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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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Either he knowingly put someone "weak on security" in charge of counterterrorism efforts, or he's a lying bullshitter who just makes shit up about you if you ever upset him.

Isn't this what Trump and Trump supporters actually want you to think though – that Trump is a lying bullshitter who will dunk on you if you upset him, regardless of the truth/falsity/merits of the case? That way he can build a coalition that maintains loyalty and enables him to use his bully pulpit to ram things through in a way others could not, because they are afraid to oppose him. That is how his whole operation works. If he didn't lie and bullshit, it would be possible for his opponents to use reason and evidence to combat his insults, which would defang them significantly. They have to be regarded as insult theatre, not grounded in reality, to act as effective in/out-group markers.

I would have thought that MAGA supporters would at least tacitly accept this characterisation, though I confess they sometimes surprise me.

I disagree about characterizing it as lying, but yeah, the simple statement that his insults don't really mean much, and are more reflective of whether he perceived their target as loyal or disloyal than of their actual merits, is uncontroversial.