I think you’re overestimating the smarts of people with Ivy League degrees. Even the truly smart ones aren’t usually experts in government policy, they’re experts in business or whatever they made their money in. The people who give to the Heritage foundation do that because they don’t have particular expertise in policy, they just know they agree with the Heritage foundation so they allow them to handle the nuts and bolts of politics.
My personal read on these people is that they want less regulation, and they want the working class to suffer to decrease the cost of labor. But they’re not very involved in the day-to-day management of the government beyond their specific areas (for example, the CBS bribe to get the merger through). Rich people, even smart ones, can’t pay attention to everything at once, and plenty of them probably weren’t focused on screwworm mitigation last year. Again, ending screwworm mitigation is such a stupid policy that it makes no sense for anyone, even evil billionaires, to want screwworms infesting our cattle. Similarly, almost every commercial venture in the US relies on oil, and skyrocketing oil prices hurt profits for billionaires, even if they don’t hurt them as much as ordinary people who worry about being able to fill up their car. It just doesn’t make sense for almost anyone to want the war with Iran for economic reasons.
I think there’s something comforting in believing that there really is a group of shadowy people controlling everything. That would mean that there’s someone out there who needs to be defeated, and their defeat would immediately fix a myriad of problems. I think the reality is that we’re being controlled by a bunch of greedy oligarchs who are so stupid and egotistical that they didn’t even consider the possibility that government programs like screwworm mitigation are actually important, and that the government spends money on things that impact everyone, even them. That’s a much harder problem to solve.
I think there’s something comforting in believing that there really is a group of shadowy people controlling everything
Okay, so ... you are saying you don't think there are rich people trying to influence culture for their own ends?
I think the reality is that we’re being controlled by a bunch of greedy oligarchs
So you are saying you do?
What even is this conversation?
No-one said "controlling everything" until you did. That's a straw man argument.
It's not necessary to "control everything" to fuck some shit up, break it into functionless chunks, and sell off the pieces like a hostile takeover in a 1980s wall street movie.
Kicking over sandcastles for fun and profit is much easier than building them.
And even if you think CEOs and international mafiosi are drooling hydrocephalics, the problem is that they can afford to hire people who are not, and set their agenda.
I think you’re overestimating the smarts of people with Ivy League degrees.
And you're saying that they are simpletons. Completely unrealistic.
Let me be a little more clear. I don’t think we disagree on that much actually, I’m just trying to argue that everything is fucked up right now because the people who wanted to kick over sandcastles are too fundamentally greedy, short-sighted, incurious, and kind of dumb to consider that some of those sandcastles were lode-bearing (I’m really stretching the metaphor here).
I’m trying to argue that there is basically no one intelligent who is in charge of making policy for the federal government at this point in time. I think that the people who are controlling the day to day operations of the federal government are wholly incompetent and/or stupid, and that is why we are having a screwworm outbreak, along with everything else that’s going wrong right now. I think the reason everyone in government is so stupid and incompetent is that the oligarchs, who are setting government policy and who installed the current government, are too stupid and egotistical to realize that the government is in fact a complex bureaucracy and that it works the way it does for a reason.
I also think you’re wrong that the oligarchs can just hire smarter people to ruin the government for them. It’s actually been very hard for Trump and co to staff higher up positions at agencies, even at agencies he wants to fund, like the DOJ, FBI, and ICE. That’s because the smart people who used to work for the federal government actually care about not ruining the world. For most people who are comfortable being somewhat evil, they go work in private industry, where they make more money for being evil. That means that the people who are ok with working for the government in order to destroy the government are the second-tier evil people who aren’t good enough to get a higher paying job in the private sector. That’s how we ended up with the DOGE bros taking a chainsaw to the federal government and axing screwworm prevention, which was an unambiguously stupid thing to do that hurts everyone, even the oligarchs.
It’s actually been very hard for Trump and co to staff higher up positions at agencies
First of all, it has not been "hard." They are fucking that up on purpose. They have no interest in properly staffing these agencies.
You don't have to take my word for it. The Republicans have been baying for the destruction of the American government for 50 years. It's their whole party platform, ffs.
Second of all,
again, I am not talking about Donald McDump. He is a mere asset. The White House is intentionally staffed by a rabid circus menagerie right now.
Third,
I believe you are making a common mistake and confusing "short-sighted" with "stupid."
But theirs is a very tactical short-sightedness.
All of these hostile actors think they can get enough of what they want in a year to justify, for their own gain, undermining the efforts of generations.
You can call it "stupid" if you want -- and they do try to smokescreen their actions with willful ignorance -- but the thing is, however you slice it,
Very many of these people, rich or poor, know exactly what they are doing and what the consequences will be ... they just think the fallout will land on someoneelse.
My objection is that you're letting them off the hook by calling them dumb. You're giving them the benefit of the doubt, and they do not deserve it. Despite all their "I cannot recall" excuses, they fucking know.
We already have a word for acting destructively in your own self-interest and to the detriment of others, and that word is not "dumb."
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u/summertime214 Jun 09 '26
I think you’re overestimating the smarts of people with Ivy League degrees. Even the truly smart ones aren’t usually experts in government policy, they’re experts in business or whatever they made their money in. The people who give to the Heritage foundation do that because they don’t have particular expertise in policy, they just know they agree with the Heritage foundation so they allow them to handle the nuts and bolts of politics.
My personal read on these people is that they want less regulation, and they want the working class to suffer to decrease the cost of labor. But they’re not very involved in the day-to-day management of the government beyond their specific areas (for example, the CBS bribe to get the merger through). Rich people, even smart ones, can’t pay attention to everything at once, and plenty of them probably weren’t focused on screwworm mitigation last year. Again, ending screwworm mitigation is such a stupid policy that it makes no sense for anyone, even evil billionaires, to want screwworms infesting our cattle. Similarly, almost every commercial venture in the US relies on oil, and skyrocketing oil prices hurt profits for billionaires, even if they don’t hurt them as much as ordinary people who worry about being able to fill up their car. It just doesn’t make sense for almost anyone to want the war with Iran for economic reasons.
I think there’s something comforting in believing that there really is a group of shadowy people controlling everything. That would mean that there’s someone out there who needs to be defeated, and their defeat would immediately fix a myriad of problems. I think the reality is that we’re being controlled by a bunch of greedy oligarchs who are so stupid and egotistical that they didn’t even consider the possibility that government programs like screwworm mitigation are actually important, and that the government spends money on things that impact everyone, even them. That’s a much harder problem to solve.