Ultimately the strings are being pulled by someone who stands to gain, but it's not like Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, &co are playing 5D chess here. There are a lot of stupid blundering narcissists running things right now. The actual string-pullers know that, and as long as the stupid blundering narcissism doesn't get in the way of the string-pulling then it doesn't matter to the string-pullers, because stupid blundering narcissists are ultimately the right people for the job (easily manipulated themselves, and effective manipulators of the public). But that doesn't make them or their decisions or their statements less stupid.

Not to mention this all rides on the stupidity and emotional fragility of literally tens or hundreds of millions of voters; anything less and the project would never be possible. That's one reason debilitating the education system at all levels has become a top priority of the current administration (the other being suppression of the free thinking and often liberal or left-wing politics that historically exist at universities).