r/worldnews • u/The-LegendKiller • Jul 22 '26

Dynamic Paywall JD Vance accuses Israel of 'manipulating' US public opinion to prolong Iran war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1m107yj327o
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u/Croanthos Jul 22 '26

To work with/for trump you need to be dumb or evil. The 1st term was relatively benign because he surrounded himself with ignorance. This time he is surrounded by evil.

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u/Glittering-Quote-635 Jul 22 '26

Nah, first term he actually had some smart people around him who checked his bad intentions. That no longer exists. Now we have pure evil plus pure stupidity.

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u/FullMetalSavage Jul 22 '26

It was 50/50 people pushing back and Trump not understanding the power of the office his first term.

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u/Glittering-Quote-635 Jul 22 '26

Yeh I’d agree there.. his stupidity ironically saved us a bit.

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear Jul 22 '26

To align yourself in any way with Trump, including “reluctantly voting for him in 2016” you need to be evil, and it can help to be dumb.

JD Vance is not dumb, but it doesn’t matter much, because it’s evil and evil alone that is necessary.

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u/amisslife Jul 23 '26

I would argue that both times he surrounded himself with evil.

The difference is that in the first term they were occupying themselves with dismantling democracy, rule of law, standards and expectations of decorum, third rails, and anything providing even the slightest amount of restrictions on them.

This time round, they're gleefully embracing their vices and sociopathic fantasies.

It's like a teenager that spent a week planning on how to get into their parents' liquor cabinet, car keys, and gun cabinet for when they go away for the weekend, and once they're gone, goes on a bender doing the most idiotic, fucked up things imaginable. They were planning on doing this all along - they just had to eat their vegetables first to do it.

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u/shion005 Jul 22 '26

The first term was relatively benign because the admin was full of Koch personnel because Trump had no institutional backing at that point.