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Comment by taylodl | Hacker News Reader

Now the Tylenol makers have grounds for suing RFK Jr for defamation.

That was the plan to begin with.

Great way to dispense a few billion of taxpayer money in settlements as a favor while everyone's distracted by the story and laughing about how dumb RFK and Trump are.

They're not that dumb. Anything that seems particularly illogical has underlying motives. Look and you'll find more instances of this. Much more.

I think you overestimate some of the people involved.

Isn't this just the "4d chess" argument?

I do think the "DAE TRUMP IS A DUMMY?!?!?!?" narrative has done a lot of harm over the last decade because nobody took his campaign seriously, but RFK is absolutely a moron.

Or, at least, he is very sincere in his convictions about many very dumb things

I'm not buying your "3-D chess" explanation that it was a ruse to give taxpayer $$ to Tylenol stockholders, all along.

How about: RFK is smart, but insane, and Trump is genuinely stupid, as people who meet him have been saying for decades.

> RFK is smart

Based on what evidence?

Perhaps they meant in comparison to Trump and the rest of Trump's cabinet?

There is lichen in my garden that would clear that bar.

Fair.

"Stupid" doesn't seem to be the right word to apply to a man who has managed to (annoyingly) command the attention of the entire world and who has gotten himself elected as the most powerful man in the world twice.

I do not like the man. I find his behavior to be corrupt, immoral, and unethical.

And I also do not hesitate for one moment to admit that he is a singular figure in history who has a deep understanding of human beings and how to exploit them. That may not be classic-elite-intellectual-book-smartness, but it is some kind of smartness, and far from stupid.

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