Yeah, this is why I think the aspects of LHC beyond raw brainpower are incredibly important to keep in mind. All of these people hate other smart people. All of them hate American institutions. All of them hate American ideals like liberty and democracy. But they love trolling and internet attention and so on.
Maybe a solid rule of thumb is this—do they care more what other wealthy/smart people think of them, or what the common man does? This is the whole "EHC will take a low-paying job at the New York Times just because other elites will be impressed" phenomenon. Elon and RFK care much more about winning fights on Twitter. Hegseth cares about looking handsome on TV (and Trump likes him because he looks handsome on TV). (Burgum and Vance are weirder cases—I think they very much want to be old-school elite Republicans, but are playing along with the populism because Trump's totally captured the institutions & the voter base.)
Yeah, this is why I think the aspects of LHC beyond raw brainpower are incredibly important to keep in mind. All of these people hate other smart people. All of them hate American institutions. All of them hate American ideals like liberty and democracy. But they love trolling and internet attention and so on.
Maybe a solid rule of thumb is this—do they care more what other wealthy/smart people think of them, or what the common man does? This is the whole "EHC will take a low-paying job at the New York Times just because other elites will be impressed" phenomenon. Elon and RFK care much more about winning fights on Twitter. Hegseth cares about looking handsome on TV (and Trump likes him because he looks handsome on TV). (Burgum and Vance are weirder cases—I think they very much want to be old-school elite Republicans, but are playing along with the populism because Trump's totally captured the institutions & the voter base.)