Ideally, "hacker news" is for people who have a hacker/engineer mindset. Look at the actual facts of the situation, not the flashy sales brochure.
Odds are that your second hypothesis is the correct one. You may wish to start by comparing what you think the current administration is doing with what it is actually doing.
You cannot count on Fox News to be accurate, they have never claimed to present "accurate" news.
You may be interested in the results of this study, where Fox viewers were paid to watch CNN for a month.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fox-news-study-compari...
MAGA is a particular brand of "the right" that is pretty clearly evil/dumb.
Ultimately USA is just 350 million people. Without its allies it's just another country. You can't bully half the world into "better deals" forever. Some countries might agree short-term out of desperation, but long term they'll throw you under the bus.
Consider how you would behave if your business partner changed the price +25% -25% every few days, threatened to cut you off if you don't do what he wants and insulted you randomly. You'd search for a reliable competition.