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Comment by Lendal | Hacker News Reader

How do we even know they're being honest? They've been lying about everything for so long, and now we're just suddenly gonna believe they're being honest only when it pertains to Venezuela? Why?

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Well, they're pretty blunt and open about "get their oil" motives.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/us-will-look-tap-ven...

If they're lying... that's an awfully strange choice of lies. It makes them look rather thuggish. Usually you pick a lie that would make you look better, right?

The administration doesn't care about whether their motives appear palatable or not. Every decision is based on an ever increasing cascade of consequences they can dam up and then release on other people so said administration can go do something else during the cleanup. Aside from one person who's a massive narcissist they don't give a damn about how they're perceived. They only cared when other people had the authority to grand them authority, but now that they are the authority they'll never give it away. And when you don't have to worry about losing your authority you don't have to care about what people think of you. This is why the weakest monarchs were the ones with debts, and the strongest ones were those with centralized militaries.

When the howling base demands mass deportations they look quiet peacefully.

They like being seen as thugs. Being a thug generally works on people because most people are too scared to challenge them.

They are telling you who they are. Believe them.

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