated the one-sided ceasefire imposed on Rojava just weeks before. A few more sceptical voices brought this up, and were told repeatedly that it didn't matter because the Kurds in Syria and Turkey are very different from those in Iraq & Iran. And there's certainly something in that - but it ignored the clunkingly obvious point that, if America had been thinking at all strategically, a bit more support of Rojava and would have demonstrated to all Kurds that "looking west" would be rewarded. It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. I suspect we'll see further such errors in analysis and response before the new reality fully sinks in.
- generic92034 7mo ago
  Possibly they think they can make up what they lost in good will and cooperation with blackmail and pressure. It is doubtful it will work as reliably as in the past, though (second order effects even left aside).
- jmye 7mo ago
  > It has to be hard for Americans to realise that their government has pissed so much of the world off so badly. It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Another 1/3 don't think it, or anything past their TikTok feed, matters. The last 1/3 thought Team America was a documentary.
  - GJim 7mo ago
    > It is not hard, at all, for roughly 1/3 of Americans to understand this. Sorry, but I don't think they do understand. America has managed to piss off Canada FFS. And lets be honest, you've got to work really hard to piss off the Canadians. Frankly, Americans (former) allies have seen the American people VOTE for Trump. Twice. Even if Trump goes tomorrow, the (former) allies know what a significant proportion of the US people want in a leader, and so may be in store at the next election.

pphysch 7mo ago

It is a ring of incompetent yes men, but behind those yes men is a nefarious foreign influence operation. These guys didn't arrive at their bad decisions by accident.

pydry 7mo ago
When you listen to the director of counterterrorism explain what happened in the run up to him resigning it fits pretty well the theory that Trump is compromised (possibly with kompromat) by a certain Middle Eastern country.
- RugnirViking 7mo ago
  do you have a link?
  - pydry 7mo ago
    Look for the Tucker Carlson interview with Joe Kent. (Tucker Carlson is weirdly intelligent and thoughtful in that interview in a way i did not expect, but Joe said the most eye opening stuff... I have a lot of respect for him)
    - lyu07282 7mo ago
      There is this interesting split on the right on Israel, Tucker Carlson is one of the few large platforms talking on zionism. He also interviewed the US embassador to Israel Mike Huckabee who said they have a "biblical right to land from ‘wadi of Egypt to the great river’" (Greater Israel), he also reported on how Israeli is seeing Turkey as the next threat to eliminate after Iran. The left, not liberals but actual antiwar/antizionist left has been warning about Zionism and the Iran war for decades, nothing Tucker is saying is new, it's just nobody ever listens to those voices they have no platform are completely ignored in liberal media which is exclusively Zionist and pro-war. So when Tucker talks about it it's the first time most people ever hear this stuff, that's what makes Tucker so dangerous he is a white supremacists with a large platform who reads the room and recognizes the historic unpopularity of Israel, who has built a viable independent media platform for himself. Tucker is what an intelligent fascist Trump 2.0 would look like make no mistake.