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Why wouldn't I believe it? It's what he said explicitly. And he went on to further state what he thought the consequences of that move would be and how he would respond to those consequences.
If you think that's an insane plan, fair enough, but that's what he says in his own words that he wants to do.
Because it would be kind of impractical to fire/hire literally every position upon taking office, and Vance does not appear to be mentally retarded?
This is exactly what sanewashing is though. "Well literally abolishing the police would obviously be retarded, so they obviously don't mean that." But yes, they really did literally want to abolish the police and they actually were retarded.
I don't know if Trump is going to go ahead with this full scale cleanout of the bureaucracy, but I know Vance isn't the only person on his side who wants this and is planning for it. Like the whole Project 2025 thing has gotten a lot of press couching it in vaguely conspiratorial terms as a secret policy agenda but the more substantial and meaningful part of the project IMO is the effort to build a database of loyalists pre-vetted to come and fill those positions.
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