General Discussion

Last edited Sat Oct 4, 2025, 12:32 AM - Edit history (1)

A longer version of that with no paywall.
https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/politics/stupidology/

Trump’s lying is no less constant or blatant than in 2016, but by now it feels familiar, already priced in. What more is there to say about the “war on truth,” a decade into Trump’s political career? Still, at least two aspects of his second administration are newly and undoubtedly “stupid.” One is shambolic incompetence of a degree that led an Atlantic journalist to be accidentally added to a Signal group chat about US military operations, a group whose other members included the vice president and the secretary of defense (it was this debacle that prompted Clinton’s op-ed). A second is an incomprehensible determination to press ahead with policies — such as tariffs and the defunding of medical research — that will do deep harm without any apparent gain, even for Trump’s backers and clients, still less his voters. The spectacle of a prominent vaccine skeptic and wellness crank as secretary of health and human services goes beyond an abandonment of truth; it feels like an assault on human progress. Bans on fluoride in tap water, passed by legislators in Utah and Florida at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s behest, mark a new hostility to the very concept of public use values. The escalation from Trump One to Trump Two has seen irrationality spread from the deliberative public sphere to flood the veins of government.