A useful tidbit that stood out to me in this article:

“Noem [by lying] is training and testing the MAGA base”

Huh → “training and testing”

There’s a dance here: the regime is training its supports in how to think about and talk about current circumstances — but also testing the waters, seeing what sticks, what they’re willing to believe. Recognizing this as a bidirectional dance seems useful. Framing it as “training” instead of “telling” seems useful. Recognizing it as “testing” seems useful.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/ice-noem-dangerous-playbook