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I suspect at least one, if not both, started out as true believers. And then this stuff became their job while they were being briefed on classified intelligence. Because, you know, the "deep state" does in fact try to give the legislature the information they need in order to do their jobs well.
r/the_donald I believe started as a psyop, but the strategy they used of getting people in on a joke and then making it real kind of applies here too. I think at the start they were true believers, spouting the idiotic bullshit while fully believing it. They found they were rewarded by that behavior and intentionally escalated it and kept it up. At some point they believe most of it, but still use all of it. Now, even if they no longer believe because they've spent the last several years getting educated for the first time in their lives, they absolutely have to keep the act up.
They're following the playbook because they were recruited by the playbook. Every time they touched the MAGA button they got a treat. Now they're millionaires. A fucking rat can do that.
As an aside, I don't think Trump's much different in many ways in playing to a crowd. One difference is that I do think he was directed by Putin early. But he's not a political rally savant. He just goes to these rallies and likes when people cheer for him. So he pushes the "cheer for me" button. Evidence of that is when he got booed for promoting the vaccine. He's not a genius at controlling the narrative. He just uses the narrative that works (even if much of that narrative was handed to him). He's not the first person who can identify what people want to hear. And he has help. He, like any politician, has advisors doing polls and telling him what his people want to hear.
There exist smart Republicans who have been acting the entire time for grift and were never true believers. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Jim Jordan. The problem with acting in bad faith and using stupid bullshit is that you do attract those true believers, and those true believers eventually advance. I bet a good chunk of the Republican caucus actually believes in trickle down economics. Because the people they see are the ones that benefit from it, and they're heavily incentivized to rationalize their bullshit however they can.
I'm open to being wrong. It's just a hypothesis.