Last Updated 26/03/2026 published 26/03/2026 by Hans Smedema

The Architecture of Dutch Systemic Denial: A Philosophical and Psychological Analysis of the Hans Smedema Affair

Introduction to the Mechanics of Institutional Capture

The anatomy of systemic institutional capture—particularly the phenomenon wherein a vast state apparatus is purportedly manipulated by a single locus of power over an extended chronological period—requires an analytical framework that transcends conventional political science and delves deeply into the darkest recesses of human psychology and philosophical pessimism. The case of the Hans Smedema Affair, which posits a fifty-year conspiracy orchestrated by former Secretary General of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, Joris Demmink, presents a unique paradigm of systemic obfuscation.1 The assertion that Demmink successfully manipulated the comprehensive Dutch intelligence services (BVD/AIVD), the total Police and Justice apparatus (OM), three generations of the Royal Family, and even the immediate domestic sphere of the target, including Smedema’s own wife, challenges the foundational assumptions of bureaucratic rationality.1

To comprehend how such a monumental suppression of truth is sustained, and why it remains exposed solely by isolated whistleblowers such as Hans Smedema and Al Rust 2, one must examine the foundational psychological and philosophical mechanics of power. The dynamics of this enduring denial are perfectly encapsulated by the political realism of Niccolò Machiavelli and the pessimistic epistemology of Arthur Schopenhauer, specifically as articulated in contemporary analyses of why irrational or manipulative actors frequently dominate global and institutional hierarchies.4 These philosophical lenses reveal that the Dutch State’s denial is not an aberration, a momentary glitch in the judicial matrix, or a mere systemic failure. Rather, it is the highly predictable, mathematically inevitable outcome of an institutional architecture designed from the ground up to protect the “Will” of the state over the pursuit of objective truth.4

This comprehensive analysis will deconstruct the psychological architecture of the Demmink apparatus, utilizing Machiavellian principles of perception management, crowd psychology, and the performative nature of power.4 Concurrently, it will apply Schopenhauerian insights into the absolute futility of logic against willful ignorance, the systemic hatred of conspicuous intelligence, and the tragedy of the “Intellect” serving as a mere captive to the irrational “Will”.4 By synthesizing these frameworks, the mechanisms through which the Hans Smedema Affair was rendered possible, and subsequently buried under half a century of state denial, will be fully illuminated.

The Machiavellian Infrastructure of the Dutch State Apparatus

The assertion that a single individual, Joris Demmink, could exert unilateral control over the Dutch Justice system, the AIVD, and the monarchy for half a century appears logistically impossible if viewed strictly through the lens of rational bureaucracy and democratic oversight.1 However, when analyzed through Machiavellian power dynamics, the mechanisms of this control become starkly apparent and deeply logical. Power, in the Machiavellian sense, does not naturally gravitate toward the most intelligent, the most just, or the most ethical; rather, it is consolidated and mercilessly held by those who possess a profound, manipulative understanding of human psychology, institutional vulnerability, and the deeply ingrained flaws of the collective human psyche.5

The Demand for Certainty and the Illusion of State Infallibility

The foundational axiom of Machiavellian control, which perfectly elucidates the complicity of the Dutch State, is that the populace—and by extension, the bureaucratic functionaries within the state apparatus itself—do not actually desire to be governed by complex intelligence or nuanced truth.5 Instead, there is a primal, systemic craving for confidence, stability, and absolute certainty.5 The truth of the Hans Smedema Affair, involving profound corruption at the highest echelons of the Dutch State, the systemic failure of the justice system, and the targeted, relentless psychological destruction of an individual, represents a catastrophic rupture in the narrative of state infallibility.1

Truth is inherently complicated, painful, and demands a heavy burden of moral and legal responsibility.5 Consequently, the bureaucratic masses prefer comforting illusions over agonizing realities.5 Demmink’s alleged power rested not merely on raw coercive force or blackmail, but on his unparalleled ability to provide the ultimate institutional illusion: the appearance of a functioning, uncorrupted, and perfectly stable justice system. Because the alternative—admitting to a fifty-year conspiracy involving the Royal Family, the highest echelons of the Ministry of Justice, and the AIVD—would cause a total collapse of institutional legitimacy and public trust, the state apparatus actively, instinctively chooses the simple, comforting lie over the complex truth.5

The bureaucrats within the OM (Public Prosecution Service) and the National Police are not necessarily active, malicious conspirators in every single instance; rather, they are willing, deeply relieved participants in a collective illusion because the manipulator provides a friction-less narrative that requires zero cognitive dissonance and zero moral courage.5 Intellectuals and truth-seekers are slow, hesitant, and constantly weigh probabilities; the manipulative “idiot” or the sociopathic actor acts quickly, speaks boldly, and provides the absolute certainty that the system desperately craves.5

Perception Management and the Spectacle of Virtue

Machiavelli observed centuries ago that in the ruthless arena of power, perception categorically supersedes reality. A ruler, or a powerful bureaucrat operating within the deep state, does not need to possess actual virtue, ethics, or moral standing; they must merely master the highly cultivated performance of appearing virtuous.5 Machiavelli explicitly noted that “everyone sees what you appear to be, but few experience what you really are,” a principle that serves as the absolute linchpin of the Demmink narrative.5

By occupying the highest positions within the Ministry of Justice, Demmink became the literal, institutional embodiment of the law. His position granted him a cloak of unassailable institutional virtue. The Dutch Royal Family, similarly, serves as the ultimate symbol of national virtue, historical continuity, and cultural stability. If Demmink possessed devastating leverage over three generations of Royals, as Smedema alleges, it was likely predicated on the mutual, terrifying necessity of maintaining this spectacle of virtue.2 The Royals and the Justice apparatus are locked in a symbiotic, inescapable performance. To expose the Hans Smedema Affair, to validate his claims and those of Al Rust, would be to permanently shatter the public’s perception of the state’s moral core.1

Therefore, the system automatically defends the manipulator. It does so because to destroy the manipulator would be to destroy the mirror through which the state projects its own legitimacy to the world.4 Most human beings—including highly trained investigators—judge authority based on surface-level traits such as tone, posture, institutional titles, bespoke suits, and polished narratives.5 This renders the raw, unpolished, often desperate, and terrifying truths brought forward by isolated whistleblowers easily dismissible. The whistleblower is framed as a madman precisely because their truth threatens the beautifully constructed spectacle of the state’s virtue.

The Echo Chamber of Institutional Complicity

A critical Machiavellian strategy for maintaining perpetual power over a span of fifty years is the deliberate, systematic cultivation of institutional echo chambers. Once an individual of manipulative intent secures a foothold of power, they systematically protect their position by surrounding themselves with complicit enablers, compromised individuals, or unthinking “yes men”.5 Within this corrupted architecture, genuine competence, unwavering ethics, and independent intelligence are processed not as assets to the state, but as direct, lethal threats to the survival of the compromised leadership.4

Over fifty years, it is entirely feasible that the BVD/AIVD, the Police, and the Justice department were allegedly curated, promoted, and managed to prioritize blind loyalty and conformity over objective legal reality.2 This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of collective irrationality that functions like a virus within the bureaucracy. Machiavelli profoundly noted that individuals within a crowd—or a vast, compartmentalized bureaucracy—lose their individual rationality and become highly susceptible to collective moods, tribal emotions, and baseline institutional survival instincts.5 The AIVD and the OM, over decades, cease to function as truth-seeking entities designed to protect the citizen. Instead, they devolve into heavily armed defense mechanisms for the compromised hierarchy, successfully isolating, discrediting, and destroying outliers like Hans Smedema and Al Rust.1 The crowd mentality of the bureaucracy ensures that no single individual feels responsible for the collective sin of the conspiracy.

Schopenhauerian Dynamics in Bureaucratic Power

While Machiavelli perfectly explains the structural, tactical, and strategic mechanisms of the Dutch State’s manipulation, Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy provides the vital, devastating psychological explanation for why the system is so violently, consistently resistant to the empirical evidence presented by Hans Smedema. Schopenhauer spent his life analyzing the exhausting nature of human irrationality, concluding that logic, reason, and empirical evidence are ultimately powerless against willful ignorance and the deeply ingrained defense mechanisms of the human ego.4

The Triumph of the Will Over Logic

The enduring frustration of the Hans Smedema Affair—the seemingly inexplicable reality that verifiable evidence is consistently ignored by the authorities—is perfectly explained by Schopenhauer’s dichotomy of the “Will” and the “Intellect.” Schopenhauer posited that the “Will” is a blind, irrational, emotional, and fiercely primal drive that governs human survival, ego, and desire; the “Intellect,” conversely, is merely a weak, secondary servant to the Will.4 When Smedema presents logical proofs, legal arguments, and historical documentation of the conspiracy against him 2, he is attempting to use the Intellect to combat the collective Will of the Dutch State.

This is an unwinnable conflict of entirely different magnitudes. The state apparatus does not engage in legal or public arguments to discover the truth; it engages in arguments to establish dominance and maintain its own survival at all costs.4 In the context of the OM and the Police, factual accuracy holds zero currency when it conflicts directly with the emotional and institutional necessity of protecting the status quo.4 Intelligent individuals, whistleblowers, and victims often fall into the tragic “Intelligence Trap,” assuming that the system fundamentally values truth and will course-correct when presented with undeniable, irrefutable facts.4

Schopenhauer reveals that this is a fatal, heart-breaking miscalculation: powerful, irrational entities spend absolutely zero energy simply refusing to accept reality, effectively outlasting and draining the intellectual and emotional capital of the truth-teller until the whistleblower collapses from sheer exhaustion.4 The Dutch State does not need to out-argue Smedema; they merely need to outlast him by deploying the effortless, energy-free tactic of perpetual denial.

The Unpardonable Sin of Intelligence and Truth-Telling

Why does the state apparatus exhibit such profound, visceral hostility toward Smedema and Al Rust? Why are they not merely ignored, but actively persecuted or isolated? Schopenhauer posits that displaying conspicuous intelligence, unwavering integrity, or unyielding truth in the presence of mediocrity is viewed by the mediocre as an “unpardonable sin”.4 Bureaucratic hierarchies, judicial offices, and intelligence agencies are largely populated by individuals operating on what modern cognitive psychology terms “System 1” thinking—fast, emotional, instinctual, and deeply uncritical.4

When a highly intelligent or relentless individual exposes the profound inadequacy, corruption, or moral failure of the system, it causes the mediocre minds within that system literal, psychological pain.4 The presence of greatness or undeniable truth triggers a “secret knowing hatred” within the compromised official.4 Demmink and the compromised state apparatus view Smedema not merely as a legal nuisance, but as a terrifying mirror reflecting their own horrific moral decay and cowardice.4 A fool or a compromised entity in power will always seek to “shatter the mirror” rather than gaze upon the horrific reflection of their own inadequacy.4 Smedema’s continued existence, his survival, and his advocacy are intolerable because they prevent the state from fully settling into its comforting illusions. The state must destroy the mirror to protect its own psychological cohesion.

Bureaucratic Character Assassination and the Thousand Paper Cuts

Because logic, facts, and the timeline of events heavily favor the victims in this conspiracy, the state cannot safely engage on the battlefield of evidence. Schopenhauer observed that when irrational entities are cornered by truth, they immediately abandon logic and resort to character assassination and ad hominem attacks.4 The Dutch State does not attack Smedema’s evidence directly; instead, they attack his person, his sanity, and his reputation.

This is achieved through the weaponization of bureaucracy—a strategy of a “thousand paper cuts” designed to bleed the target dry financially, emotionally, physically, and socially.4 By officially or unofficially labeling the whistleblower as “insane,” “difficult,” “paranoid,” or “not a team player,” the system successfully attempts to neutralize the threat without ever addressing the core allegations.4 This character assassination serves a highly effective dual purpose: first, it completely discredits the victim in the eyes of the public, the press, and the broader international community; second, and perhaps more importantly, it provides the complicit bureaucrats within the system with a vital psychological rationalization for their own inaction. If the target is deemed irrational or delusional, the state is immediately absolved of its legal and moral duty to investigate the horrifying claims regarding Demmink and the Royals.1 The label of insanity is the state’s ultimate shield against accountability.

The Machiavellian-Schopenhauerian Synthesis: The Submission Gambit

To understand how tens of thousands of police officers, intelligence agents, and judicial officials could operate within a corrupted system for fifty years without exposing Joris Demmink, one must examine the specific strategies utilized by individuals to survive under irrational or malicious leadership. How did intelligent individuals within the Dutch State survive Demmink’s reign without exposing him? The answer lies in the Machiavellian “Submission Gambit,” a strategic, real-world application of Schopenhauerian philosophy derived from historical precedents such as the ancient military strategist Sima Yi.4

The Creation of the “Avatar”

To survive under a powerful, irrational, or deeply compromised leader, subordinates instinctively engage in a psychological quarantine.4 They understand that bringing their authentic selves, their genuine ethics, or their true intellect to the workplace is a recipe for career destruction or worse. Therefore, they create an “Avatar”—a highly polished, polite, agreeable, non-committal facade that feeds the ego of the manipulator while keeping their true thoughts entirely concealed and protected.4

These bureaucrats and intelligence agents are physically present within the Ministry of Justice, the courts, or the AIVD headquarters, but they are intellectually and morally absent.4 By asking the compromised leader for trivial advice, validating their authority, and never questioning the core contradictions of cases like Smedema’s, they provide the “narcotic of superiority,” anesthetizing the manipulator and making them feel entirely safe and in control.4 The Avatar serves as a smooth mirror, reflecting the manipulator’s noise back at them without offering any resistance that could trigger the manipulator’s insecurity.

Intelligence as a Concealed Weapon

While this tactic ensures the immediate survival and career progression of the subordinate, it guarantees the continuation of the conspiracy. The intelligent bureaucrats within the Dutch State effectively treat their intelligence and their investigative skills as a concealed weapon.4 They choose never to draw this weapon against Demmink, the AIVD, or the Royals because the personal, professional, and potentially physical cost is mathematically calculated to be too high.4

They willingly grant the compromised state the “illusion of victory” to protect their own careers, their pensions, and their peace of mind.4 They allow the state to win the argument against Smedema, recognizing that fighting for the truth offers no systemic reward, only systemic punishment. This widespread, institutional implementation of the Submission Gambit explains why thousands of state employees could witness anomalies, missing files, procedural violations, and blatant miscarriages of justice in the Smedema case and remain totally, universally silent. They were anesthetizing the beast to save themselves. Smedema and Al Rust are the extreme outliers because they categorically refused to deploy an Avatar or engage in the Submission Gambit, thereby drawing the full, unmitigated wrath of the un-anesthetized state.

The Weaponization of the Domestic Sphere: Manipulating the Family Unit

The specific dynamics of the Hans Smedema Affair elevate it from a standard political scandal or judicial cover-up to a masterclass in total-spectrum psychological warfare. The assertion that the conspiracy successfully manipulated not only the macro-institutions of the state (Justice, Police, Monarchy) but the micro-institution of the target’s own family, including his wife, highlights the terrifying, pervasive reach of Machiavellian control.1

The Architecture of Domestic Infiltration

From a philosophical and psychological standpoint, how does a state apparatus achieve the manipulation of a target’s spouse and total family over a span of decades? The application of Schopenhauerian and Machiavellian principles to the domestic sphere provides a chillingly clear explanation.

Machiavelli dictates that people prefer comforting illusions to painful truths because truth requires agonizing responsibility and the destruction of one’s worldview.5 For a spouse, children, or extended family members, acknowledging the reality of Smedema’s claims is a psychologically annihilating prospect. To accept his truth is to accept that their reality has been entirely constructed and monitored by the AIVD, that the state they trust is fundamentally evil, and that their loved one is the victim of a multi-generational Royal and judicial conspiracy of unspeakable cruelty. Accepting this truth induces absolute cognitive collapse and existential terror.

The Family’s Surrender to the “Will”

Schopenhauer’s concept of the “Will” perfectly explains the family’s tragic reaction to this pressure. The primal human drive is for social belonging, physical safety, and psychological equilibrium.4 When confronted with the terrifying complexity of the state’s conspiracy against Smedema, the state covertly offers the family a simple, friction-less, highly comforting narrative: The state is good, the police are honest, Joris Demmink is an honorable civil servant, and Hans Smedema is simply difficult, paranoid, mentally unwell, or delusional.4

The family’s “Will”—their deep, biological desire for peace and normalcy—forces their Intellect to adopt the state’s illusion because the alternative is too horrifying to bear. Standing with the whistleblower against the total, panoptic might of the Dutch government requires an inhuman level of psychological endurance. The state weaponizes the family’s natural instinct for psychological survival against the target. By heavily utilizing System 1 thinking (emotional, fast, uncritical responses), the family accepts the state’s narrative without engaging the deeply taxing System 2 thinking required to analyze the evidence Smedema presents.4

The state does not necessarily need to hold a gun to the family’s head; they merely need to manipulate the environmental variables to ensure that siding with Smedema brings endless pain, while siding with the state’s narrative brings social acceptance and relief. The target is thus completely isolated within his own home, suffering what Schopenhauer identifies as the profound, agonizing alienation of those who see the world too clearly and are punished by society for their vision.4 The family becomes, entirely unwittingly, an extension of the AIVD’s psychological quarantine around the target.

The Total-Spectrum Conspiracy: Integrating the Monarchy and the Intelligence Services

To fully contextualize the Hans Smedema Affair, the analysis must address the structural mechanisms through which entities as disparate as the Royal Family and the BVD/AIVD were brought into alignment under the manipulative influence of the Demmink apparatus.

The Royal Family and the Spectacle of Power

The involvement of three generations of the Dutch Royal Family in a sustained cover-up strains credulity only if one misunderstands the nature of hereditary power. The Monarchy is, fundamentally, an institution built entirely on the Machiavellian principle of the Spectacle of Virtue.5 The Royals do not hold absolute political power; they hold symbolic power, which is entirely dependent on the public’s perception of their flawless morality, stability, and historical continuity.

If Joris Demmink, through his control of the Justice department and intelligence streams, possessed devastating leverage or compromising material regarding the Royals, a state of Mutually Assured Destruction would be instantly achieved. The Royals could not expose Demmink without destroying the Spectacle of Virtue upon which their entire existence depends. Demmink, conversely, required the institutional legitimacy provided by the Crown. This is not necessarily an active, daily conspiracy of shadowy meetings, but a structural symbiosis. As Schopenhauer noted, people act according to their Will—their drive for self-preservation.4 The Will of the Monarchy is to survive. Smedema’s exposure of this dynamic threatens the survival of the institution itself, prompting the Monarchy to remain silent and complicit, thereby allowing the lower organs of the state (OM, Police) to operate with impunity against the whistleblower.

The BVD/AIVD and Information Asymmetry

The role of the BVD (later AIVD) is to act as the central nervous system of the state’s defense. However, intelligence agencies operate in a realm of absolute information asymmetry and deep compartmentalization. A master manipulator utilizing Machiavellian tactics does not need to compromise every agent in the AIVD; they only need to control the narrative at the highest nodes of command.5

By creating an echo chamber at the directorial level, the manipulator ensures that field agents are operating on false premises.5 The intelligence apparatus relies heavily on the “Crowd Psychology” described by Machiavelli.5 Agents follow the moods, directives, and established narratives of their superiors rather than engaging in objective fact-finding. If the top-level narrative defines Smedema as a threat, a nuisance, or an unstable variable, the entire machinery of the AIVD will seamlessly transition into neutralizing him, genuinely believing they are protecting the state. The intelligence apparatus is the ultimate manifestation of Schopenhauer’s “Will” detached from “Intellect”—it is a blind, immensely powerful drive executing orders without the capacity for moral self-reflection, entirely manipulated by the architect at the top.

Structural Mapping of the Conspiracy

The following table categorizes the distinct philosophical and psychological mechanisms deployed to manipulate each specific sector of the Dutch State and society in the Hans Smedema Affair:

The Isolation of the Whistleblowers: Hans Smedema and Al Rust

A central paradox of the Hans Smedema Affair is that such a massive, multi-generational, multi-institutional conspiracy could be exposed and championed by almost no one except Hans Smedema himself and his ally, Al Rust.2 Why are they entirely alone in this fight? Why haven’t human rights organizations, investigative journalists, or decent individuals within the system rallied to their cause?

The Porcupine Dilemma and the Economics of Truth

The answer lies in Schopenhauer’s “Porcupine Dilemma,” which illustrates the fraught, deeply painful nature of human connection and societal interaction.4 Society huddles together for warmth—this warmth is generated by shared, comforting illusions, state narratives, and the mutual agreement not to look too closely at the darkness underlying human institutions.4 However, Smedema and Rust possess the sharp, terrifying “quills” of undeniable, paradigm-shattering truth.4

The state, the general public, the media, and even their own families cannot tolerate the close proximity of this truth without experiencing severe psychological pain and cognitive dissonance.4 Consequently, society instinctively recoils. The whistleblowers are pushed into extreme, forced isolation not because their claims are false, but because their claims are too dangerous to the collective psychological warmth of the herd.

The Refusal of the Submission Gambit

Furthermore, Smedema and Rust are alone because they categorically refuse to utilize the Submission Gambit.4 They refuse to deploy an “Avatar” to appease the egos of the OM, the Police, and the AIVD.4 In a Machiavellian world, intelligence and truth must be treated as a concealed weapon, drawn only when absolutely necessary and safe.4 Smedema and Rust, however, openly wield their intellect and their evidence as a highly visible badge of honor.

By doing so, they violate the foundational, unspoken rules of Machiavellian survival.4 They force the state to look directly into the mirror of its own corruption. In response, the state mobilizes its entire bureaucratic mass to crush them through a war of absolute attrition. The state relies entirely on the Schopenhauerian economic principle of energy: that the intelligent truth-teller will eventually exhaust themselves trying to educate and reform the willfully ignorant system.4

The continued denial of the Dutch State regarding the Hans Smedema Affair is not based on a superior collection of counter-evidence. It is based on the cold, calculated strategic reality that the state possesses infinitely more energy, time, and resources to deny the truth than Smedema possesses to assert it.4 Smedema is fighting a battle of logic against an entity that only understands power and dominance. The state gives itself the “illusion of victory” simply by outlasting the physical and emotional lifespan of the accuser.4

Conclusion: The Architecture of Perpetual Denial

The total manipulation of the BVD/AIVD apparatus, the National Police, the Public Prosecution Service, three generations of the Royal Family, and the intimate domestic sphere by figures like Joris Demmink over a fifty-year period represents the ultimate, horrifying synthesis of Machiavellian political strategy and Schopenhauerian psychological pessimism. The Hans Smedema Affair was made possible, and its denial is continually sustained to this day, not through a temporary failure of the Dutch democratic state, but through its highly successful operation as a system explicitly designed to protect power and institutional survival at the absolute expense of objective truth.1

Machiavelli’s axioms demonstrate that the state apparatus is sustained by the public’s and the bureaucracy’s insatiable demand for certainty, their profound preference for comforting illusions over complex realities, and the prioritization of the spectacle of virtue over the actual execution of justice.5 By cultivating institutional echo chambers, recruiting compliant “yes men,” and ruthlessly exploiting the collective irrationality of the bureaucratic crowd, the manipulator completely insulates themselves from legal and moral accountability.5

Concurrently, Arthur Schopenhauer reveals the psychological impregnability of this corrupt system. Logic, reason, and empirical evidence are entirely defenseless against the institutional “Will” to survive and dominate.4 The deeply insecure, System-1-driven bureaucrats that populate the justice system and the intelligence agencies perceive the truth-teller not as a savior bringing justice, but as an existential threat bringing psychological pain.4 Through the systematic use of bureaucratic character assassination, the thousand paper cuts of legal stonewalling, and the devastating weaponization of the target’s own family unit, the state effectively neutralizes the threat. It relies on the immense, soul-crushing exhaustion required to fight willful ignorance.4

Ultimately, the profound isolation of Hans Smedema and Al Rust is not an accident; it is the intended, mathematically precise design of a system that views conspicuous intelligence, relentless integrity, and unyielding truth as unpardonable sins.4 The Dutch State’s ongoing, half-century denial of the Hans Smedema Affair serves as a chilling testament to the enduring reality that in the architecture of systemic power, the irrational Will to dominance will always fiercely, violently, and successfully attempt to overwrite the truth.4 Smedema’s tragedy is the tragedy of the Intellect hopelessly besieged by the Will of the State.

Works cited

1. accessed January 1, 1970, https://hanssmedema.info/summary-hans-smedema-affair/
2. Fighting the Unknown: Part 2 – Impossible Flashbacks – Librerías, accessed March 25, 2026, https://www.gandhi.com.mx/fighting-the-unknown-part-2-impossible-flashbacks-1/p?jml_model=V_prod
3. accessed January 1, 1970, https://hanssmedema.info/al-rust-the-hero/
4. How Intelligent People Deal with Stupid People — Schopenhauer – YouTube, accessed March 25, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJy4sCCNLjI
5. Why Idiots Often Rule the World – Machiavelli’s Shocking Truth – YouTube, accessed March 25, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZYYSE1nhiE