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> We should all feel a duty to try to understand the roughly
> half of the country that thinks we are severely misguided.
> I don’t understand how 43% of the country supports Trump.
> But I’d like to find out, because we have to include
> everyone in our path forward. If our best ideas are to
> stop talking to or fire anyone who disagrees with us,
> we’ll be facing this whole situation again in 2020.
>
> That kind of diversity is painful and unpopular, but
> it is critical to health of a democratic and pluralistic
> society. We shouldn’t start purging people for
> supporting the wrong political candidate.
> That's not how things are done in this country.
This impresses me. That is exactly what I was trying to explain to somebody else in the other thread, and I was starting to feel like it was a position that nobody else held.
If you found the Cracked article insightful, an even deeper discussion of this "dark matter" phenomenon ("I don't know anyone who supports candidate X, but I can measure their gravity, so they must be out there somewhere") is in this essay from Slate Star Codex.
I'm not from the US, so take this as an outsiders view.
Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy.
Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight.
I think this could be the last election of its kind in the USA, a two party system that works to produce these two candidates? Someone (Facebook, google, twitter) will come up with a better way of informing the public how unfair the system is.
How is electoral reform view in the US? In the UK it is very popular and there is often talk of STV or something similar.
[edit]
I am losing valuable imaginary internet points! Oh no! Here, this makes my point better than I can:
Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees
> Clinton says different things in public than she does to her friends. She also flip flops. This is not trustworthy.
> Trump is unpleasant, but at least he talks straight.
You seem to imply that since Trump "talks straight", he doesn't flip-flop?
If that's what you're implying, it couldn't be more inaccurate; he has sharply contradicted himself countless times, straight-up denying things he's documented as saying (on TV, Twitter, etc.)
Clinton talks like a professional politician, Trump says whatever comes to mind at the time. I'm not sure I like how professional politicians talk, but I'm a little nervous that "comes to mind at the time" might lead us into a very bad place.
Yeah - I do. Look at any politician with more than one term of anything under their belt and you're going to find similar problems. I'm voting for Gary Johnson anyhow.. not because I expect him to be more consistent, but because I very much want a viable third party.
Electoral reform is a hot topic, but what people usually mean by it is not a change in how the votes are counted. The most popular issue is campaign financing (with the current arrangement being that there's no practical limit a private party can pour into the elections, so long as they do the Super-PAC dance). Another big issue of concern is gerrymandering. For Democrats, the way their primaries function (superdelegates etc) has been in the spotlight.
As far as voting system itself is concerned, electoral college is the most common issue that is raised, and switching to national popular vote counting is the most common proposal to fix it. There's an ongoing attempt to do this from bottom up, by signing up enough states that they can basically impose this without changing the Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...
Things like STV for presidential elections, or MMP for parliamentary, are mostly under the radar - there are certainly people who are aware of them and push for them, but they're a very small minority, and the public is largely unaware.
Just to give you some sense of how these stack up, the only electoral issue that has been discussed at length in this political campaign by any of the major candidates (including primaries) is campaign finance reform. I haven't heard a peep about electoral college or proportional representation.
Interesting. I work in education in the UK and the way we assess pupils is a relatively complex calculation based on a number of factors.
So schools, teachers, pupils and parents are all aware that attainment is a complex beast and requires an open, yet complex calculation.
Which leads me onto STV and other ways of counting votes, none of these are as simple as first past the post, but these are all far simpler than what we do in our schooling calculation. So I think people are ready to make voting a little more complex and a lot fairer. If we educate them and give them a chance.
I think it's mainly that there are other, more obvious problems to tackle before getting to STV etc. One thing at a time and all that.
Even those things are immensely complicated politically, because they would upset the existing balance between the parties, and in the current climate of extreme partisanship, whichever party is affected is going to pretty much automatically be against it. For example, if we switch from electoral college to national popular vote, it's pretty much guaranteed to give all future presidential elections to the Democrats, at least until GOP has a massive reform. Obviously, they're going to be against it. Similar issues arise with gerrymandering, and even such normally non-controversial issues as making voting easier (increasing registration periods and making the process easier, increasing advanced voting period, mail-in voting etc).
So I wouldn't expect any progress on that front until the present deadlock is broken. On the other hand, whatever new party will arise on the right from the ashes of GOP (or existing third party take over the spot), is likely to be in the minority for a while - and hopefully, that would motivate them to make electoral reform for a more proportional representation a prominent part of their platform. On the other hand, Democrats are likely to get more complacent and corrupt from a long uninterrupted stretch in power, and a few particularly nasty public scandals could be used to prime the voters for an upset election. So we'll get there; it'll just take time.
I think in an era of the populace vehemently hating at least one politician that is running for office (whatever that office may be), and sometimes hating all the candidates a voting system that actively targets least regret should be used; such as condorcet voting, or full preference method.
I feel like this deserves a link to the rebuttal. I'm not embracing it (or Jacobin), but it's a plausible indictment of Elegy. On a related note, it should be noted that the average Trump supporter earns more than the average white American. There's a more subtle grouping here than "rural poor".
> It really does a great job of helping explain Trump supporters.
I think what we're seeing are the results of taking 6 trillion dollars that should have been spent building infrastructure for working class Americans and instead wasting it in Iraq.
I think this is basically the major and effective meme/emotion that Trump plays into: Nostalgia. Thiel also voiced concerns about the state of the infrastructure at a GOP Convention. Nostalgia is a strong emotion and it is often based on false memories or weak comparisons. Sure, large parts of our infrastructure are worse than they were 50 years ago, but on the other hand we had very different problems back then. We used to consume goods that turned out to be toxic. Today almost everyone has access to extremely fast transportation via air travel. Almost everyone has access to the world's knowledge at any time. Medicine has improved a lot. "Make it great again" is the central lie and people are dumb enough not to question it and to believe his financial independence would make him a superior leader, when in fact he only displays characteristics that are opposed to the ones we should expect from a good leader, for example decency and intelligence.
The budgetary cost of the Iraq war was, according to the Congressional Research Service, $815 billion[1]. Even if you would rather model long-term or indirect costs, there was never, ever $6 trillion in the Federal budget over the corresponding period that could have been redirected to "infrastructure for working class Americans".
Without the war there would not have been 6 trillion dollars to spend...
I think Trump supporters are regular simple Americans who are looking around and seeing they haven't benefited from the economic prosperity at a rate equivalent to their output and are facing an all out assault on their labor via neo-liberal policies adopted by both major parties. Neither party is going to point back at themselves and Trump has seized their support by blaming common scapegoats and tapping in to populist racial, gender and religious discrimination. Democrats have and do do this too, ie "super predators", etc.
It's a great article, but only describes a very small minority of Trump supporters. The median household income of a Trump supporter is $72,000, well above that of the median voter, or the median Clinton supporter.
That surprises me greatly. I'm assuming that the fact that the poor themselves don't vote anyway skews the medians of voters up anyway, as they hint at in that article. What a way to dash "established facts."
For a more formal look at this, I'd suggest looking at Sarah Kenzidor's work over the past year. She's a journalist in St. Louis with a PhD in... sociology? (I think?), specializing in the Uzbekistan country & regime. She's brought that knowledge to bear on the Trump campaign and has spent a lot of time trying to explain to the 'coasts' Why Trump. Her book on this is called the "View from Flyover Country". I haven't read the book, specifically, but I've read most of her articles on the matter since the spring.
That article is rough around the edges but very insightful. I keep this in mind a lot. I think to just go ahead and label all Trump supporters as idiots or degenerates is very unproductive. There is some message that speaks to the people left behind that maybe the Democrats are ignoring.
I spent my high school years in rural Arkansas (after living a more urban existence for most of my life). This article does a fantastic job of articulating exactly what I've observed.
The Guardian also published a really good article explaining how blue-collar workers are hurting because of their jobs being off-shored, and how Trump's promise to end free-trade agreements and bring those jobs back to the US is the biggest reason behind his appeal:
You made the comment I was going to make. Though I would have included the following too:
> The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us. We should talk to each other more, not less.
When it comes down to it.. its become clear to me at least that a large percentage of the country simply put, is not 'getting ahead' - the anger that drove the Trump and Sanders campaigns is very real and must be solved if we are to prosper.
It's a nice sentiment, but it implies that both sides have walked away from the middle more or less equidistantly, and the way to fix it is to walk back. The reality is that American left is still mostly center-left, while the American right has been steadily radicalizing over the past two decades.
Study after study shows the same thing: the average right wing voter today is more prone to groupthink (i.e. believing in party orthodoxy of the day), more likely to select news & information sources pandering to his agenda regardless of their adherence to truth, and views political opponents more negatively.
(This isn't to say that any of these behaviors are exclusive to the right - of course not, and the existence of HuffPo etc is the evidence to that. What's different is how strong and widespread it is.)
So for the left, walking back to the middle is not going to solve this, since the other guy walked much further away. To "meet them in the middle", you'd need to cross over to the right, to the point of abandoning the core platform values that have been there for a very long time. That's not going to happen.
This is a self-correcting problem, though. The side that goes on a quest for ideological purity at the expense of practicality, inevitably diminishes its own ranks by repeatedly purging those deemed as not pure enough (and on every iteration, the criteria become tighter and tighter). You can see this in practice - if you ask some Republican voters, more than half of their own party are "RINOs". And there's a positive feedback loop here - the smaller the party gets, the harder it is for it to hold onto political power, and the less incentive for someone who wants to actually do something (which requires power) to join or stay.
So that bubble is well on its way to bursting, and the best way to resolve matters is to help it along the way. Once it bursts and the right deals with the fallout, then we can talk about meeting in the middle etc.
>middle more or less equidistantly, and the way to fix it is to walk back.
That supposes that there really is only one degree of freedom. For example, both Trump and Sanders were for protectionism.
EDIT: added quote to clarify what I'm saying. My point is the model isn't quite right, a better way to explain it is rather than points on a spectrum, there are policies that we might place on a spectrum but that different movements have no problem adopting. Both the Sanders and Trump campaigns are for protectionism and anti-globalism. Trump in my opinion pretends to also be anti-elitist while Bernie is somewhat close to that too. These groups don't really care about where on the spectrum we end up, it's mostly that we have policies that they think will help them eventually.
The unfortunate reality of the present US political system is that in inter-party politics, there's only one degree of freedom. Other fights have to be fought on the inside to get anywhere, in the primaries etc. And if your side wins, then you take the entire party for the ride along with yourself in national politics.
There is most likely a large portion of voters that are also voting 'against' Hillary. The only realistic vote against Hillary is unfortunately a vote for Trump.
>its become clear to me at least that a large percentage of the country simply put, is not 'getting ahead' - the anger that drove the Trump and Sanders campaigns is very real and must be solved if we are to prosper.
The key there is that they _feel_ like they're not getting ahead - a very different thing than not actually getting ahead, and much more dangerous.
A lot of them actually aren't, though, by any reasonable metric.
Health? Number of close friends? Lifespan? Addiction rate? Income? Unemployment rate? Labor participation rate?
By any of those metrics, life in a lot of rural-red communities is getting worse, and has been for years. I'm aware of the "better but it feels worse" pattern - crime rates are the prime example - but it's far too glib to say that covers everything. Inconvenient as it is, sometimes you have to actually improve things to make people feel better.
I suspect that most people will not accept any definition of 'ahead' which leaves them sicker, poorer, lonelier, and dying younger. And I don't think there's any reason that they should accept it.
On some level I feel like my country is unwinding, like somehow over time we have developed these parallel economies and social institutions, and now we don't know how to talk to ourselves anyhow.. and it scares me. The fact that one side can't see the other is struggling is an example of this.
There is another observation I have too - and some point everyone became offended at everyone - when I was younger, merely having a different opinion was never offensive, now in certain circles, it sure appears to be. (HN may be one of those circles)
In the end.. we need to remember time doesnt stop when this election is over - the morning after we're all still gonna wake up and get on with business - I fear the level of vitriol may be damaging the fabric of my country.. and that makes me nervous.
Don't just assume they only feel like they're not getting ahead.
A large majority of these folks are in actual fact falling far behind, and that fact is not easily observed in many of the metrics people often use for measurements (like 'household income', and 'unemployment')
This sounds like the type of thing that is being advocated against. Telling a large section of the country that what they feel is not true. I'm not certain from what vantage that statement could ever accurately be made.
I certainly wouldn't try this tact with your significant other.
It's definitely not a popular position. Just take a look at Twitter and you'll see people from both sides nearly calling for the death of the other. While not super surprising I've seen little discussion around the fact that your chances of being fired for supporting one of the candidates (you can guess who) publicly are pretty good. Especially when you work in the tech field.
Which to me is really interesting because it shows a side of politics that I've personally not seen before. This election has permeated all institutions and if you're not on the right side you're going to have a bad time.
> you'll see people from both sides nearly calling for the death of the other
Not to sound too tinfoilhatter, but this is exactly what you would want the masses to behave like as a politician. Neither candidate gives two shits about you me or anyone who isn't part of the ruling elite, they're just in it for the power.
It's exactly how populists want the voters to think and behave.
They nurture and encourage distrust, anger, aggression. And use it to fuel enthusiasm and support for themselves.
You see this pattern often in history.
When holding an elected office, this kind of separation is a big problem, because it necessarily seeps into political entities (parlaments, senates, congress) and makes collaboration hard.
I don't believe that the occurrence of an election is itself causation at work.
The reason it seems that way, to me, is the same reason that abused women tend to step out of their shame when they see other women doing it, or when their anger is kindled into a flame that exceeds their fear. People feel empowered when they realize they're not alone (edit: and someone they identify as a peer has given a voice to their own beliefs, experiences or feelings)
Sometimes, that feeling of empowerment makes them speak up. Sometimes it makes them lash out. It's an unfortunate coincidence that a presidential candidate is directly responsible for catalyzing both groups of people into responding so passionately today.
Realistically, I believe that the electorate has felt disenfranchised (using the more general "deprived of a voice" definition) for many years now, and for various reasons. A republic such as ours can never have an electorate that, in its entirety, feels like their voices are heard. I don't know how to help that; I don't think anyone does.
Dividing the electorate further isn't the solution for any leader. Inciting them to illegal or violent behavior isn't the solution either, unless you aim to dismantle a democratic republic.
I've always felt "us-vs-them", and I believe everyone has, because my peer group has ideals different from others. So we find other groups that share them, and we try harder to be heard, or to exert the influence that the framework of our republic grants to us (i.e. voting) or that society grants to us (i.e. boycotting).
But I do not believe the election itself has caused a divide, it's the candidates (yes, one more than any other, but all have contributed) whose rhetoric has amplified a divide that was there all along.
Thank you for putting it into more and clearer words than I did.
You're right, the divide has always been there. That's why it always flares up during elections - it's only during elections that the divide is useful to the people who stoke it. Candidates benefit from their electorate being loud and vocal and at arms with the other electorate. It drives press, it drives news, it brings people out to vote. All things correlated with winning an election.
Once an election is won, the game changes. Then it's all about unity and compromise and understanding one another. Because that's what those in power need to stay in power.
Unless of course somebody wants to force an early election or worse. Then all bets are off.
Now, I can't say for a fact that this is how the cycle works in the US. But I've seen it play out numerous times in my home country (Slovenia) where for a period of more than a decade since I started observing, I don't think we had a single government last the entire 4 years. It's a big part of the reason why I left and came to the States.
And I find myself once more in the midst of elections driven primarily by shit up stirring. Perfect.
> And I find myself once more in the midst of elections driven primarily by shit up stirring. Perfect.
All I can say is this: you're not wrong that the media coverage of our candidates amplify their voices, which empowers their supporters to amplify theirs as well. And you're not wrong that this election cycle has more shit-slinging than any other in my memory. It's thus made me more than a little uncomfortable, as an American, to ponder what others think of our society. It's embarrassing to me, it truly is.
But here is hope, and even thought you've arrived just in time for this circus of an election, I hope you can find the will to believe that the future is not doomed. Not because the leadership requires unity and compromise, but because once the spotlights shining their attention-focusing beams are turned off, there won't be such a contrast with the more rational among us. I believe many people will have learned that the isolation between ideological extremes doesn't help to move us forward as a society. And many will try, in their own quiet and subtle ways, to effect a positive change.
I'll be honest though: I believe these things not because there is a preponderance of evidence to support them (there's some, but this election cycle is unprecedented) but because I have to believe it to have the energy to try and effect that positive change.
SNL writer Chris Kelly 'How bout instead of an “I Voted” sticker, everyone who votes Trump gets to wear a scarlet T for the rest of their lives?'[0]
Person thinks 40% of people are crazy, racist, hates women etc. Maybe the person who thinks that is the one not understanding the situation.
Clinton: Read Wikileaks, study Clinton Foundation (Haiti)
Trump: Read news from both sides msm and Breitbart & similar. Scott Adams blog gives you some sense what is going on.[1]
Scott Adams blog has turned into sensless propaganda.
From what I can gather by reading below[0] he does not like Clinton raising taxes. The rest of his points are such insightful gems as:
"I don't know the best way to default ISIS .. negotiate trade policies .. neither do you but you probably think you do... Given the uncertainty about each candidate – at least in my own mind – I have been saying I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. That neutrality changed when Clinton proposed raising estate taxes"
what kind of convoluted logic is this? since we as voters are not sure how to fix all these problems that somehow makes these candidates equal? and tax policy breaks the tie?!
Then he regurgitates the usual Trump arguments about Clintons health. And then cites Trumps superior persuasion skills. His comments have been "temporarily disabled" so no way to respond to this nonsense. I've lost all respect for this guy
Adams is very responsive on Twitter and he hosts daily Periscope streams where he takes questions. He disabled the comments on his blog because they were being swarmed with racism and spam. I'm sure if you write a counterpoint and tweet it at him, he'll at least see it.
Thinking there is a possibility someone is crazy, racist, or sexist is definitely reasonable if that person is stating they agree with a crazy, racist, sexist. I'd wonder if someone was racist if they supported David Duke.
Whereas Trump has a history of racism. There have been accusations going back years, and his public statements support those accusations. He accused a federal judge of not being able to be impartial because the judge was Mexican. And David Duke is still a leading white nationalist, and said that voting against Trump is treason to your heritage.
People can change, but you can't claim they have changed if they've ignored what they did in the past and have not done anything different.
Do you think that Hillary is just as racist as Trump?
And are you voting for Trump because you actually want him as president, or because you think Hillary's worse?
Trump specifically attributed it to Curie's "Mexican heritage" when he made the comment. The organizational link is an after-the-fact rationalization. (And, also, mostly false; that is, he's a member of a lawyers group with "La Raza" in the name, but that group isn't connected at all with the advocacy group -- the National Council of La Raza -- that right-wingers who don't recognize that "La Raza" as a name element is about as distinctive and unique as "People's" think of us the organization called "La Raza".)
"Last December, after the council refused to lift the restrictions, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Palm Beach, alleging that the town was discriminating against Mar-a-Lago, in part because it is open to Jews and African-Americans. The suit seeks $100 million in damages."[0]
Like back in 80's when Trump was fighting for blacks and jews.
Read the wikileaks. Clinton campaign's gameplay memo is to create Trump is 'crazy racist' narrative through media.
That's a popular misconception, like "everyone thought the world was flat before Columbus reached America."
The immorality of slavery was recognized hundreds of years before the founding of the US. It was abolished in France in the 1300s, in Sweden in 1335, etc. It was never really legal in England and that fact was recognized in 1706, about 40 years before Thomas Jefferson was born. The founders' condoning slavery was a deeply immoral political expedient that was recognized by many as immoral even contemporaneously.
But that's besides the point. The fact that the founders were individually contemptible people doesn't mean their ideas were wrong. You can agree with many of the things Thomas Jefferson said without personally condoning slavery and rape.
The founders were not "individually contemptible" because they couldn't destroy the institution of slavery at the same time they created an independent American nation. In fact, everyday slaveholders were not automatically "individually contemptible". Involvement in widespread cultural norms like slavery should not, in itself, be seen as a personal character indictment.
No "we" don't. Not all of us. Many of us hold the Founding Fathers in deep contempt. There is now DNA evidence showing that Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemings. That means that all of Thomas Jefferson's writings, including the Declaration Of Independence, needs to be re-evaluated and perhaps put aside.
If we're going to look at historical figures through modern lenses and discredit their works if we find they don't measure up to our modern morality, we're not going to have much left. It's more than likely that Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle engaged in sexual acts with young boys, for instance - in our world, these philosophers would be on a list and couldn't live within 500 yards of a school, let alone found one, but in theirs, pederasty was common, accepted, and even lauded.
DNA provides evidence of paternity of Sally Heming's children. Which appears to be that the father was Sally Heming's owner Thomas Jefferson.
Sally Heming may have been head over heels in love with Thomas Jefferson. But on the balance of probability I would guess there might have been coercion (hence rape) from a slave owner to a slave. Evidence, not proof.
Hypocrisy of Jefferson's personal conduct doesn't change the validity (or lack thereof) of the logical arguments he made in his writings. If they held to rational scrutiny before, they still do after.
It would depend on which position of Duke's they were talking about. If they say they agree with his stance on race, then yes, they're a racist. If they agree with his stance on tax policy (I assume he has one), then no, there's no evidence that person is a racist. EZ-PZ.
However, how does one bring forward the 43% that appears to agree so strongly with Trump there isn't really any common ground to have a reasonable discussion around? How do you go about working with someone that is uneducated, and often proud of this fact, raised to believe all other races are a blight against life as they know it, and often are proud of this, truly believe global warming/climate change is a hoax? Etc etc.
I'm not trying to be coy, I just think that fundamentally those that support Trump are different. My father is a huge fox news watching old-school Italian. He is a die-hard Trump supporter. He isn't educated, he isn't interested in learning why Trump is wrong. He isn't ever going to change his mind and when (hopefully) Trump loses, will be part of the 43% calling the election 'stolen'.
I love the man, he is my father after-all, but I have noticed that he (a life-long Republican) simply doesn't have empathy for others the way I do. When I ask him would he rather have more homeless or no homeless, his first reply back was 'well how much is it going to cost?'. And this is how 'they' think, there is a distinct difference in how he, and i suspect most 'hardcore conservatives' view human life (unless of course it fits their pro-life agenda, then of course they are suddenly lovers of 'life' above all else). Money is more important to them, it always will be, and the idea of helping others is never going to be acceptable (unless, maybe they find themselves in a situation where they need help).
I'm sorry to be so negative about this but I'm quite a bit older than most around here and in my experience it's a losing battle to try to convert anyone to a more reasonable position. The only thing that seems to help is more eduction, more exposure to diverse cultures, and generally not focusing only on one self above all else. But then look at Thiel, and then you have to wonder if it's something more.
> However, how does one bring forward the 43% that appears to agree so strongly with Trump there isn't really any common ground to have a reasonable discussion around? How do you go about working with someone that is uneducated.
That someone isn't uneducated just because she/he doesn't align with one's thinking.
The Economist: Where Donald Trump’s support really comes from:
'However, averaging out his support in all state primaries (where exit polling is available) shows that richer and better educated voters form as big a part of Mr Trump’s support base as those at the lower end of the income and education scales.'[0]
Source? I'd legitimately be interested to see how it has changed. I haven't seen much movement in my particular bubble; it's the same people now as back then.
The Washington Post[0] has it broken down by demographics since June. As you can see, as of October 13th, Trump's only lead in education is among voters who have completed "some college", with Clinton having a huge lead among those with college degrees and postgraduate degrees. She even has a narrow lead among those with a high school education or less.
>How do you go about working with someone that is uneducated
This is a myth. [0]
>with someone that is uneducated, and often proud of this fact, raised to believe all other races are a blight against life as they know it, and often are proud of this,
>I'm not trying to be coy
I can assure you no one is about to accuse you of that :) [1]
Indeed. How does education and income correlate though? We're talking about millions of people here, not a handful, so the chances of it being a bunch of above median high school drop-outs seems exceedingly unlikely, no?
This is what demagogues do, they raley and gain power through uniting groups of people over fear. The extreme political tactics by the GOP lead to the scenario we have today, and Trump is building off of what the GOP laid the groundwork for over the past 40-50 years.
lot of accusations but maybe there are reasons that half the country believes in what he's saying? we've had more terrorist attacks, more foreign policy disasters, and more cultural and racial unrest in the past few years than in modern times yet you shut down the conversation by attributing it to "fear" as if people don't have a right to be fearful... nice
I don't mean to troll here, but I've never gotten anyone to give evidence of these claims. I'm an open-minded person, and evidence speaks loudly to me to change my mind. I fear that there are many who won't allow evidence to change their mind unless their feelings are acknowledged and compensated for first, and I think that's a difficult circumstance to manage and get past, because often that acknowledgement is seen as an endorsement.
I've tried to find evidence supporting these claims on my own, only to discover that there have been fewer terrorist attacks in the last, say, 16 years than in the years before, and better economic standing for minorities in the same period versus before then. I've been able to find a slow but consistent improvement to the overall quality of life of Americans by any objective measure I could discern. It's still subjectively and objectively bad for some groups, but even there, I can only find evidence of a slow but consistent improvement over time.
What am I missing? If I and others can understand that, maybe we can make a difference.
I too look for evidence and I have to be careful not to put emotions in front of rationale but one thing that strikes me about the rise of isis and the ensuing terrorist attacks from Europe to California is the media coverage. I honestly feel like the same media that is actively trying to destroy Donald Trump also can't get enough of him. Do you remember when all of those journalists were having their heads cut off? Or the many bombings and attacks after? The media created the term "ISIS" and blanketed 24 hour news cycles with it. The same has happened for the police shootings. You may be able to say that based on the numbers things are looking up, but if you turn on the TV the past few years you wouldn't know that. I also think that is why many Trump supporters are sick of the "media". They've been spoon-fed a teaspoon of fear a day and now that they chose their candidate whom they feel will lead them to higher-ground and that same media tells them they're racist/bigot/stupid for supporting him, they no longer trust media outright.
> "This is what demagogues do, they raley and gain power through uniting groups of people over fear."
Which candidate are you referring to? Both major candidates are aiming to pick up votes by spreading fear of the other candidate. I'd argue that's pretty much their strongest argument at this point.
What I don't understand "even more" than that (literally, by the numbers) is how 49% of the country is registered independent and yet keeps voting Democrat and Republican. Worse yet, 76% of the country "wants to see alternatives" in the debates...but still keeps voting Democrat and Republican.
Even if people agree to buy into this whole "this election is special" premise, I think people would be well within their rights to riot in 2020, if they hear one more time that that election is special, too, and they must once again vote Democrat ("because who else are they going to vote for?!")
Because when elections become "special" all the time, it means they really aren't. And it means the problem is systemic, and it's that systemic issue that needs to be addressed before voting against any particular candidate. Otherwise, these problems are never going to end. "Fix Democracy First" - as Lessig once believed (like until earlier this year) before he also started thinking that people should just shut up and vote for Clinton already.
Any first past the post system like we have will trend towards a two party system as people vote strategically for the most tolerable mainstream candidate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
It's interesting to see people calling for more alternatives and more viable political parties in the US. It's not clear to me that having more political parties would be better since many European countries, where more parliamentary style representation is common, is also dealing with their own xenophobic and nationalist movements.
> Any first past the post system like we have will trend towards a two party system as people vote strategically for the most tolerable mainstream candidate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
FPTP also greatly increases the effect of gerrymandering, especially in single-member constituencies.
Let's say I was independent and lived in Ohio or some other swing state. What choices do I have?
* Vote Dem, have a reasonable chance at my pick winning
* Vote Repub, have a reasonable chance at my pick winning
* Vote other, have no chance at my pick winning.
In an ordinary election you may be willing to do #3 to 'send a message', etc. But in THIS election almost everyone seems to agree that one or both of the candidates are horrible and will ruin everything. So if you go #3 then you get no say in which major party candidate will win. I'd much rather have A win than B, even if I liked some third party more (right now I don't anyway, they're pretty crazy this year too).
I'd want my vote to count, and I don't think it would unless I voted major party.
As it is my vote won't count, because the outcome of my state is not in question at all.
> "But in THIS election almost everyone seems to agree that one or both of the candidates are horrible and will ruin everything."
I'd argue that's why it's a great chance to vote third party. Both major candidates are terrible choices, and quite frankly even though people say Hilary is less terrible than Trump, I don't buy it, just look at her track record. If you vote third party in this election, you might not win this time, but you can start laying the foundation for a strong third party to emerge in future elections.
> If you vote third party in this election, you might not win this time, but you can start laying the foundation for a strong third party to emerge in future elections.
Assuming that there are future (fair) elections.
I have serious concerns about that if Trump is to become the president.
I've heard many people on the right having the same concerns about Clinton.
Improvements to the fairness of elections won't come from those who benefit from the status quo, it'll come from those at the grassroots level. Boosting the electoral performance of third party candidates builds confidence that grassroots movements can make a significant political impact.
As for whether Trump or Clinton would actively block fair elections, that wouldn't surprise me, but I wouldn't put it past either of them (Trump's already made it clear he wants to make it easier to manipulate the press, and Clinton was clearly willing to engage in underhand tactics to get the Democratic nomination). If you're of the same mindset then it makes no sense to vote for either of them, as it appears neither are interested in engaging in fair elections.
> rump's already made it clear he wants to make it easier to manipulate the press, and Clinton was clearly willing to engage in underhand tactics to get the Democratic nomination
I would dare say that these two things aren't equivalent.
Clinton "rigging" the primaries didn't involve preventing people from speaking out, or excluding them from voting. It was mostly about the system itself being "pre-rigged" by design, so to speak, and then some coordination with the DNC behind the scenes. All bad juju, but not the kind of thing that causes lasting damage compared to the current state of affairs. Compared to Democrat "machines" of the old, it's practically peanuts - and the country and its political system survived those.
OTOH, Trump's talk about expanding the libel laws and otherwise targeting the press, if implemented to its logical completion, would take a lot of time to dig out of. That's not even taking into account his threats to "investigate" his political opponents if elected.
Whoever wins I'm VERY interested to see what election/campaign/voting reform laws get proposed or passed.
Do people try to make tax returns a requirement? Birth certificates? Do we move to a more federal election system so it's not 50 states + 1000s of counties deciding how elections are run? Do presidential powers get reigned in a bit?
Much of that may require amendments, but I have a feeling we're going to have the discussions.
So that's the tradeoff. Would you rather that the X party might get a seat at the table next time or would you rather that you do your best NOT to elect the person you don't want by voting for their opponent.
I'd take the first option. Look at the shitshow that's been unleashed by continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils. We'll only stop things getting worse by making politicians earn our votes, rather than winning by default by being slightly more palatable than the other candidate. Voting with your conscience means you want to hold your politicians to higher standards, and whilst that might not have an immediate impact, it is the type of action that can make a noticeable difference over time.
If Teddy Roosevelt couldn't break up the two-party system, I'm not sure anybody can[1]. Political parties aren't even necessarily about policies at this point, I'm afraid; they seem to have turned into badges of identity such as religions once were. We're not quite there yet, but calling oneself a Republican or a Democrat is starting to feel like identifying as Lutheran vs Catholic during the wars of religion in the 16th century. For an example of how awful that kind of dynamic can go, particularly with an extra-radical fringe element stirring up populist sentiment, I would suggest Dan Carlin's podcast on happenings in the city of Muenster in that era[2]. It's thought-provoking.
With the current one-tier election system, you will severely cripple the chances of your second best candidate to win, if you vote you your first choice independent candidate.
Perhaps it's because the two leading independent candidates have terrible policy proposals? (Not to say that both major party candidates have great proposals, either)
Johnson thinks we should eliminate income taxes and replace them with high consumption taxes and Stein thinks we should cancel student debt. I've admittedly cherry picked some things I don't like.
I keep seeing this argument, and just because you disagree with libertarian principles doesn't make them more "insane."
Dismissing in such a negative way well thought out view points because they don't match your world view is counterproductive to having good policy discussions.
To me, they are insane. I don't know what to say. They don't bring much to the table I take seriously. I like some of the principles, but it's not a coherent platform.
Ironically, the same complaints apply to both the libertarian and the Green Party, though I have more beef with Jill Stein than the platform itself.
The important part is that both support major electoral reform that would enable third parties in general to be viable and to get proportional representation. If they can actually pull it off, I couldn't care less about the rest of their platform - the country can survive 4 years of libertarians or greens, it's seen much worse.
The catch is that said reform requires constitutional amendments, and these are gated on the states, not on the federal government (obviously, ratification requires state legislatures, but the states can also call for a constitutional convention, regardless of what the feds think).
So supporting third parties on the federal level is pointless from that perspective. If you just want electoral reform, vote third party for state legislature.
I'm surprised that more Americans don't spoil their ballot. Imagine if 20% of the ballots cast were spoiled. That would certainly wake up the media & politicians to the problems inherent in this 2 party system.
Not gonna put words into someone else's mouth, but here it is from my perspective: We come to the opinions we have based on the experiences we have, and everybody has different experiences. Equally as true is the opinions that don't form due to the experiences we don't have.
One example I have from someone I disagree with. It was a rich kid about to fully take over his father's company via inheritance, who agreed vehemently with trickle down economics. From his perspective, he created jobs (I'd at least agree with that much). The way that he created jobs was by investing resources on new profitable projects that required labor. In his perspective, how could he ever create more jobs by constraining his resources? He couldn't, but that is exactly the point (someone else creates the jobs, not him). He couldn't see the alternative of government enabling new jobs because the entire sum of his life experience portrayed government as a barrier to investment, not as an enabler of opportunity. The simple fact that he never had to rely on the government as an enabler of opportunity blinded him to the possibility that it could use his resources more efficiently than he could.
I'd consider his opinion falsifiable, but his perspective valid. I would never in a million years be able to tell him his perspective was wrong.
For 'valid' to mean anything interesting there has to be the possibility of something not being valid. If the criteria for 'valid' is merely that 'someone thinks it' then it's starting to sound like it's not a useful distinction to make.
The distinction being made isn't valid vs invalid, but rather perspective vs opinion. An incorrect opinion does not invalidate the perspective that helped form it, and the perspective is still worth understanding if you want an actual solution to a problem instead of just the self-righteous satisfaction of being right.
I'm completely in favour of understanding why people think what they do - apart from anything else, it's almost impossible to persuade them of anything different if you don't start from a position of sympathy.
In order to give you the opportunity of gaining a position of sympathy with me; one of the reasons I was asking about 'validity' is that it sounds formal and logical, but it doesn't seem to be being used in a formal and logical sense.
I think you're using it to say that we shouldn't dismiss perspectives, even those that have a high correlation with incorrect opinions (even though I'd struggle to define 'perspective' except as a bundle of opinions). While the intention seems admirable enough, I still find myself wishing for a bit more precision over what exactly is being said: obviously experiences aren't invalidated by the person experiencing them having false opinions, but the opinions formed from those experiences can absolutely be false, and occasionally even in the strict formal, logical sense invalid. If we're not talking about experiences (since the argument is almost never about what the other party experienced, but rather about what it means), and we're not talking about opinions, then I'm not sure what we're talking about at all.
Maybe I should just take this as a shorthand for describing a useful attitude to take rather than a description of something in the world, i.e. saying 'it's worth understanding why people think what they think, even if it's wrong, rather than dismissing it out of hand', and then I could agree with it.
Thanks for the comments. Yes, this deserves more explanation.
I mean "valid" essentially as a truism. It's a valid perspective because people are able to hold that perspective.
What makes it important to point out, in my opinion, is that it doesn't matter how irrational or ugly or wrong that perspective is, it can't simply be dismissed because it is such. That makes us incapable of fostering an environment in which all parties can grow their perspectives.
My wife's pregnant and she often has incredibly irrational fears. She will even point out that she has no logical underpinning for feeling a certain way. But she does feel that way. Her perspective, no matter what doctors tell her, is that there's so many things that may go wrong. And that's valid. Instead of, "well, if you know it makes no sense to feel that way, then stop feeling that way, right?" we work to understand what might be causing it and use what levers and knobs in life we have to eliminate those fears.
If we dismiss certain perspectives as being an invalid state for one to be in, we close doors on addressing it.
I'm not really much of a writer or persuasive voice, so I hope you're able to pick up what I'm trying to convey. Heck, maybe I'm just using words wrongly. I've been known to cromulate that from time to time.
Tocqueville, almost 200 years ago, begs to differ:
"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.... in America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases; but woe to him if he goes beyond them." [1]
What's changed this year isn't that Americans are being purged for having the wrong political ideas. That's been happening not for 200 years, but well over 300. Roger Williams, anyone? [2]
What's changed this year is that the major candidate of one of the main two parties holds beliefs that would get any normal American purged. Added to this is the velocity of change: 50 years ago, most normal Americans held these same beliefs. (Heck, not 10 years ago, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were swearing up and down that "marriage is between a man and a woman.")
So you're seeing two processes: an increase in the speed at which America's governing class can evolve its beliefs, and a decrease in their ability to drag the rest of America along with them. No surprise that the latter group wants to respond to an existential threat with an existential threat.
> 50 years ago, most normal Americans held these same beliefs
Most Americans 50 years ago would be stunned that someone who has been married three times, and who has been caught on tape saying he wants to cheat with other women, is still running for President. That alone would be disqualifying.
"Most Americans" at the time had no idea about JFK's personal flaws in that regard. If they had, I can't imagine he would have reached the point of being nominated.
The change is.. we know far more about our leaders than perhaps we should. No one is, has ever been, or will ever be, as saintly as our ideals require.
I don't think that's true actually. The media had a policy on not reporting on candidates infidelity. People didn't think it was relevant to politics and that it was a cheap way of attack. As far as I can tell reporting on and outrage over sex scandals has only become more popular over time. Our culture is much more sensitive to it now, instead of the reverse.
I get why you're using examples from centuries ago, but I don't think those alone can prove your point. Tocqueville might have been right 200 years ago, I have no idea, but I strongly disagree that his statement is true today.
Sam, just so you know, many of your sentences could exchange Trump for Hillary and be exactly what Trump supporters I know say. Especially this one:
> [Hillary] shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if [she] becomes our president.
Other sentences would just exchange antonyms and not make it sound any better. You call Trump isolationist, they call Hillary interventionist.
I fear that your reasoning for why you endorse Hillary and not Trump doesn't really speak to someone who likes Trump in the first place. Calling Trump racist, for instance, isn't going to flip anyone's voting bit.
Which is fairly long and not the kind of thing I'd suggest sharing with your Grandma or Thiel, but I think you could distill more convincing talking points from it that would appeal to people much more conservative than yourself.
Note: My own opinion is too wordy for the small margins here, I'm just relaying sentiments of people I've talked to. I'm from New Hampshire, and people here, especially up north, have had Trump signs from very early on in this campaign, way before anyone in the media seemed to take him seriously.
> Sam, just so you know, many of your sentences could exchange Trump for Hillary and be exactly what Trump supporters I know say. Especially this one:
> > [Hillary] shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if [she] becomes our president.
Except one is based on a set of statements made by the candidate and his own campaign, the other is mostly built upon the massive pile of conspiracy theories and mountains-made-from-molehills that constitute the argument against Hillary.
A Project Veritas Action video? Project Veritas is James O'Keefe's new project, right? The guy who's whole MO is releasing questionable videos to attack liberal organizations?
While I cannot deny the claims and cases of corruption and collusion on the Democratic side, I have to concede that the Trump campaign and the 'alt-right' have taken conspiracy theory culture mainstream.
> I fear that your reasoning for why you endorse Hillary and not Trump doesn't really speak to someone who likes Trump in the first place.
It's not supposed to. It's a bunch of feathers to convince hillary fans that he's on their side, and to soften the blow of telling them: You're categorically wrong if you want him fired.
> Calling Trump racist, for instance, isn't going to flip anyone's voting bit
That is what saddens me the most from this election. The fact that someone running for a high profile position can get away with such abhorrent remarks as Trump's made.
Maybe the real issue is the 2 party system. Both candidates have signifiant flaws, so the electorate is selecting on the attributes they dislike less.
"Abhorrent" is relative, and colored by the cultural bubbles in which we live. I know people who genuinely and enthusiastically agree with Trump's various statements about immigrants and minorities and think what he said in that "microphone was on" recording was hilarious instead of sexist. They don't think he "got away with" anything.
I don't think he's trying to convince anyone with this post. I think he's very honestly saying that he doesn't understand why someone would support Trump, and if you don't understand the support then you certainly can't make a persuasive argument.
I understand your argument and I might even agree with it. But, I would like to point out that there is a difference if we consider objective facts. Fact: Trump threatened to jail his political opponent if elected. That's how he has shown a disrespect for our system of government.
Now, I realize that Trump supporters really don't get why it's bad to put your rival in jail. But, that objective fact does actually matter to people who care about a functioning government.
At the end of the day, I don't think you can converse with Trump supporters. They are like creationists in their utter disregard for reality.
It's bad to put your opponent in jail if your opponent does not belong in jail and equally bad to not put your opponent in jail if they do belong there.
In a properly functioning country, status as "opponent" or "non-opponent" has nothing to do with going to jail. Right now we don't seem to have that; destruction of evidence is one of many things that would put any normal person in jail.
Given that Trump's opponent actually committed crimes, Trump is actually showing respect for our system of government. To let the powerful go unpunished is to disrespect it.
> Trump threatened to jail his political opponent if elected.
actually he said he would appoint a special prosecutor to the case which honestly should have been done a long time ago and based on the context of it is perfectly reasonable.
Clinton: "it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country."
Trump: "Because you'd be in jail."
Maybe, (surprise, surprise) Trump wasn't thinking it through and just wanted to get that quip in on Clinton but the language is clear: If Trump was in charge of the law in the US, Clinton would be in jail.
Parse it all you want, but Trump has continued to say that in his stumps and is fine with selling merchandise that says Clinton should be in prison.
Or maybe he was implying that she would be in jail after a fair trial because he (and his supporters) believes that she has committed perjury and illegally destroyed government documents, among other crimes. There's really no evidence that this was meant as a threat, especially considering he said she would be _investigated_ by a special prosecutor (rather than just being sent to jail immediately). What I believe was meant here is that if he was leading the country he would not allow her to get out of having a fair trial (which it is claimed she has gotten out of by having control over the government).
I mean, I could be completely wrong, but either way saying "the language in clear" greatly simplifies this situation. Not that it really matters to me given his political opinions, but I feel that accusations like this are what led to the whole us vs. them mentality on both sides of this campaign.
If you or I had destroyed evidence and lied to both Congress and the FBI repeatedly about it, I think we'd be in jail.
Clinton is becoming vaguely reminiscent of Julius Caesar, who had to repeatedly duck lawsuits by taking up governmental positions that carried freedom from prosecution.
The last time the Republicans put a special prosecutor on a Clinton that President was trying to stop Osama bin Laden from attacking the United States.
Again, there's reality and there's a belief that Hilary murdered someone.
Except Thiel is saying many of the repugnant things that made Trump popular.
- Thiel is passionately against all forms of political correctness, just like Trump.
- Thiel believes that the 19th amendment destroyed democracy, because women vote in favor for anti-libertarian welfare measures. When faced with the choice between saving democracy and capitalism, Thiel chooses capitalism. Trump shares this antidemocratic sentiment.
- Thiel: "A startup is basically structured as a monarchy. We don’t call it that, of course." Trump shares this authoritarian leadership style.
- Thiel wants to restrict immigration to highly educated people. Just like Trump.
- Thiel is the (primary?) backer of Curtis Yarvin, the alt-right (read: white supremacist) thoughtleader about "human biodiversity" (read: why some races are biologically inferior). Trump has proudly declared his biologically superior ancestry.
- Thiel is a climate skeptic: "The idea that human activity alters the climate is "more pseudoscience" than science". Trump famously called global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese.
- They're both billionaires that want to lower taxes for the 1%.
Thiel supports Trump because Thiel agrees with Trump. Really.
>>- Thiel believes that the 19th amendment destroyed democracy, because women vote in favor for anti-libertarian welfare measures. When faced with the choice between saving democracy and capitalism, Thiel chooses capitalism. Trump shares this antidemocratic sentiment.
And frankly, if you think he opposes women's suffrage, you didn't read it. He clarifies further in an addition:
But the most intense response has been aimed not at cyberspace, seasteading, or libertarian politics, but at a commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap.
It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us.
>>-Thiel is the (primary?) backer of Curtis Yarvin, the alt-right (read: white supremacist) thoughtleader about "human biodiversity" (read: why some races are biologically inferior).
He disagrees with you about factual matters of human population genetics, but not about the moral issue about how people with different genetics should be treated.
Moldbug believes that white people are the intellectual superiors of black people. That's supremacy. It's on his blog and in the medium post you linked. He isn't fooling anybody with his explanation of how that belief isn't racist or supremacist.
He also believes that Asians and Jews are on average the intellectual superiors of "white" people, so it's not clear to me how that's "white" supremacy. He's very clear that he separates the scientific question from the moral one. The belief that intelligence is largely genetic is fairly mainstream and supported by a large body of evidence. If he is committed to treating all groups of people with equal respect, that satisfies me.
>>He isn't fooling anybody with ...
What prevents you from taking him at his word about what he believes? Why would you distrust his own explanation of his own opinions? I don't think we're doing civilization any favors by speculating about people's "true" beliefs in order to ostracize them.
Moldbug has said many absurd antidemocratic things, but you don't need to misrepresent them to convey that.
>He also believes that Asians and Jews are on average the intellectual superiors of "white" people, so it's not clear to me how that's "white" supremacy.
Is it also the definition of racism to acknowledge that some races may have higher incidences of certain diseases, like sickle-cell anemia or cystic fibrosis? There are differences between the races. One of those differences is skin color. That doesn't mean it's the only difference.
The fact is that when you plot the results of IQ tests, the accepted measurement of intellectual capacity, along with race on a chart, a strong correlation is present. I don't think we should ostracize people who've performed this experiment and noted the results. It's not "racist" to perform this experiment, and it's not racist to acknowledge the widely-repeated results.
People usually say that the correlations demonstrate that the IQ test itself is racist. Maybe that's true. But just plotting race and IQ on the same graph and noting the outcome is not.
"Except Thiel is saying many of the repugnant things that made Trump popular.
- Thiel wants to restrict immigration to highly educated people. Just like Trump."
Why is this repugnant?
One would expect a country to institute immigration policy that benefited that country. If it is the case that some immigration restrictions are beneficial, isn't that a fair and reasonable policy?
Is the only acceptable immigration system random selection? Or are no restrictions acceptable?
> institute immigration policy that benefited that country
This is implying that less educated immigrants are not beneficial? Almost any migration only happens because there are resources to be acquired on the other side. It is exactly like the drug war - you could ignore the causes of demand and try to somehow crush supply which has objectively failed (because supplies will arise to meet demands) or you implement policy to get the demand you want.
And the immigrant demand takes many forms. Some times, welfare programs are too lax and give immigrants easy ways to avoid working. And other times, there is work to be done nobody is doing (often under minimum wage) that immigrants are willing to do because even below regulated standards of income they make way more here than they would back home.
Both reflect on failings of policy that crated the demand, and those failings could be addressed in many ways and all political ideologies tout their own ideas as the solution, which is the point of debate. Most can agree the status quo is unsustainable globally, when states are trying to consistently stop the supply of immigrants rather than resolve what is causing the demand.
The grass is always going to be greener somewhere else. Trying to attack that demand is, in my opinion, a fool's errand. If there is work to be done that isn't viable at rates allowed by regulation, then either it isn't that valuable, or its price is being suppressed.
I think that we are largely moving to a world where the vast majority of human labor is unnecessary. Increasingly, hiring one smart person is more productive than hiring 10 or even 100 below average intelligence people, because what is needed increasingly is brainpower, not manpower.
Assuming all of this is accurate, Thiel's thinking and actions are so full of contradictions and irrationality it's hard to understand how he became a billionaire.
Just two that stick out right away:
"- Thiel is passionately against all forms of political correctness, just like Trump." - unless he determines that the political incorrectness in question happens to affect him in some adverse way. See: Gawker.
And yes, I think outing someone without their express consent is a form of political incorrectness, in addition to a personal violation. I also don't think that financial bankruptcy is an appropriate punishment for doing so.
"- Thiel wants to restrict immigration to highly educated people. Just like Trump." - But also believes higher education is not so worthwhile that it should be required or even considered important for all Americans. See: Thiel Fellows
I'll play devils advocate here and unify both those points with Thiel's apparent views:
Striking back at Gawker wasn't about political correctness, it was about the boundaries of public/private life. He doesn't care if people hate him / judge him for his sexuality, but he believes it's nobody else's business and the press should be kept from revealing similar private info in the future. This reconciles well both with the specific case he chose to attack them through (Hogan's sex tape) and with a vague 'yearning for the past.' Past presidents had extramarital affairs as sort of public secrets with the press corps, because exactly this sort of thing was considered immaterial.
The second one is even easier to reconcile. Thiel believes there's a significant variance in the fundamental capabilities of different humans. The Thiel Fellowships are for exceptionally capable people, but he could still think the 'middle of the pack' needs higher education to maximize their contribution to society. He wants to make startup kings, not pull everyone out of school to start co-ops.
This public/private dichotomy reminds me sharply of a novel I read at one of those late teen-age formative periods, For Us, the Living[1], by Heinlein. In that story, it was a norm that you could declare "private sphere", and journalists et al would have to ignore the ensuing events until going "public" again. In that world, it had basically put the papparatzi out of work. There are some other gems in there, like a future law where if a country was to go to war, it was put to a popular vote, and if the measure passed, those who voted for war were moved to the head of the draft list.
I'm not sure whether everyone should be banned or required to read Heinlein in high school...
"- Thiel wants to restrict immigration to highly educated people. Just like Trump." - But also believes higher education is not so worthwhile that it should be required or even considered important for all Americans. See: Thiel Fellows
I'd be inclined to suppose that Thiel might say that he wants to restrict immigration to highly educated people because education correlates with intelligence. If you've already identified intelligence, you don't need to use education as a proxy rule-of-thumb.
Right, we aren't talking about Mitt Romney here. If this were the 2012 election I would be defending him, but this isn't some "standard" GOP candidate.
Funny how the "binders full of women" seems so tame today.
Funny how the "binders full of women" seems so tame today.
I'd be the first to criticize Romney's campaign, but that 'gaffe' was trumped up from the word go. It's a fine way in colloquial English to describe the experience of having collected large stacks of women's resumes with the intent to populate state government with qualified female candidates, which, in fact, Romney did.
It wouldn't have been racist if he said "binders full of minority candidates". It would make just as much sense and be just as anodyne if he'd said in a similar context "binders full of recent graduates", "binders full of men", or "binders full of lost pets".
It blew up because it was a fun way for the media and the opposing campaign to play with his decidedly "square" image by suggesting it had some sexual connotation, which was, frankly, pretty juvenile. Also the '80's called and they want their foreign policy back.
I agree, it was political theater. Romney in many ways to me reminds me of Hillary as far as style is concerned and I would say Hillary's "basket of deplorables" comment is far worse politically.
He's repeatedly threatened to throw journalists in jail that wrote things he didn't like. He threatened, on stage, in a Presidential debate, to unilaterally throw his political opponent HRC in jail. He is already contesting the results of the Democratic election weeks before it has even happened.
And that's just what he's said. The fascist overtones are present in a variety of other ways. He makes minority groups scapegoats in order to appeal to ignorant masses.
> He threatened, on stage, in a Presidential debate, to unilaterally throw his political opponent HRC in jail.
To object to that is to beg the question of whether she belongs in jail or not. I won't take a position on that, but it should be obvious that being a political candidate doesn't grant one immunity from prosecution for improperly divulging classified information (or for sexual assault, for that matter; I can't remember a previous where folks could legitimately debate whether both candidates should be in jail).
No, it's not. First of all, just like Benghazi, she's already been investigated by her political opponents and they've come up empty-handed. Second of all, Trump didn't call for her to be prosecuted; he claimed he would single-handedly lock her up of his own authority.
To object to literal fascism is to acknowledge that we live in a Constitutional Democracy and have an actual legal and judicial system which is not to be subverted by a unilateral Executive branch actor who has a short temper and a grudge. You know, basic separation of powers principals that are fundamental pillars of our Democracy.
But then again, this is the party that has illegally obstructed the nomination for the Scalia's replacement for the last 9 months, and will continue to do so for the next 3 _AND_ has already proclaimed that they will obstruct HRC's nominations as well...
So it's nothing new to disregard the Constitution for the Republicans at this point, I guess.
I would actually agree with OP that Trump is not anti-democratic, ideologically speaking.
His ideology is actually the other extreme - it's mob rule with a strong leader who can do whatever they want (phrased as "whatever needs to be done"), having the mandate to do so from the mob. Very similar to the current arrangement in Russia, for example (yes, elections are rigged, but Putin would still get a large majority even in fair elections), or now also in the Philippines.
Trumpism is anti-democratic in practice, because it doesn't have actual popular support, and so has to resort to conspiracy theories to explain it away by claiming that elections are rigged etc, effectively trying to disenfranchise its opponents. But its adherents don't see it that way - they genuinely believe that there's a conspiracy against them, and they would have won in fair elections; so from their perspective, they're fighting for democracy.
> of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator).
This is precisely where your whole argument fell apart. If money is speech (and SCOTUS tells us it is) and Thiel donates over $1 million to Trump's campaign, then he effectively is saying what Trump is saying.
Money talks. In our society, it's almost always even louder than the calm reasoning of a rationalist.
I think that all you can assume with donations is that the statement is "I think that this is the best candidate" instead of "I endorse everything that this person says". I would then think that it is reasonable to not hold a donor responsible for everything that the person they donated to says
That's just as delusional as the people who gush over Hillary for her social justice stances, but get very angry when you bring up her hawkishness. That's not how it works. You vote for / donate to the entire politician. You can't elect half a President.
True, but presidents (on average) get a remarkable percentage of their policies passed in some form. Maybe you don't support 90% of what Donald or Hillary say, but you have to be careful: it's almost guaranteed that at least something of that 90% is going to happen.
Also, there are varying degrees of agree-ability. I do not agree with many of Hillary's policies, but there aren't any that I would take a firm stance against. Most of Donald's policies are different: I don't agree with them, and I believe it'd be awful if they were to actually happen.
But for these people that are still supporting Trump, they consider that avoiding 90% of Hillary's platform worth the cost of Trump. Bear in mind, when Nate Silver pointed out that Trump would win if only men could vote, women (a small number, mind you) were tweeting they'd gladly give up their right to vote if it got Trump elected.
You have to understand that that is how some people feel about Hillary. That losing their own vote forever, for their entire gender, would be worth it to them to keep her out of office.
> But for these people that are still supporting Trump, they consider that avoiding 90% of Hillary's platform worth the cost of Trump.
I think the problem is that's not true. From what I've read, people don't support a candidate because they agree or disagree with the opposition on real-terms. They support because of "fake terms."
I consider these fake terms to be one I hear a lot from Trump supporters: "Hillary Clinton wants to take our guns away."
> women (a small number, mind you) were tweeting they'd gladly give up their right to vote if it got Trump elected.
There are plenty of women that think women shouldn't vote, regardless of Trump! There are men who think men shouldn't vote, etc.. etc.. fortunately, the internet gives them a platform: unfortunately, sometimes these groups aren't keen on reason.
And it remains your decision how much of your own personal politics you are willing to sacrifice in exchange for a candidate more likely to win.
For a lot of people, this year, you are basically on a scale from yourself with no chance to the major nominees with at least 99.9% of the chance and almost nothing you agree with.
Ordinarily, I might be more inclined to agree with you, but (as even sama seems to recognize) this is far from an ordinary 'vote my issues' kind of election. This is a more holistic matter of core principles.
No he isn't. Since Trump has donated to the Clinton Foundation (edit: and Hillary's senate and presidential campaigns), does that mean that he is effectively saying everything that Hillary is saying? Does buying an album mean I agree with every lyric on it? If I donate to someone who then incites violence, can I be prosecuted?
Also, the Supreme Court does not believe money is speech. If they did, campaign contribution limits would be obviously unconstitutional.
1. Donating to the Clinton Foundation is not the same as donating to the Clinton campaign.
2. Buying an album is not the same as donating money to a campaign or voting, both of which can meaningfully affect a large number of other people, unlike buying an album.
3. If you knowingly fund criminal operations without actually committing said crimes yourself you can definitely be held accountable for it by the law.
4. The US Supreme Court did rule that donating money is a form of free speech in Buckley v. Valeo, but this doesn't imply that free speech is limitless. As with other forms of speech, Congress has the power to place reasonable limits on it.
1. He has donated to her campaigns as well, several times.
2. If money that supports speech is equivalent to making that speech, isn't this just a matter of degree?
3. I understand. Doesn't my specific example seem absurd, though?
4. But there are many more limitations on money than there are on speech. There is no limit on speech in support of a campaign. There is a limit on money in support of a campaign. Is that not enough evidence that money and speech are not equivalent, at least legally?
Haven't looked deep into the thought behind the "money is speech" situation, but it seems extreme to say that giving money is the same as talking.
Let's assume Alice supports a candidate not because of their general positions but because of a certain niche position that person A thinks is really important.
If you hate a certain position the candidate believes but person A might feel ambivalent about, is it fair to redirect that anger to Alice?
The major difference I see between the candidate and Alice is simply that if another candidate that came along without the position you may hate but still having the niche belief, they may switch quite quickly.
Candidates A and B are for or against (noted as O and X respectively) the following:
Issue: A B C D E F G
A: O O O X X X O
B: O O X X O O X
Noting that they both agree on three issues, disagree on three issues. I have to weight each of those issues to determine which one I am actually for. While I disagree with Thiel's conclusion this year, I have to presume he's done the same sort of analysis (he's not an idiot, he's well educated and successful so he's done something right along the way). His scales have apparently tipped in strong favor of Trump (especially for him to double down with his donation), but that doesn't mean he specifically supports the more abhorrent parts of Trump's character or campaign.
> I have to presume he's done the same sort of analysis (he's not an idiot, he's well educated and successful so he's done something right along the way)
Being well educated and successful doesn't mean he acts rationally at all time. Some persons get extremely passionate and dogmatic when it comes to politics. I'm just speculating but maybe Trump's personality and style appeals to him in an irresistible way.
>then he effectively is saying what Trump is saying.
This is a very dangerous way of viewing politics, and exactly the kind of black-and-white thinking we're trying to get away from. Just because you donate to someone, just because you vote for them, just because you campaign for them does not mean you agree 100% with everything they say. If 100% agreement were a prerequisite for voting for someone, nobody would ever vote. There has never been a candidate that has held all of my views, and there never will be, because my views are a pretty peculiar mix based on my experiences and exposure to information.
> If money is speech [...] and [someone donates money to a] campaign, then [they effectively are] saying what [the candidate] is saying.
No, they're just saying they support that candidate. Maybe they support every position they hold, but that's not a corollary. Maybe they just really dislike the alternative candidates, and maybe they made this decision solely based on comparing two candidates on a single issue.
This rant isn't directed at you (or the article for that matter), but I have a disdain for people who decry single-issue voters. For whatever reason, being a single-issue voter is seen as this taboo that any educated and cultured individual ought to stay away from. I think that's bullshit, especially in a political realm as polarized as ours. In my eyes, there's nothing "wrong" with being a single issue voter. For any given individual, certain topics in politics affect them disproportionately. The idea that people shouldn't account for that when making their decision comes entirely from an ego-driven world of journalists, politicians, and academics who need to convince themselves that they consider politics from a hilltop, above and beyond the mere peasants who only care about themselves and their personal life.
And to bring this back to the topic at hand, if you agree with what I'm saying about single-issue voting, I think it's inconsistent to think that it reflects personally on someone to support Trump.
If you are a single issue voter that is:
* against foreign intervention
* concerned about the federal budget
* against the ACA
* against common core and the department of education
* for allowing marijuana legalization by individual states
* etc. etc. etc.
You might find yourself supporting Trump. And you still might not like what he says sometimes. And you might not be a horrible person to your core.
Endorsing Trump or Clinton isn't the same as saying you agree with everything they stand for. It is simply saying that you believe they are a better candidate for the position than the opposition, and unfortunately I feel like this election has turned into a "lesser of two evils" for many people I talk with. Nobody fully endorses either candidate's beliefs or ideals, but they definitely know which one they like the least for the job.
In that regard, donating really isn't saying much. It is simply saying "I think Trump will do a better job as president than Clinton."
That all said, I have no idea what Theil's political beliefs are so he might really agree with everything Trump says, but you can't infer that off of a donation to his campaign.
What? Why is money speech? What makes donation different from voting pragmatically? (eg. "I'll put up with an offensive loudmouth for President if it means we get to avoid destroying another Middle Eastern civilization and potentially starting WW3")
A case where it was divided along partisan lines 5 to 4 on the SCOTUS. One of the 5s seat is now vacant and the next president will appoint a replacement.
This is the primary reason I am so frustrated with friends of mine who are content to see Hillary and Trump as 'the same'. One of these two people will tilt the court away from the majority that decided on Citizens United. The other will tilt it further in favor of the side that decided on Citizens United.
Even if HRC was ideologically opposed to my own views I would vote for her since 4 or 8 years of HRC trumps (pardon the pun) the 40 years of SCOTUS seating the next president will set.
Remember, that case was about the U.S. government trying to prevent a group of people from showing a film critical of a political candidate. Do you really think that isn't speech?
"The majority, in a per curiam opinion, contended that expenditure limits contravened the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because spending money, in its view, was the same as written or verbal expression."
It's not an all or nothing, black and white thing though.
It's possible for someone to agree with some things a candidate says, and disagree with other things. If I agree with more things Trump says than things Clinton says (or does, or believes, etc...) then it makes sense to support that candidate. So money is not speech. Even votes are not speech.
> then he effectively is saying what Trump is saying
Disagree.
Thiel is making an investment. He can likely separate his emotions from his actions. I imagine Thiel doesn't agree with a lot of what Pence says about homosexuals, but that certainly didn't stop him from making the investment.
The only way that this could be anything less than a full support of the Trump platform, would be if Thiel had specifically rejected large chunks of the platform are bad, and he's not supporting them, but there's some things there in particular that he finds so important that they override all the bad stuff. In other words, the "lesser of two evils" endorsement, such as some Republicans have made for Clinton this year.
Thiel didn't do that. In his speech, the only reference to that was decrying the "fake culture wars".
Ergo, he fully supports not just Trump, but the entirety of the Trump platform.
You are misreading that sentence. You're talking about money talking symbolically. From context, Sam obviously means if Peter starts saying specific things that Trump has said.
I agree that this is not a good thing. No one should be fired for having controversial opinions or even being accused of a crime. I believe that "morality clause"-style firings should only occur when a) the employer is among the aggrieved parties (e.g., the employer accuses the employee of theft or other unlawful conduct); or b) the employee is convicted in a criminal court.
I've had way too much of people getting fired for petty personal disagreements or baseless accusations.
"If money is speech (and SCOTUS tells us it is) and Thiel donates over $1 million to Trump's campaign, then he effectively is saying what Trump is saying."
And wasn't this the argument made by those who supported the ouster of Brendan Eich from Mozilla?
I made it then, and I'm making it now. One of the best ways we can fix campaign finance is by holding campaign financiers responsible for what they're funding.
Not really, the minority is anybody who's ever had the wrong opinion on anything that sufficiently socially powerful people think is worth burning the heretics over. If you really need to get at somebody, it may in fact be sufficient to just make something up:
> Not really, the minority is anybody who's ever had the wrong opinion on anything that sufficiently socially powerful people think is worth burning the heretics over.
How is being uninvited as a keynote speaker being burned at the stake? Or even remotely comparable to the policies that Donald Trump has advocated (killing the families of suspected terrorists, jailing political opponents) or bragging about sexual assault, which is illegal?
I can see why folks had an issue with Eich being forced out of Mozilla, but the world isn't black and white when it comes to "free speech". Allowing free speech doesn't mean that you should be shielded from the consequences from the world at large.
"Holding people responsible" means punishing, in one way or another. Not doing business with them, trying to get them tossed out of a group, get them fired, shamed, etc. And who is going to do this to whom? Those with the popular opinion would be doing it to those with the unpopular opinion.
- Voters holding candidates responsible for where their support comes from, and whether that will influence their actions in office.
- Consumers / collaborators / whatnot holding financiers responsible for what they are funding.
I, as a voter, do choose to take into account who is funding a candidate's campaign.
I, as a consumer / potential employee / human, take into account the speech funded by someone I'm intending to conduct a transaction with / form a friendship with, as evidence of their character.
If you are claiming that calling a non-trivial proportion of Trump's supporters deplorable requires an apology, you disagree with me about what is deplorable.
The fact that a candidate for President of the United States -- whichever party they represent -- would decide to dismiss a sizeable portion of the country as contemptible or wretched seems to be the issue.
Mitt Romney dismissed 47% of the voting public in 2012 and was roundly criticized for dismissing the people he supposedly wanted to lead.
If Clinton had said 46%, would that have made it ok?
If a sizeable portion of the country is contemptible or wretched, why on earth would she not say it?
It's not dismissing them, it's saying they hold contemptible views. Just as, at one point in time, I'd imagine 50% of the population were in favour of slavery.
It's not a good political move, but it's telling the truth.
It's not about the number, but rather about the accuracy of the statement.
I don't have any problem with what Clinton said. Based on the numerous polls, she is absolutely correct. It may not be a politically prudent thing to say, but that's not an ethical matter.
Sure. There are individuals in any large group that stray in philosophy and behavior from what the majority consider rational or acceptable, and that includes Clinton, Johnson and Stein supporters.
So what is the acceptable number? "Almost half"?
And what does that say about the rest of the group? Are they too to be damned by association, for standing too close to the "real deplorables"?
It's a slippery slope to not associate with people based on politics. It is also a slippery slope to continue to associate with people because the views they support are those of a politician.
David Duke is running for senate. Does that make Holocaust-denial a political issue?
There was a time when women having the right to vote was a political issue. Today it is not (though Thiel has raised concerns about what women's suffrage did for capitalist democracy[0].)
There was a time when slavery was considered a political issue. Today it is not.
I don't think sexual assault is in the realm of "personal politics". I don't think racism is either. Can I take the time to understand people who might advocate for these? Sure, but that doesn't mean I want them as leaders.
Having Thiel as a partner in YC, when Silicon Valley has tremendous issues with diversity already, sends a strong message. It's not about supporting a political party. I'm sure the YC partners have a wide spectrum of political views. This isn't about politics.
If I believed that Clinton was going to start World War III, and that Trump would stop it, then I would vote for Trump despite all of his nastiness.
In reality, I believe Trump is much more likely to start WWIII, which is yet another reason to be opposed to him, but it is extremely uncharitable to assume that all of his supporters support everything that he does. I think most Republican voters simply believe he's the lessor of two evils. I strongly disagree with them, but respect the democratic process.
I think Clinton and Trump would each start WW3 in different ways, which makes it harder to directly compare. He would do something stupid/impulsive which couldn't be walked back (most things can, thankfully), or would cripple long-term alliances making war more likely later. She would get involved in some situation (no one thinks Trump is competent enough to let him actually engage in an intentional expansion of a conflict), which then escalates out of control.
I completely agree that being a single-issue voter on "preventing WW3" is the most moral thing possible. It's just really hard to tell which is less likely. And maybe if it is 0.00000001% vs. 0.000000011%, some other issue should have priority.
Its pretty simple why a lot of the country supports Trump.
Every election the media brands the Republican party candidate the devil and stupid (Romney was tagged as a racist last election and stupid for thinking Russia might be a threat). They also read all the leaked e-mails calling them stupid and see what the Clinton Foundation has done. They aren't ignorant or stupid and see when a fix is in. Never mind the various people that Sec. Hilary has declared she will put out of business.
I said it in another thread, "if you keep demonizing a group, expect them to send an actual demon eventually".
I honestly believe if you cannot understand why people support Trump, then you just don't want to understand or believe that they are full of hate. They aren't full of hate. Most just don't believe the media anymore. Take the media outlets this morning blaming Trump for the burning of a GOP office. I think the quote that comes up most often is "If he were really that bad, NBC would have had to fire him during his time on TV and besides Bill is worse". The media outlets didn't do themselves any favors by holding onto tape from 2005 until after the convention and using it as an "October Surprise".
As for me, I didn't get to vote in the primaries because of issues with the GOP and the ND GOP. My candidate didn't get in (Rubio), and the Libertarian candidate is a disaster. I was hoping the Libertarians could get that magic 5% like Perot's party did in 1992. I might still vote Libertarian. I really doesn't matter as far as electoral split. I am more interested in the governor's race. I won't vote for Hilary since she is an actual demonstrated threat.
Sorry, not a good analogy. What it omits is the power factor.
Were Mr. Thiel a founder, and a powerful VC blacklisted him because of his political views, we would have the powerful trampling the weak.
If HN banned everyone who defended Mr. Thiel, we would have a purge.
But choosing not to do business with a billionaire that is actually spending money to support Mr. Trump is not a case of the powerful oppressing the weak, nor is it a case of the powerful purging voices from discourse.
It's a choice, simple as that. Agree, disagree, fine. But it's not a purge, and it's not oppression.
What about Brendan Eich? I don't know if he is a billionaire, but he lost a job. Losing a job for having a particular view is oppression. Next election cycle, should you lose your job if you support Clinton? No. We're losing civil discourse by going this way.
Great discussion to be had, but you seem to be working this towards a slippery slope argument that if we don't choose to do business with billionaires to give millions and stump at the RNC convention, it won't be long before we're firing 43% of the workforce.
I can accept that YC may choose not to cut Mr. Thiel loose, but I'm not convinced that there is a moral imperative not to cut him loose.
Where does it stop though? Where is the line where you say "I disagree with you, therefore I will not associate with you"? There is definitely a line. Supporting a candidate who says a lot of stuff probably isn't it. I knew people who were against Obama because his religious leader had said something that could be construed to be pro-satan. Obama is not a 100% mirror (or even a tiny bit) that religious leader. Not supporting Trump for what he says seems fine - he's 100% responsible for what he says. Not supporting someone else, who supports Trump, is not OK. That other person has separate thoughts, and input from hundreds/thousands of other people. It's like saying if you support someone who supports Clinton, you support top secret emails being on everyone's private servers. It's a tiny slice of the whole. Or, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
I understood the argument as "it's OK to blacklist people because of their political views if they are powerful" in which case it's fair to question whether that belief would hold for a different set of political views. As you might have guessed, I think blacklisting people based on their political views is a slippery slope and shouldn't be done even to powerful people (especially for political positions that are actually mainstream). I'm not a fan of Trump/Hillary either.
This seems to imply that all political views are equal.
They're not.
For example, "Jews are a race of parasites that should be exterminated" is a political view, very popular in some countries back in the day (and in some other countries even today).
I don't have any problem blacklisting people who believe in that, and act to make those beliefs a reality, even if the acts themselves are legal (e.g. funding a political campaign to gain power). Do you?
Can't disagree with that. I guess I should have nuanced my own position a bit, how about: we shouldn't blacklist people based on their political beliefs if those beliefs are shared by nearly half the population and are in no way genocidal? I'd extend the same logic to religion because they both tend to be completely inconsequential at work.
> I guess I should have nuanced my own position a bit, how about: we shouldn't blacklist people based on their political beliefs if those beliefs are shared by nearly half the population and are in no way genocidal?
So the millions of Germans who supported Nazism make it okay?
Honestly, I don't think it would be a gigantic stretch for Trump to push for genocide against Muslims.
Well, it's an ethical decision, fundamentally. So the way you approach it should be consistent with the way you approach them in general. If the degree of popular support for some policy or opinion factors into your determination of whether it's ethical or not, then sure. If it doesn't, I don't see why it should be any different in this case.
What do you think 'right' and 'wrong' mean ? It will always be a matter of opinion. Especially since one side in this election is adamant to ignore empirical/scientific evidence when it comes to topics like global warming and discrimination.
No, objectively. Granted sama doesn't provide detailed references, but you can find factual backing for statements such as these ones easily if you look:
"A Trump presidency would be a disaster for the American economy."
"He has no real plan to restore economic growth."
"His racist, isolationist policies would divide our country, and American innovation would suffer"
"He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage. He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants."
Not that I want to split hair but in the examples you gave:
1) Subjective
This is an opinion, not a fact.
2) Objective
I agree. But that does not make him "objectively" wrong.
3) Subjective
Without starting a discussion about Trump alleged racism, whether or not a somewhat isolationist policy would either divide our country or make American innovation suffer is a matter of opinion, not facts. Some other prominent investors seem to disagree.
Besides, examples in our history would tend to show the contrary (I am referring to Roosevelt policies after the '29 crash).
4) Subjective
Unless SCOTUS rules that his stands are unconstitutional, it's only a matter of interpretation.
A Trump presidency would be an economic disaster: Objectively true because his policies involve reducing taxes, increasing spending, and isolating the country from free trade (eg. withdrawing from NAFTA which has been shown to have created jobs and growth on both sides of the border).
"American innovation would suffer": Because of economic consequences, so see above.
"He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage": I don't even know how you can argue against this, just watch one of his speeches.
"He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants": He personally is a threat to women, and his policies, such as they are, are now stiring up racial hatred. Again, an objective truth.
"Trump shows little respect for the Constitution": He announced several completely unconstitutional plans, such as suspending the right of US citizens to return to the country if they are Muslims. You don't need a ruling from the Supreme Court on this.
Except that he made the case for why he thinks Trump is the wrong candidate. Keep in mind, he wrote a blog post earlier giving credit to Trump on topics that he is correct on.
I already made this point today but Hillary Clinton, whom sama is endorsing, has directly contributed to starting two wars (in Syria and Libya). While Trump threatened to ban Muslims from entering the US, her actions have already led to thousands of Muslims being killed. Isn't that strictly worse?
Yeah I'm not quite sure I understand the whole "I'm voting Clinton because it's the only way to stop Trump" argument.
No it's not. If enough people who are voting Clinton purely to stop Trump voted 3rd party, 3rd party would actually have a chance.
In this overflowing toilet bowl we call the 2016 Presidential Election, your best bet to unclog it is to use a plunger, now throw another turd in. Vote for the plunger, not the turds.
They probably wouldn't. I think you overestimate the number of people voting Clinton just to stop Trump. A lot of people truly like her the most. (Not me, I'd like to note - not that I will be voting as an Englishman).
It's also worth noting, what third party candidate? There isn't a perfect option there either.
It's a first past the post system - third party candidates are never going to happen because of the psychology, number of ingrained voters, and the way electoral college votes work.
If you are in that situation, the best thing is to vote Clinton, then instantly start putting as much pressure on her and other Democrats to change that system once she is in office. Start now, and get support for a candidate so in the next election you can have one you actually like standing, or at least push towards one. The biggest problem is people getting worked up in the presidential election, then when it's over, ignoring politics for four years.
Change in politics does not happen quickly - generally it involves waiting for old people to die, because people are bad at changing their beliefs. I'd love to believe a third party vote was worthwhile, but the truth is, in reality, it's not. We know that. The system is broken. Work to change that.
First past the post simply isn't democracy. It's a vague semblance of. Until you change that, you'll have two parties and your choice between a turd sandwich and a douche.
IIRC, Surveys consistently show that 40-50% of people would like to have a third option besides clinton or trump, which is rather high. That should be enough to get at least a plurality, except for "psychology" (people don't want to lose; network effects; with-me-or-against-me-ism)
> what third party candidate? There isn't a perfect option there either.
As long as you acknowledge the double standard implicit in your language: For a non-third-party candidate, it suffices to "not be as bad as the other person"; for a third-praty candidate one must be "perfect".
> the way electoral college votes work.
Electoral colleges don't work that way. In order to win, one need only get one state (it's unlikely, but McMullin seems to have a shot at pulling that off; less likely: Johnson).
Really a smart campaigner could grab one state, and then use the momentum (as you might say, "psychology") to continue grabbing states.
Let me restate: I don't see a third party candidate that is that much better than Clinton. Most are better in some ways, worse in others. I used the word 'perfect' because I think that, for a third party candidate, you would need to get the perfect mix to inspire enough support to break through. If I'm throwing my vote behind someone for ideological reasons without an expectation it will work, I want it to be someone I can truly support without reservation.
The momentum thing, I don't buy. It might technically be possible, but it's practically never going to happen, because FPTP is broken.
Lots of people like the abstract idea of another option. There are, on fact, other concrete options, and people don't tend to like them as much as the abstract idea of an alternative, even before factoring in tactical concerns.
Now, to be fair, part of that is a product of the electoral system--people who are likely to be competent for the office are unlikely to run as a third-party candidate, given that they are likely to understand how the system works.
> third party candidates are never going to happen
More than two parties will never be stable unless elections are other than FPTP. But which two parties has changed more than once through US history. I don't see a reason it couldn't possibly happen again.
Sure. And? Swapping a party around doesn't really solve any of the underlying problems. It may help a little in the short term, but FPTP encourages not only two parties, but the kind of polarisation that leads to the republican party as they stand now, pushed incredibly far to the right.
Fair point. I think people often underestimate the benefit of short term help, but short term help that only arrives on a long-term timeline should rightfully be discounted.
That said, if control shifts anytime soon to a current leading third party, I (weakly) expect electoral issues would be addressed - it's hard to drop something you've made so much noise about (though certainly not impossible).
It happened twice, both in the first century of US independence; whole there have been subsequent realignments, the identity of the two nationally-competitive parties have been stable for more than a century and a half. It's not implausible that the basic factors which promoted the relative fluidity of the party system in the early Republic are gone. (Direct election of senators and the near universal norm of assigning Presidential electors based on public elections both are factors which make the national parties more responsive to changes in the mood of the electorate, which reduces the risk of either being replaced.)
It would be possible to consider the post-Nixon Southern Strategy flop of anti-civil-rights Democrats to form the new-look Republican party a third occurrence. That fundamentally changed the direction and outlook of both parties.
There's actually several major realignments since the Republicans displaced the Whigs, but they differ from the changes from the First to Second and Second to Third Party System in that the identity of the two major parties did not change in those realignments; IIRC, the realignment you refer to is sometimes considered the third of those post-Civil War realignments (the one involving the New Deal Coalition is the second, and the first was in the Progressive Era.)
It is truly Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich. Unfortunately, we don't have a real candidate who is effectively Drain-O. I wonder why Romney, or McCain, or Biden, or, to be partisan to my birth state, Susan Collins, didn't try to be a reasonable option.
My counter to that would be that we accept that sometimes war is necessary and can be the lesser of two evils, while judging every Muslim by the actions of a few should never be necessary.
Hilary didn't say she wants to nuke Syria and Libya. She made a decision because she thought that conflict there was the lesser of two evils, and has applied mostly proportionate response, and attempted to limit collateral damage.
Trump has said he wants to completely ban everyone who shares a religion with the most prominent terrorists of the moment.
The two, in my eyes, are very, very different. One is a decision made in the understanding that we have to make difficult choices, one is a naive, dangerous blanket policy as a knee-jerk response that will cause more harm than good.
It's easy to say 'killing vs banning' and make it sound the way you did, but when it's 'carefully directed killing to try and reduce overall killing vs overreaching banning that will be ineffective and punish innocent people'...
It's easy to call it 'carefully directed killing' when many people called out that sort of activity in general, and those specific actions (syria, libya) and even constructively suggested alternatives that would avoid bloodshed and blowback - and those alternatives have been repeatedly ignored.
I'm not saying I agree completely with the actions taken - but they still hold up far better under the 'who do I want making the decisions' test - the person who at least tried to make a good call, or the person who wants to make a clearly terrible one.
The US has been the largest arms exporter for as long as I can remember. For much of this time selling directly or indirectly to some very bad people.
So, I find it particularly interesting that this somehow has become a partisan election issue. Maybe the world will get lucky and this will stick as an issue after the election.
As much as I hate Trump, I'm kind of hoping for him to win. Fundamentally, I think that 4 years of Trump might be better than 8 years of Hillary. Also, if Hillary wins, the DNC won't have to change. If Trump wins, in 2020, they will be forced to nominate maybe someone like Sanders.
Trump winning will also really underscore how broken the US political system is and I'm hoping that him winning could be a catalyst for some change.
I get the 'catalyst for change' argument, except that's not how it would work.
For one, Trump could do a huge amount of damage in four years - destroying peoples lives through taxation and repealing rights, destroying international relations, filling the supreme court with hard right wing candidates.
Not to mention the damage that would be done in terms of social norms. Trump getting elected is a massive signal to the right that it's OK to be racist, sexist, and trample other's beliefs, identities and cultures. Those people will be more vocal, which means more kids will get sucked up into that ideology.
Also, why would the left move left if Trump wins? The message there is someone as crazily far-right as Trump can get 50% of the vote. They'd move right, not left.
I honestly can't believe that anyone who supports Sanders - someone who is so strongly in favour of the things Trump intends to trample, and such a strong pragmatist, would want to follow a course of action that is so clearly shooting your own nose to spite your face.
You only need to look at Reagan or Bush 2 to see how long it takes to repair the damage of a very bad President. This sounds plausible in theory, but in reality it's totally reckless. We would be dealing with the consequences for decades.
I am tempted to respond to this and then I realize that I don't want HN to become yet another place for discussing partisan politics so I choose to hold my tongue (except for posting this sentence).
See, that is the whole reason I vote for him. I cannot abide the thought of a liberal who has a hard-on for suppressing the 2nd Amendment and other integral parts of the Bill of Rights appointing at least two supreme court judges (RBD is in her 80s). I could hope that the GOP holds enough of a majority to block those appointments until the tide changes, as they have this year, but that is possibly akin to playing Russian roulette.
Expansion of the surveillance state, even less government transparency, more money in politics.
Not to mention her abysmal record on war, cyber security, election rigging, and media manipulation.
After 4 years of Trump we will have a country that is willing to acknowledge its mistakes, and two parties in disarray looking for fresh candidates to invigorate the masses.
After 8 years of Hillary we will have seen the trend of villifying the opposition reach its obvious conclusion.
If you don't toe the party line you are racist/sexist/actualHitler. I voted for Obama twice and I regularly get called a racist online because I don't support Hillary.
Hillary controls the media, is backed by all the money in the world, and is a war hawk.
What will happen is whatever she wants to happen, and I can't think of a single positive impact she has had on my life.
Might as well just copy-paste my comment from yesterday:
"Taking the high road like this is only possible when it's not your neck on the chopping block. Thiel thinks giving women the right to vote was a mistake; Trump thinks all Mexicans and Muslims are violent madmen who should be barred from entering the United States. Hacker News can gregariously see past these faults because they're not in the crosshairs, but if Shanley Kane were a YC partner and saying "all men support rape culture, even if indirectly", there's no friggin way this comment section would be so sanguine."
> Trump thinks all Mexicans and Muslims are violent madmen who should be barred from entering the United States.
ok honestly this is just outright wrong. you're just reciting false talking points from your liberal tv when you clearly haven't actually taken the time to listen to what Trump actually said. He never once called all Mexicans rapists yet you say he did. He never once said he wants to ban ALL Muslims from entering the US yet you did. For your information, the FBI notified congress and local governments that they currently are not confident that they can properly vet all incoming refugees. If the FBI is saying that, how on Earth can you claim it's wrong for Trump to call for a temporary stop until the FBI says it has a handle on it?
OK, that's correct as far as I can tell. He didn't say "all Mexicans are rapists". You might still want to reflect on how what he did say was nonetheless offensive, not to mention factually incorrect.
However,
> He never once said he wants to ban ALL Muslims from entering the US
this is plainly false. From his website:
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on"
It's clear that he's not asking for a permanent ban. The parent poster did not say "permanent ban". It's still clearly a "ban" by the plain meaning of the word.
If you're going to defend Trump, at least read what he puts out on his own website.
There's a degree of separation you're missing. SOPA is a specific belief, Trump is a person who has many beliefs.
Person -> SOPA
Person -> Trump -> Sexism/Racism/etc
Thiel doesn't support Trump because he's racist/etc, he does it in spite of that. That doesn't make Thiel right, however it is an important distinction. If Thiel said or did anything racist/sexist/etc, he'd be out of YC. It's a slippery slope to start firing people because someone they support supports something you don't like.
After all, Clinton supports SOPA, and Sam just endorsed her.
* He believes we've stagnated (see http://blog.samaltman.com/trump)
* He sees a unique opportunity to buy into politics at the highest level for a mere $1.25MM
* He likes being on CNN and on stage. He's famous, but not politics-famous.
* He found a way to get Republicans to cheer for the phrase "I'm gay"
Again, doesn't justify him... but potentially explains him.
At the end of the day, we shouldn't be surprised that a guy who's famous for asking "What's one thing you believe that no one else does?" is supporting the most contrarian candidate we've ever seen.
I didn't say we should assume he's racist, but you assumed he isn't. In fact you assumed his motivation very explicitly. I was asking how you made such an assumption.
I think you are overstating the case. Thiel didn't support Trump's hatred and sexual abuse. Presumably he said "I'm proud to be gay" at the republican convention precisely to put those issues aside. (Apparently he was the first person to do this, which shouldn't be underestimated.)
Thiel supports Trump for his economic policies, which seems utterly bizarre to me, but I don't see any double standard in terms of YC's behavior.
If you endorse someone, without pointing out what you believe to be their flaws, when you know those flaws (and, really, I don't think Thiel could claim excuse by ignorance here), you implicitly support those flaws.
I highly doubt that Thiel supports sexual abuse anymore than I think all my friends who are going to vote for Clinton support foreign interventionism, the need to regulate video games like narcotics, etc.
It's not a big step to think he supports sexual abuse. He has already made it clear that he doesn't respect women enough to think they should have the right to vote.
I mean, I see the difficulty. Ostensibly, Peter Thiel has a lot of value to the tech community. SOPA does not.
But.... this post does censure Peter Thiel. sama is completely disavowing Thiel's support of Trump. Maybe I don't understand what "censure" means though, if you meant something else.
Seriously I feel like I'm taking crazy pills on HN the way people are apologizing for Trump in this thread. This is a man that has sexually assaulted women and actively campaigned on kicking out all the "others".
The whole sexual assault angle is bizarre to me, because there is no moral high ground to seize here. It's not like Bill Clinton was a monk and kept his Johnson in his pants during his years in the limelight. And it's not like Hillary didn't discredit and do her part in persecuting women who stood up and blew the whistle on his indiscretions.
Yeah, Trump is a frigging billionaire who officiated at Miss Universe contests. If it had turned out that he had never made a pass at any of those beautiful women, I'd be suspecting that he's really a closet case, or else he is the saintliest man in human existence. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it doesn't fit his brand.
I'm sorry I'm replying 7 days after your post but I came back to this comment to check something and noticed you'd posted a reply. I say all this to say...
One candidate has sexually assaulted women. One candidate has most certainly not.
If you don't see a moral high ground to seize there you are being deliberately obtuse. In fact I'd go as far to call you a hateful moron.
Well, I'm not saying this is why, but it's not like he hasn't quite visibly paid off prosecutors when charges were being considered against his organizations, so it's not implausible he'd do the same thing when he was in personal jeopardy.
Because no one has pressed charges? I don't see how that's relevant. People can be guilty of things they haven't been proven to do in a court of law. I'm not saying he should be thrown in jail without due process, I'm pointing out that he himself has admitted to committing sexual assault, so it seems wrong to have a caveat of "allegedly".
What at all does Clinton have to do with these women pressing charges or not?
As for why a woman might not press charges after a sexual assault, there are a multitude of reasons that have been discussed in plenty of related literature, I urge you to seek them out.
You want her to insert herself into these women's personal choices? Can you imagine the outrage from the right if she tried to convince these women of anything? You're not making any sense, it just sounds like you're looking for an excuse to put down Clinton over a situation she has zero involvement in.
So, you're angry at her for not doing something you don't want her to do, but you feel like she would do it, even though she's not doing it. And you're throwing in random accusations of lying. You're reinforcing my thought that you are just trying to find an excuse to be angry.
For one thing, statutes of limitations would be a factor in many cases.
Insofar as the offenses are criminal rather than civil then, even if they aren't barred by statute of limitations, it's not their decision but that of a public prosecutor.
And, in some cases, they can't file civil charges because they sued in the past and already reached settlements.
...well, because the statute of limitations has run out on a lot of the things we know he's done? I mean, among about a billion other reasons why women don't report sexual assault by powerful men who can ruin their lives.
Had to take a pause right there. (Disclosure: I am a Muslim, naturalized American citizen that emigrated to US in '79.)
Critiques of Trump's positions are as exagerated as the candidate's own verbiage, perhaps even more so.
I will not touch the "racist" item :) but as to "isolationist", this is false at face value. Non-aggression is not isolationism. Very clearly stating that US should work with Russia, Syria, and Iran (!) to finish ISIS -- oh, the irony -- is not an "isolationist" position.
There is a very clear choice on the table: Will US continue as one of the principle entities pushing for globalism, or, will we revert back to pre Bush '41 and let the globalist deal with their collapsing house of card in EU and elsewhere, while we reboot substantial industry (read: not "service" industry) in this nation.
[p.s. I am endorsing Jill Stein, per my evaluation of the entailed Karmic risks in this election. /g]
> Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.
In that instance not racist since Islam isn't a race however that complete lack of nuance and the absolute torrent of shit he has said makes him incredibly dangerous.
I've noted a moderation and more nuanced position lately.
To be perfectly frank, sometimes I wonder if DJT is not the establishment's strawman designed to keep us with the globalist agenda.
The globalists' agenda is directly responsible for the death of millions of Muslims and likely a substantial number of Iraqi and Syrian Christians, with Sam's choice of president being very much in the loop, starting with her husband's policies (that resulted in the official toll of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, which WJC's secratary of state famously considered as "worth it"), to the destruction of Libya and its attendant miseries, and in Syria with millions of dispossed, and yet another nation in ruin.
As a Muslim, let me assure you, if I was the president, I would make sure every single person arriving from these war zones is fully vetted. Given that I am from West Asia (the so-called Middle East) you should note that neither racism nor aversion to Muslims would motivate that approach. It's just common sense.
Further, while I fully agree that since we have instigated this global crisis and thus even beyond the call of human empathy are responsible and must sleep in the bed that we have made, let it be noted that the best way to help Syrians and refugees is to STOP THESE WARS so they can live in peace in their own homeland. Again, this is just common sense.
Clinton and her fellow travellers (and they are quite a few of them!) are ideologues. And ideologues are dangerous, imo, since it is their ideological framework that does the thinking for them. You can practically substitute any other neo-con/liberal for Hillary Clinton and it would not make an iota of difference.
That said, note, I am voting Jill Stein. I agree with the 10 Nuclear officers that in their recent open letter noted that the psychological profile of Donald Trump is that of a man that can easily be provoked (gamed).
I'm not disagreeing with you on anything then (except the rigorous checks, they already do that), if I was American I'd be voting third party/spoiling the ballot.
In a straight choice I'll take Hillary over Trump because as you mentioned the man is dangerously unstable and incredibly easily provoked (see his reaction to SNL today..).
The cultures I identify with are American and Iranian. But what does it have to do with culture?
> the threat posed by Hillary.
The Americans who are clued into the geopolitical equation recognize that either America accepts getting demoted from world hegemon to ex-Anglo-Empire Deux, or, the "world" will need to duke it out "one last time" ... again.
I have a feeling The Donald will not react pleasantly when Putin and company (not who you think, imo) tell him "You're fired!"
As someone else noted above, "the media takes him literally, but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously, but not literally". Trump has since walked this position back to "extreme vetting" (though you can still find the original press release on his site).
Making exaggerated, hyperbolic statements that appeal to the emotional cortex is an intentional strategy employed by Trump to dog-whistle the media, and his masterful ability to bait the media is the only reason he's won anything up to this point. Showmanship is part of the game.
You need to look at the consistent elements in Trump's statements, which are abolishment of free trade, tight borders, and American protectionism. That's what he's serious about.
I dunno, I feel like if you see that a group of people are causing a shitshow in your neighborhood instead of improving things, you have the right to tell further people in that group to go fuck themselves and leave you alone and find a different soft target.
I'm not from the US but I'd vote for Trump. To me Hillary represent the imperial US, the economic Hitmen US, the could war US, the NSA US, the make sure Russia-Europe relations are poor US. She represents the elites, the Rothschilds, the banks, the family of secrets, the kill-list, the endless meddling in countries that have a lot of natural resources "for the common good". She represents Guantanamo bay, more drones and more trade agreements to sue poor countries if their companies behave poorly. She represents the lobbying culture, the Monsantos and the Bechtels.
I will be downvoted, I am already looked at as if I'm less intelligent than all the others at work. But I honestly think the 3rd world war is less likely to happen under Trump. He wants to talk normally to Putin. He represents a more US focused US imho and I am convinced the mainstream media hates him because they are in the pockets of the current rulers.
The irony is that what Trump supports, the Clintons have always supported for the last 20 years if you look at their old debates. They are nothing but crowd pleasers. Saying yes to anything, but rarely following through. Not sure how people don't see that.
After you saw that Youtube movie, are you not convinced that the Hillary camp will do anything regardless of ethics to win? I believe her party is able to completely destroy anyone's reputation.
As a non American who would probably vote for neither of them, Hillary definitely ranks way higher on my internal psychopath detector. The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator. Trump is guilty of some of that too but he is somewhat redeemed by the fact that he seems dumb/naive enough to believe whatever he preaches.
> The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator.
Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.
Let me put it this way: How natural do you think you would seem if you were spending hours of every day in front of dozens of cameras, knowing that the slightest misstatement or weird facial expression is going to spread across social media to the entire country and be analyzed and picked apart and turned into memes and used against you by your opponents? I think anyone who seems like a "normal person" in that situation is anything but.
I've been thinking about what bothers me about Clinton and here's an example:
In 2008, Clinton declares she's opposed to gay marriage. Now it's 2016, and the majority of the American people are in favor of gay marriage. And guess what, Clinton is in favor of gay marriage. The battle has been won and now Mrs. Clinton proudly jumps on the barricade.
Now you may say this is just the reality of politics, but at some point you wonder what she really stands for except saying whatever it takes to maximize her vote count.
No she doesn't. The chain of emails you're referring to makes it clear that Hillary still believes her support of DOMA was justified to prevent a constitutional amendment, not that she still believes gay marriage is wrong.
There is no evidence to suggest she opposes it now, and a little evidence to suggest she was lying in 2008.
Well that's a fantastic way of interpreting the email thread and flipping my comments.
During a debate in 2008, she said marriage was between a man and a woman. So no, she wasn't lying in 2008 -- nor did I ever imply such a thing -- that was likely her true sentiment.
At this point, you literally don't know who is putting what into her mouth, or what she will really do once in office. That's an absolutely scary thing.
> Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.
This is a good point and it baffles me to be honest. I said "great" manipulator because it seems to be working so far. Great manipulators don't necessarily need to be great with everyone all the time. Or maybe she intentionally wants us to think she's a poor manipulator so that we trust her more? But that surely fails Occam's razor.
To answer other comments, I didn't get this impression solely by watching her on TV, it is corroborated by her history as a politician and recently leaked emails.
It could be that people support Clinton for reasons unrelated to her personal skills at manipulation.
I mean, even leaving aside all issues of substance, campaigns spend a lot of money hiring people specifically for their manipulation skills; even if it's all about manipulation, the candidate's skill isn't the only weapon in the campaign's arsenal.
Or she's gotten to where she is because she's effective at her job and the people working with her see this. It kinda reminds me of myself; I have zero charisma, but I impress the people I work with and I advance.
Psychopath is one particular slur that I've started ignoring. We've been taught it is equivalent to evil, or something like that, and it's used as a thought-terminating cliche. But, the basic traits of clinical psychopathy aren't really inherently evil.
The characteristics that define clinical psychopathy are many of the same that make effective leaders
Indeed - if all the voters were psychopaths then they would at least elect a candidate that served their interests instead of being totally persuaded by show.
I think most people who gain such a high office are much more psychopathic than average anyway.
There are a lot of good reasons to not vote for Hillary, but this has to be one of the dumbest. She's awkward and uncharismatic, so she must be a psychopath? How many actual psychopaths have you met, to compare her to? Have you ever seen her off camera? Do you not have any friends or family who aren't good at faking enthusiasm? Is disliking campaigning really the sign of a psychopath? Is "cold and calculated" not a good quality in a president? Aren't great manipulators usually extremely charismatic? Even supporters agree that Hillary is not very likeable or charismatic, is that really the sign of a great manipulator? How many years of psychological study have you spent calibrating your "internal psychopath detector"?
Amen to that. Another non US citizen here with the same feeling about this election. You managed to successfully summarize what I feel towards Hillary for a few months now.
If you look at actual history, World War 2 happened exactly because some countries were unwilling to defend other countries, and let the Germans effectively try to conquer Europe. From a game theory perspective, you really, really want to pre-commit to not letting other countries do things that will cause war. So you pre-commit to protecting allies and other countries against e.g. Russian aggression.
The years of the cold war, while hard psychologically, were relatively peaceful, exactly because of these pre-commitments and threats to use force.
I think it's wishful thinking to assume that the world is at relative peace, and that can't change. That's not the default state of the world. And without knowing a hell of a lot more about international politics than I do, I'd be incredibly remiss to throw out the current establishment and say "yeah let's bring in someone new who wants to rewrite the rules". The chance that things will be worse is huge - that's what usually happens when you change things.
You are assuming US and EU actions in Ukraine are anti-war? The boycotts (that kill European companies as well) are not anti-war, the anti-Russia attitude that almost everyone seems to have here, under the influence of our media, is not anti-war? John Kerry loud-mouthing his opinion in the Ukraine is not anti-war? The way MH-17 was blamed on Russia far before there was even talk about an investigation, is not anti-war? The fact that how Russia sees the Syria conflict [0] is never shown in our western press is not anti-war? The Russians love their children too.
I have direct access to both Russian and Western news/propaganda.
There's a lot more warmongering in Russian state funded press than anywhere in the West. I haven't seen any Western news outlets talk about how "US can turn Russia into radioactive ash" in prime time. Technically true, yes, but you don't bring such things up routinely. It's as if you were talking to a guy, say, arguing about something, and every now and then he'd mention, "by the way, I have a loaded gun, and I could shoot you... but I won't, yet".
I was speaking about overhauling the entire system. Both sides of the political divide in the States have e.g. maintained support of NATO allies.
I think both the OP and others are talking about Trump as "let's get rid of the current political establishment and get an outsider". That's fine, but an outsider that threatens a lot of the foundational international strategy of the US is a threat to world stability.
I also think Trump is threatening the very system of democracy int he US by calling the elections into question and threatening to lock up his political opponent. That's a very direct threat to democracy.
This is a guy that 17 nuclear commanders have said isn't fit to have the launch codes; who erupts on Twitter at the slightest provocation and said he'd fire on Iranian ships for looking at US ships the wrong way.
He'd take us to WWIII in a heartbeat.
Your reference to the "Rothschilds" also seems like dogwhistle anti-semitism to me, which has no place here.
Well, one is controversial and has political opinions that antagonise a large chunk of the US electorate, but the other is batshit-crazy, narcissistic, anti-democratic and would blow up the world to salve his ego. So, it's not even apples and oranges here
And you will forever have that feeling as long as our K-12 education system continues to brainwash generations that participating in the two party system is synonymous with democracy. It's all they know or have heard of and anything else is foreign and not to be trusted.
There are a lot of negative things about Trump in this post, but aren't any positive points about Hillary. It seems to me that if one were to endorse one candidate over another, they should talk about the policies of the candidate they're supporting in a positive light.
> He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage.
There are a slew of former Secret Service agents from Bill Clinton's detail who say the same exact things about Hillary. One even cites being hit in the back of the head with a Bible by Hillary.
Also, is anyone even the slightest bit concerned about the revelations in the Podesta emails? One in particular that comes to mind is a conversation about Hillary hating the 'Everyday American.'
To me, having done hours upon hours of intense research into the two major candidates, this post sounds more like a regurgitation of the narrative put forth by the mainstream media rather than a well thought out and informed point of view.
I think a lot of the problems with the YC/Thiel discussion stems from the difference between how people view it: is it a political disagreement, or is it an ethical disagreement?
In a "normal" election, this would be pretty cut-and-dry: it'd primarily be a political disagreement over taxes or something, and letting someone go because of their political beliefs would be viewed by many as being pretty extreme.
Many people — myself included — view support for Trump today as an ethical problem. When you see him and his followers advocating misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, aggressiveness, and basically all the other -isms and -obias, it becomes much harder to "see the other side" of the debate. It's not political for many people who will see — and have seen throughout this election cycle — very real repercussions in terms of discrimination and hostility that affects them every day in their lives.
So yeah, there's a lot of anger with YC supporting someone in a leadership position here. I know YC keeps mentioning that Thiel is in a part time position, but he's still in an advisory position, which brings with it a lot of responsibility and ownership that we'd hope YC would be much more understanding about the impact of such a position.
I appreciate that it's a tricky situation for Sam and others to be in, but I do hope that they'd reconsider their stance in the future. Until then, on a personal level, I'm not interested in applying to Y Combinator. That's one small thing that I can do in the meantime, at least.
> When you see him and his followers advocating misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, aggressiveness, and basically all the other -isms and -obias, it becomes much harder to "see the other side" of the debate
The exact same argument could be convincingly used to discriminate against members of the two largest organized religions. Are you also going to ask potential hires who they voted for at the last election too?
Thiel is not simply voting for Trump, he's actively trying to help get him elected (first with an appearance at the RNC and then to the tune of 1.25m). And that's after the "hot mic" tape. Which means that Thiel thinks the propensity for commiting sexual assault should not be a disqualifying feature of a presidential candidate.
Although I want badly to agree, I can't help but think that it's a slippery slope. We can treat this election like a special case because we think it is one, but ~>40% of the US population will vote for Trump in November. We can't condemn 40% of the population, can we?
The country is really bifurcating. It's a very dangerous bifurcation, because it is not a regional difference; it is essentially an urban/rural difference. Most dangerously, there is the situation where the urban cohort represents power and money, while the rural cohort overwhelmingly supplies their sons and daughters to populate the armed services that protect the money.
As a thought experiment, I've thought what a modern-day civil war would look like. Assuming it wasn't crushed instantly by the military, I think it would look like the vast areas of fly-over-country besieging the urban areas, with huge chunks of the current command structure and rank and file joining the rebels.
Yes. Military people are usually very conservative. It would be hard to get them to engage on the "liberal" side of such a conflict. No doubt there would be defections of entire bases and installments.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in a civil, well-reasoned way. To me, this is a good example of how one can approach a divisive position in a way that has some hope of reaching people who may not agree with you. Much appreciated!
Who's the arbiter on what's an -ism and an -obia? Just feels like another tactic by the left to create a safe space for itself by demonizing anything that might undermine its arguments.
> It's not political for many people who will see — and have seen throughout this election cycle — very real repercussions in terms of discrimination and hostility that affects them every day in their lives.
Of course, if you fire people who are supporting your opponent, then you will have caused 'very real repercussions in terms of discrimination and hostility' that effects them.
That's what creates the cycles of radicalisation and polarisation: he-said, she-said, tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye politics.
How about firing someone for damaging your brand and your business through their personal actions?
Billy Bush wasn't fired for the things Trump said, he was fired because his association with Trump during that incident caused real damage to his company's brand.
Really? I don't think the mind-numbingly large conglomerate behind NBC could be tarnished by anything a low-level bit reporter like Billy Bush could do.
If you believe that Clinton has a greater propensity to start or inflame wars, and that wars are a greater evil than racism or sexism, then it may well be unethical to support her. It may even be an ethical duty to support Trump.
The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us. We should talk to each other more, not less.
I see it differently than Sam here. My father is also a vocal Trump supporter. His path, and the path shared by his friends, appear to me to be driven not by what Trump says he will do, but by what they feel the government has not done. These people feel disenfranchised by their own government who appears unresponsive to their concerns and dismissive of their point of view. And in their world view, by reflecting their fears, Donald Trump appears to be listening to them.
When you overlay this perception of listening, and the historical divide of the role of government (Is it there to take care of you or is it there to enable you to take care of yourself?) It surfaces a lot of Trump supporters.
Hillary is an unprecedented threat to the world. But I guess Americans are so cut of from the rest of the world, it's hard for them to see things from others perspective. As a citizen of third world please don't unleash Hillary on us.
If the choice is between Hillary and Trump, I would expect Trump to do more damage to the world than Hillary. Everything about his behaviour so far has shown him to be easily baited and given to irresponsible escalation. These are not attributes that I would expect to go well with international politics.
I find it surprising that Trump is portrayed as an isolationist candidate when personally I think the likelihood of him getting involved in a serious war is probably higher than that of Hillary doing so, despite her being a hawk. Trump repeatedly talks about getting tough and the importance of being strong.
"The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families." - Donald Trump
This sounds like a deliberate policy of collateral damage.
"With Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water" - Donald Trump
"We're going to have to do something extremely tough over there, okay? ... Like knock the hell out of them. And we have to get everybody together and lead for a change. Because we're not knocking them, we're hitting them every once in a while, in certain places, we're being very gentle about it, you have to be very tough, and there are countries that are getting hit harder than we are, and you have to get them together and show leadership. And you know, you have to fight, the battle's over there. And you have to fight the battle." - Donald Trump
That sounds like a plan to escalate attacks abroad rather than reduce them.
Not sure what you mean about economic hitmen - if it's sanctions, then Trump has said that he would increase sanctions on Iran, and on terrorists.
He's literally saying that the current policy (of the Obama administration, that for a while featured Hillary Clinton) is too gentle.
Elsewhere you said that your concerns were drones and missiles that miss their targets. Trump has explicitly said that he's in favor of collateral damage when attacking terrorists. He's also said that he'll bomb oil wells and put boots on the ground to take oil. Transparency maybe, but if so he's being transparent about the fact that he'll do all the things you said you dislike.
Please don't speak for "the rest of the world" - the rest of us didn't give you that prerogative.
As a citizen of Russia, I would vastly prefer Clinton on foreign policy. For all her flaws, she can keep Putin in check. Trump is more likely to prop his regime and keep it from collapsing for a while longer.
Clinton's take on foreign policy is the worst thing about her. Amazingly, Trump managed outdo her even in that, by sheer inconsistency - "no wars in Middle East" but "we will destroy ISIS", and on top of that consistent calls to weaken NATO, exactly when it actually becomes relevant again. Don't even get me started on all the things he said pertaining to nukes - that alone would be a disqualifier even if he was a saint otherwise.
Russia is a very interesting country. Maybe I'm just tainted because I've been listening to Ghosts of the Ostfront lately, but listening to and believing any Russian/Soviet propaganda is very, very suspect.
Interesting take albeit I'm not sure most would be ok with putting what they see as their own interests (myself included) aside in order to elect Trump to prevent potential harm by Hillary to the third world.
I'm curious what do you fear most that she would do as president that would harm third world countries?
Trump is a racist, Hillary is a warmonger. As an American you might be more concerned about racism. But I guess rest of the world is more concerned about drones and missiles that miss the target.
So what leads you to believe that Trump is LESS of a warmonger than Hillary?
I see lots of talks from Trump about "negotiate tough" (sounds good), but then a lot about "smash them up" (sounds not so peaceful). Doesn't seem very peace like.
to all you babies literally wetting yourselves over trump, what the actual fuck do you think he's going to be able to do with two parties that hate him controlling both houses?
> The War Powers Resolution requires the President notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without a Congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
The US military can break a lot of things in 48 hours never mind 60 days.
A sitting American president is never going to commit military forces without the consent of Congress?
> During the 20th Century, forces were sent by various presidents into countries such as Nicaragua to suppress rebellions without asking Congress. During the Cold War, dodging Congress not only continued, it increased. For example, the Korean War, which the U.S. was involved in for three years, was never officially authorized by Congress.
> In 2011, President Obama's failure to get Congressional approval for U.S. military actions in Libya raised accusations from both parties.
Yep, what the intelligence agencies got up to is quite astounding and I see no reason to not think are still doing that stuff we just won't find out for a while what they are doing now.
> I don’t understand how 43% of the country supports Trump. But I’d like to find out.
This is the attitude we need. Not the name calling and shaming. Instead, go grab a beer together, talk about the issues, agree to disagree and in 9 out of 10 cases you will usually find out the person voting for $theOtherCandidate isn't a huge asshole and probably cares about other people just as much as you do.
I am officially endorsing Donald Trump for president.
I doubt my endorsement, coming from an anonymous commenter on HN, has much weight but I'll put it out here for one reason in particular: As a message to anybody else who's feeling the same but feels that even announcing something like this will cause you to be shamed.
I upvoted your comment because I think it's important, even though I disagree with you. Would you mind explaining your position? I think it might be helpful in furthering people's understanding, although it does run some risk of devolving into an argument.
Trump is a new player in politics, whereas Hillary represents business as usual.
Hillary means more drone strikes, corporate appeasment, global interventions, weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, and a complete lack of transparency into government.
I will not vote for a candidate that represents so much of what is wrong with this country, solely becuase she wants me to believe the other guy is worse.
Fear tactics are the last resort of tyrants, my mind was made up after the DNC Leaks.
>Hillary means more drone strikes, corporate appeasment, global interventions, weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, and a complete lack of transparency into government
Trump supports drone strikes and wants to go further, including torturing the families of terrorists. Trump supports nuclear proliferation (e.g. Japan). Corporate appeasement? The guy runs a billion dollar business and benefitted greatly from the housing crisis. Transparency? He won't even release his tax returns.
What makes you think Trump is going to be any different than the right-wing status quo which essentially still supports all these? Trump has NO serious political connections outside of Gov Christie, he is becoming anathema even among his own party, how could he possibly reverse any of the "business as usual" even if he wanted to?
>Fear tactics are the last resort of tyrants
Like claiming the entire election is stolen before a single vote is cast? Or threatening to jail your opponent?
This is why people think Trump supporters are delusional and dumb. So many people in this thread posting about what they think Trump will do, despite the fact that it flies in the face of what he stands for and has said. They take the candidate seriously and ignore what he is saying in favor of their own imagined reasonings. I get it. You don't want Hillary to be president. I don't either. But to act like Trump is a political savior is a very very disturbing and strange move.
I agree with most of that. And I agree that her campaign is mostly about fear tactics. I suppose the difference between us then is just that I think, despite the lameness of fear-as-platform, I think that fear is pretty justified by the thought of Trump being president.
When you honestly consider that prospect, does it not terrify you? I don't mean that question rhetorically.
I am terrified by the supreme court justices that would be appointed during 4-8 years of Democratic rule. Unless Democrats become associated with strict constructionism, I will continue to fear them and oppose their appointment to lifelong positions.
We do have checks and balances, but the president is in pretty direct control of the military. He can order essentially whatever operations he pleases, and they are to be carried out without much question or deliberation, if that is his wish. That's what worries me most.
You mentioned you'd like to understand Trump supporters. Have you considered asking people in your network to confidentially contact you to explain, and then publishing the anonymized findings? With your reach, it seems like you could really help build this bridge you want to see exist, and the results would probably be interesting to read.
He didn't say women shouldn't be able to vote. He said that giving women the right to vote has eroded some of his libertarian ideals, because women tend to oppose those ideals. Which is a true statement.
It's not really fair to hang someone by what you infer from a truthful statement. You could say "Ending slavery caused enormous economic problems for the south" without supporting slavery. In reading the full context of what he said, it doesn't seem to me that he's implying we should take away women's suffrage.
My reading of what he said is more akin to recognition of a marketing problem. That he thinks libertarians haven't presented themselves sufficiently well towards women, and there is room for improvement there.
Could I please, pretty please with a cherry on top, have one sanctuary that isn't infested with "Vote for X, because Y is unacceptable"? It's already been done everywhere else ad nauseam.
On a serious note, discussion of the Thiel/Trump topic has been flagged and reposted many times this past weekend and finally permitted to remain on the front page. The HN commenter community has been overwhelmingly interested in a statement from YC regarding this controversy. I share your wish that political party advocacy stay off of the HN front page. Yet we were both drawn to this article and commented on it. I don't know the right solution to this.
>(of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says >himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator).
Uh, what about the if "People acted the same way Hillary did while in office they would be in jail."
This is not hyperbole. Perjury is still a crime (one that got her husband impeached). Her lies weren't to the public, they were to the Justice Department - not knowing that the red "C" stood for classified. Furthermore, her concealment and destruction of her emails were federal crimes (plural).
Not only would this end in discharge for military personnel or removal from office of a government official, but criminal charges and restriction of civil liberties. Of the millions of federal employees, she's proven herself to be in the distinct minority as disqualified to hold a position of authority.
See:
18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally
(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
The polarization in politics has gotten worse and worse. A lot of people are feeling marginalized and unheard. The echo chambers we find ourselves in make it difficult to even perceive how the other side could hold the views that they do. Yellow journalism is worse than I've ever seen. Viral social media posts that are more click bait than fact are spreading more misinformation than valuable insight. It's more than anyone can sort out. Even intelligent people are susceptible to bias and believing stories that align with their preconceived notions. What are we to do, as technologists, to alievate this problem?
Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
You can disagree with the statement, but why do you think it is punishable?
endorsing hillary because of claims that Trump is "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic..." must be the very definition of a low-information voter. you have the knowledge of the world at your fingertips and wikileaks is giving you direct view into the inner workings of the dnc.
i don't understand how engineers that were horrified by the wage-fixing pacts of apple, google, etc. can vote for open-borders. is this the tech version of 'everyone thinks they will be rich someday'? at this rate we will end up in childless marriages with flatmates.
some serious gaslighting going on.
don't let them steal your future :(
I'm heartened to hear that Thiel's support for Trump --- which is ongoing and extensive --- has been a strain on Altman's relationship with him.
Thiel is not merely one of the 43% of Americans who supports Donald Trump. There are degrees of support, and there are different reasons to support him. Thiel has chosen to serve as a surrogate for the Trump campaign, appearing on stage for him at the RNC in a nationally televised event even as many of the leaders of the Republican party (including all of their previous Presidential candidates) refused to do the same. His support for Trump has continued even after Trump pivoted his election to run against the legitimacy of the US elections themselves.
I strongly agree that we must avoid ostracizing Republicans because of the actions of a few monsters in their party. We should continue the work HRC and Obama started earlier in this election, to de-normalize Trump and separate him from the mainstream Republican party. The country needs a loyal opposition and a voice for limited government, the strengths of our private sector, and humility in regulation. HRC and Obama have stopped this work, believing that the outcome of the election is a foregone conclusion, and are now trying their best to tether the party to Trump in an effort to win downticket races. As a loyal, lifelong Democrat, I think they're making a terrible mistake.
But that does not mean we should forget that the Trump campaign itself is truly monstrous, nor does it mean we're required to tolerate the least tolerant members of our society --- the white nationalist fringe that, according to Sam Wang at Princeton, has been within striking range of the Presidency for much of this election cycle.
Thiel isn't just a supporter of this campaign; he's a part of it. We should recognize that, and not gloss over it, or pretend that the discussion we're having is the same as the kind we'd have with John Fund and Jonah Goldberg at The National Review. Thiel isn't William F. Buckley. He's a man that just last week mustered $1.25MM in an attempt to rend the fabric of the American political system, a system which he has repeatedly argued against.
I don't ask that Altman sever formal ties with Peter Thiel. Shit's complicated. But as someone who has, yet again, acknowledged in writing the grave threat Trump poses to our country, I do ask that he live up to his own words and recognize publicly the role Thiel has played in this election.
Nice statement, to the point and a reasonable call for civility. It will be nice to see if / when a return to a more 'traditional' US political discourse can gain momentum; history is repeating itself in watching a party tear itself apart. Boehner rage-quitting opened my eyes quite a bit.
As Katy Tur has frequently reported - and others as well - a significant portion of Trump supporters firmly refute easily provable facts (re: Birtherism) or outright believe lies (re: Actual Border Wall). It's unfortunate to sit back and reflect on this segment of the population, because, unlike the level-headed, rational post by Sam, such tactics are ineffective. These people are walking Poe's Law conundrums, and as nice as the intention is to include them in the big picture, that's a genuinely problematic proposition. It's why Donald Trump is such a ridiculous candidate - he's like a child, and his immaturity doesn't allow adults to have adult conversations.
Fortunately, I'm quite able to sleep easily at night knowing that the mistakes of the political and journalistic mainstays (GOP in primaries, media enabling Trump) are quickly being rectified - the cannons are melting with how much ammunition is being shot his way and hitting over and over. It's a deluge, and I don't think it's over even as of this writing. This will be a lopsided outcome due to an extremely motivated voting populace by 2XXX standards. Glenn Beck and Michael Moore voting for the same person? I, um, didn't see that coming, but hey, here we are.
What's wonderful about the US, as I learned from extensive study of both Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Twain, is that freedom of speech is great: People are free to speak their minds and show the world if there's anything inside of worth.
As a foreigner in his 30s, no need to say that the 2016 elections feel like one of the most obnoxious US elections ever, it's worse than Bush vs Gore. The amount of dishonesty, propaganda, spin, is ridiculous. Of course the internet isn't off the hook as most websites and social networks are heavily involved into the propaganda machine. The political divisions in US is at a all time high. But the US democratic process will survive, I'm pretty sure it has seen worse in the past.
But the IT aspect is interesting. It seems that now, if you do not follow a specific political ideology, you will be automatically excluded from the american tech community as people will try to get you and ruin your career, your business and the lives of your families, prevent you from speaking at conferences, insult you on Twitter/Facebook and co because you broke the "ranks" and didn't follow the SF bay "political mindset" so you're fair game...
People can think what they want about Prop 8 he shouldn't have been forced out of Mozilla because of this. There is absolutely not 1 proof that he behaved inappropriately at Mozilla. His track record was almost flawless there. He was pushed out by people who clearly don't care about Mozilla, just about unrelated politics and of course ,nobody can ignore the cabal right here against Eich on HN. It was despicable back then it still is now.
It's exactly the same things as the handful of idiots who tried to paint Doug Crockford as a misogynist and kicked him out of Nodevember conference. These people don't have the best interests of the technology community in mind. For them getting the head of this or that prominent guy is just about collecting trophies.
Citation needed. I expect better for a top story on HN.
I'd also add that the US electing Clinton will show that corruption is now openly allowed in the US at the highest levels. That it simply doesn't matter. This sets a far more damaging precedent around the world than whatever it is people think Trump will do (like not starting a war).
I live in central Europe. It is really sad to see so many manipulated people in the US by politics propaganda. 90% of people support Clinton/Trump because they dislike the other candidate more. That's it. Why do you offend each other? Both candidates aren't very good, so to speak.
The real problem is the current political system. I would like to see some innovation here on HN, what can be done to unleash the potential of the wisdom of crowds, also in politics, similary what open source, stackoverflow, github etc. did for software engineering.
PS. East Germany producted two awful cars: Trabant and Wartburg. But car owners were not offending owners of the other brand. Everybody knew that the socialist system was bad.
The only way I can see that someone can't understand why some people support Trump is because they have not made an attempt to understand the other side's positions. I agree with close to none of Trump's positions and abhor the man, but it is simply smug to dismiss his supporters (credit to Sam for not dismissing them as dumb).
1) Anti-Free trade. Bernie and Trump both were very popular with working class individuals who are out of work. Trade deals have definitely caused job loss for many workers. Many anti-NAFTA people blame it on causing the immigration from Mexico
2) Anti-Immigration. Job loss and racial identity are both at play here. Lack of homogeny in the country. Too much diversity etc.
3) Disgust with career politicians. They like how brash he is.
4) Lower taxes
etc.
FWIW, this is exactly the kind of post that shouldn't be on hacker news.
I am sure you are correct on those points. But I feel that something deeper is at play. American society has an excess of complexity that people are unwilling or unable to deal with. There is a desire for simplicity that is sated by Trump.
The more comfortable you are with complexity in society the less you need Trump.
The image I like to remember is the victorious Ulysses S. Grant telling the defeated Robert E. Lee and his officers to keep their horses, keep their sidearms, and go home to their families, but not before being fed from Union rations.
Lee returned to his men and said: "Go and be as good a citizen as you were soldiers".
And Grant went to his: "Stop the firing. The Rebels are our countrymen again."
Lincoln later remarked: “To be harsh or spiteful, or punish them, or throw (the Union's) win in their face, was not going to do anybody any good.”
If these great men could so magnanimous after a vicious and bloody war, what does it say about us that we are so spiteful and triumphalist in the course of ordinary politics.
> if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator
That could be scary to employees of Y Combinator... what things fall on the blacklist? To me it's obvious that you will fire someone for saying racist or sexist remarks but it's not clear exactly what I can or cannot say to avoid being fired.
I don't think it's that controversial a statement. Trump is basically a walking HR nightmare and would never be employable at a typical company given any of the things he says about (or does to) people.
then let me clarify for you: don't say things that literally any HR department would summarily fire you for, don't make a public position of condoning sexual assault
Sam's entire post has one line about Hillary and ten about Trump.
Instead of trying to demonize Trump, perhaps it is important for you to advocate for your candidate. As the president said, go work for your candidate. People are not dumb. The contrast will be clear and then people can make their own choice.
I know its hard to compare, but would you say, "Buy my product to stop the other product from being successful because the other product makes claims that are outrageous". Rightly everyone then says, "Why buy any of the products?" Or "Let me try a third product".
Bravo to Sam for the endorsement and for calling Trump out for what he is.
On the issue of Peter Thiel, for those of you that believe it's wrong to fire someone based on their political actions, is there any limit? If David Duke ran for office, or the Ku Klux Klan fielded a candidate for president, and someone gave a high profile speech endorsing them and supported their campaign with a million dollars, would it still be wrong to part ways with that person?
Thinking in absolutes is dangerous and anti-intellectual, that's the whole problem here. Rabidly following an ideology where you will entirely dismiss a person because their privately held beliefs don't align with yours.
There should be context to all decisions making. If the person has extreme views and, most importantly, they are very vocal about it to the point you don't think they'll fit into the culture of your organization, then I see no problem with not hiring them on that basis.
But at the same time if the person is able to treat others respectfully, not force their views on others, and keep personal life and business separated, then I don't see the problem with hiring them regardless of their views.
I'd be more concerned hiring a moderate democrat/republican/green/etc who forced their views on other people on the job, than hiring someone holding (what mainstream society considers) extreme views[^] and rarely talks about it at work.
[^] Note: calling for violence and coercive behavior is another story.
We are talking here about 40-50% of the American electorate not some fringe maniac. If you think those people's opinion should be shunned than your world view seems very restricted to me.
People need to understand, about 43% of eligible electorate are going to Vote for Trump. Its better trying to understand them rather than demonize them. What next, no funding to start-ups in Texas since it voted Trump.
Trump is obnoxious but Stalinist purges are not an answer for it.
Funny you should mention Stalin, because it seems that people on Clinton's side are mostly using free speech to express their disgust, while Trump's camp has literally advocated mass deportation and legislating unsympathetic newspapers out of existence.
Yeah, Clinton's side is all rainbows and ponies. This whole post is about Clinton's side wanting to throw Thiel out because of his views! Like happened to Eich. That doesn't clear Trump in any way, but don't you see both sides are the same? That's the problem!
How could you possibly equate a private company disavowing a single billionaire with the president of the United States harassing and deporting millions of people?
I'm talking about the general principle of shaming. Trump's an idiot - no argument there. Shaming and going after someone because they see _some_ amount of value in a person is not OK. And both sides do it. What I'm calling out is all the finger pointing and name calling, when both sides are doing exactly the same thing as what they're calling others out on. Frankly, I don't see how this country will ever again be united in any real, lasting way because of all the demonification.
"Maniac" and "fringe" have no absolute relationship. Look at Hitler. I'm not exaggerating. Let me quote Wikipedia: "On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9 per cent, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament."
I'm not equating Trump and Hitler, btw. But Hitler proves that being mainstream means nothing.
Separately, it is also my perception that both men's source of power are somewhat similar. They both have supporters that want an aggressive, authoritarian leader to change things drastically because the current direction isn't working for them. I think that's a dangerous thing to wish for.
> I'm not equating Trump and Hitler, btw. But Hitler proves that being mainstream means nothing.
It means that you better take the position serious and engage in a real discussion. By labeling one side good and the other evil you just drive both sides more into towards the extremes.
I'm torn on the issue of parting ways with someone over them supporting a despicable person.
On one hand, supporting someone who's genocidal or something is bad.
Trump, on the other hand, might be the exact terrible thing this country needs to reign in government. Lets say he wanted to detonate a nuclear bomb off the coast of North Korea. (Borrowing from the most recent Dan Carlin/Common Sense podcast [0])
This would be objectively bad. We should not be nuking anything, anywhere, ever. Period.
If trump-the-president wants to do this, you might really quickly find people talking about the constitutional limits to declare war that Congress is supposed to maintain.
So, they might step in and say "Actually, presidents cannot unilaterally declare war. Oh, and they cannot create internment camps, or do deep packet inspection on the entire internet, or collectivize businesses, etc."
In other words, when a terrible guy gets into office, everyone else might wake up and try to roll back his power. So, it might be a net win, though it's a hell of a gamble to get there.
So, by that line of reasoning, I could see the GOOD that a trump presidency could bring about.
Even if I couldn't, I still don't know what the limit is for donating money to a cause and forcing separation with a company. The free-speech guy in me says it's fine, but... I really don't like trump.
David Duke is not a major party candidate, for one. And secondly, it is possible to support some of Trump's positions (say, opposition to free trade, stricter immigration policy, etc.) without endorsing his others. It is further possible to believe that his more extreme racist positions are mostly populist rhetoric that would not actually be implemented.
Now, I don't particularly believe those things. But it is possible to hold those views and support him, despite not agreeing with his more racist, misogynistic ones.
Censoring people by expulsion in this way is a very dangerous path to start down. Especially when you don't even really know what Thiel's views are. Support of a candidate is an extremely broad brush.
While I disagree with Peter Thiel's support of Trump, I believe that he is a very smart man, and quite qualified to be a partner with YC. To fire him over his political affiliation would be petty censorship. It's easy to look at somebody like Trump and see the racist, sexist, and xenophobic parts. These attributes aren't naturally shared with Trump's supporters. As Altman said, it would be different if Thiel expressed some sort of bigotry. Also, many states (including California) have laws forbidding retaliation for political practices outside of work.
If someone working for or with YC makes or supports racist and sexist speech, it could easily lead to YC losing credibility among entrepreneurs that aren't white men (and to be fair, among white men as well). In my opinion, that could disqualify him as a partner.
I think in this situation the limit hasn't been reached; with 40+% of the nation's support, the Trump movement isn't fringe. Additionally, many voters intend to vote for him for politically expedient reasons, such as capturing 3 Supreme Court justice appointments for Republican judges.
Despite the objectively horrible viewpoints advanced by the Trump campaign, they do not approach David Duke's viewpoints.
From some points of view, pro-abortion advocacy is an unconscionable violation of human rights and outweighs religious (Muslim profiling) and racial (seizing remittances from Mexican nationals) concerns; it is a rationally-approached choice of a lesser of two evils.
This isn't strict cultural relativism; the argument has merit. I assert that including alternate viewpoints (but prohibiting bigoted / wrongful actions) strengthens institutions. The best demonstration of the strength of a world view is to accept discussion of alternate viewpoints. If we're right, we shouldn't be afraid of the alternative.
The difference is that people who support Trump can't be punished like this precisely because there are so many of them. This kind of social shunning doesn't make sense when 43% of the population would need to be shunned. Shunning people creates exactly the kind of political environment where a dangerous minority like this can continue to exist. When people are angry, they want to be heard. If you deny Trump supporters the chance to be heard, they will stay angry (or worse).
It depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to do effective business, probably not. If your goal is to signal your political allegiance, possibly to not get fired yourself, then yes get them out.
If your goals are a mix of both, weigh and decide.
I respect Sam's opinion, but I would like to hear any of his ideas for improving the economy in suburban and rural areas or creating greater opportunities for people who are less privileged or gifted.
Much of intelligence is a natural ability gifted at birth, and it's often easy to lose touch with that when you are surrounded by highly skilled and intelligent peers, as many in Silicon Valley or cities often are.
As an example, if you are an unskilled laborer looking for work, which is a large portion of the population, it may be directly applicable and not necessarily racism or xenophobia to be upset if illegal immigrants do indeed take those jobs. I have not been in that situation nor seen it directly, but I can envision scenarios in which it might be a valid frustration. If you wish to understand that 43%, you might not immediately dismiss the views that resonate with them as racist or threatening, and try to understand why they are agreeing with those ideas.
Many of those people also likely do not use computers or have effective typing or competitive communication skills, and may be very frustrated by their inability to voice their complaints in intellectually competitive online communities. I think it's possible that Trump has employed many manual laborers or "blue collar workers" in the construction of his properties and he may been been exposed to certain types of complaints which are uncommon in other corporate environments, which he is now championing to address. Given these circumstances, I can understand how to a large group of people Trump would not appear as a monster or dangerous, but rather as a legitimate hero.
Likewise, I believe Trump should do a better job of addressing how those policies might affect immigration as it applies to tech companies, and I can completely understand the emotional reactions to his policies from the tech industry.
> If you wish to understand that 43%, you might not immediately dismiss the views that resonate with them as racist or threatening, and try to understand why they are agreeing with those ideas.
You mean, like how he did in his previous blog post acknowledging how Trump and his supporters are right on some issues?
Thank you for posting this. I disagree that Trump does not have any real plans, but I don't see any alternative solutions proposed in this article, that's what I would like to hear from Sam. I would love to see the collective intelligence of Silicon Valley tackle some of these issues, regardless of who becomes president.
As an outsider, I am having troubles understanding why the Democrats put against Trump the only candidate who had a poor enough track record to make this election "interesting". Why didn't they choose Sanders who is not as vulnerable as Hilton? By they I mean the Democrat elite.
You're right, polls showed that Sanders would do better than Clinton against Trump. The Democratic elite doesn't want Sanders because he doesn't represent their interests.
BTW, you should know that, at this point, the election is basically over and Clinton has won. This election is far too polarizing for the kind of swing Trump would need to win (people who still have hope for Trump are basically hoping for a Brexit scenario where polls significantly underestimate his support). So their strategy worked, even if it was risky.
This is a common misconception. Look at how much stuff has come out from Trump's past. You probably thought Trump went through lots of vetting in the primaries, but the reality is that it was super light. The same thing is true of Sanders. Clinton went very easy on him and stayed positive for pretty much the entire primaries. The republicans would not have been as nice.
I actually think that Clinton was the best choice against Trump because she is so thoroughly vetted. There's effectively nothing that could come out that we don't already know. Any other candidate could have a myriad of skeletons in their closets that would only come out with well resourced oppo. That's not even including Sanders' proposals that would result in a decent tax hike on middle class families. Republicans would have pushed that HARD and you have no idea how that would have been received.
HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. This has left many poor and angry people in the dust. Many have gravitated toward Trump.
Yes, poor people are more likely to be criminals and racists but let's be real, mainstream pols have been speaking racist language in a more coded and subtle way for a long time. It has always been ugly. HRC has done it herself when it benefits her.
What irritates me about this essay and the "stop Trump" argument for HRC in general, is that it supposes that it is not necessary to hold one's chosen candidate accountable and that we should just get on board and be grateful someone is running against Trump.
I could never vote for either candidate. But Trump's stark and unthinking narrative is matched by a similarly stark and unthinking anti-Trump narrative.
> HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right.
Comparing the Democratic platform over the past several presidential cycles side by side does not support this assertion.
Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, and Clinton was pretty much forced to follow in the primaries. She didn't move as far left as the Sanders crowd (myself included) hoped, but we still got a pretty good platform this year.
> Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama,
I'm not sure you could possibly be serious.
- Obama continued and escalated GWB's wars and ramped up the war on whistleblowers and the use of drone assassination and terror campaigns.
- Obamacare was a big corporate giveaway, ushering in the new Halliburtons of Healthcare. The Mylan epi-pen fiasco is one example among many of how the program catered to corporate interests and profits extensively. Ironically this was one reason Obama beat HRC 8 years ago, his healthcare plan was much more open to compromises with incumbent pharma and medical supply companies. He signaled this effectively through a few minor differences with HRC's plan way back then, and it got him elected.
- The only trending leftward has been inevitable changes in social values (support of gay marriage, marijuana legalization, etc.) that are an inevitable part of the oldest generation of social conservative voters dying off. Both Obama and HRC lagged by about 4-8 years on gay marriage (both opposed it until it was abundantly safe to support it).
- There has been no serious reform of Wall Street, no serious GSE reform, and Obama has called for the significant expansion of student loan programs... which are the only kind of debt not discharged when someone declares bankruptcy, making them extremely socially regressive and akin to debt slavery. Someone who is 18 taking on massive debt to attend college is not an informed consumer and does not deserve debt that they will be straddled with no matter what circumstances befall them later.
These are just a few examples. There is a reason why so many Republicans (including the Bush family) has endorsed HRC -- she's essentially running a Republican platform, with a few easily broken promises to the left thrown in.
Well, Republicans have been moving to the left for a while too...
GWB ran on the idea of "compassionate conservatism" which was another way of saying that the Federal government should spend more money on social welfare programs. For GWB, it meant ensuring the support of a wide variety of faith-based organizations who saw it as an opportunity to get some free money, and when it worked to help get GWB two terms, the GOP realized it was a winning strategy. It helped counteract some of the appropriations championed by Democrats that resulted in lots of loyal voters.
Similarly, post-911 the neoconservative faction of the GOP took a strong hold on power. The older generation of Republicans, many of whom had served in combat, were far more weary of costly foreign wars, but the young generation, most of whom had not served, were eager to seize upon the opportunities left around the globe after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The invasion of Iraq was neoconservative: It was sold on the basis of its alleged humanitarian objective (freeing women who were oppressed under Saddam) but also on the basis of the grand existential threat of terrorism. Americans had to be sold on the idea that the war made sense, and GWB and his neoconservative team created a villain out of Saddam, Hans Blix the UN weapons inspector, the European countries that urged restraint, etc.
Of course, this was all so that the US could invade a country that had once been part of a proxy war with the USSR and was now essentially available for the taking. We've seen US dependence on Israel decrease post Iraq invasion, as we now have our own territory for bases and our own projection of force in the region. The current situation with Syria is Russia's latent attempt to retaliate and not lose its last foothold in the middle east. The Iran deal was (seemingly unsuccessfully) intended to be a carrot preventing Iran from aligning with Russia, etc.
Neoconservatism has been described as "liberals with guns" because there is an element of a moralistic crusade behind the war, and the war often does not involve direct threats to national security. Post Saddam, the US doled out the Iraqi oil industry contracts to American and coalition firms, effectively redistributing Iraq's trillions in oil wealth substantially, cutting out French and German companies that had won these lucrative contracts before.
In spite of campaigning against Bush's wars, Obama has generally kept the same ideological approach. For all the ranting about Obamacare, the GOP largely supported it, mainly because there are enough firms in GOP districts to result in the required number of votes.
At this point, the main reason the GOP would want to change Obamacare is to make it more lucrative for specific firms, not because of any sort of philosophical disagreement with the program.
So both parties are converging on what I'd call corporatist neoconservative centrism. It generally preserves the status quo, the broad policy strokes are bold plays to enrich massive industries through public/private partnerships (middle eastern oil, US healthcare, US housing, US financial services, etc). Foreign policy is heavily propaganda-based and heavily moralistic in its tone, foreign leaders are subject to ad hominem attacks, and existential evils are spoken about with the wide-eyed seriousness of children discussing fairytales.
When you think about, say, Jeb Bush's platform and HRC's, there is little difference when you filter for issues that would ever actually come to a vote. Notable in the leaked emails was the HRC team scrambling early on in response to a speech by Jeb Bush which they described as "HRC agrees with all of this". They were fearful that his messaging approach was better than what they'd come up with.
The biggest beneficiaries of the idea that HRC is "extremely liberal" or that Jeb is "extremely conservative" are the candidates themselves. They create the illusion of difference were little exists. Many of the other leaked HRC emails show that she holds or recently held many socially conservative views to go along with her free-trade pro-wall-street economic views. These things aren't a surprise, but they do provide actual evidence of the profound similarity between the two parties.
I'm glad he addressed this... I'm also a big Peter Thiel fan, but struggling to understand how he can possibly support Trump. I think there is an important distinction between "contrarian and right" and "contrarian and wrong", which supporting Trump doesn't seem to acknowledge.
And I wondered what Thiel's peers thought of his support, so this clarified it a bit for me.
But I also agree that the anti-Trump crowd should recognize that people in this country are angry, and Trump says what they want to say. Trump's not the solution but he's calling out the problems in a way that resonates with people.
(Of course, even if he had the right solutions, to me it seems clear he wouldn't be able to execute... but that's a political argument.)
There's another issues, both parties are courting the more extreme views within their parties.
That is, the Democrats are looking further left/liberal, and the Republicans are looking more right/conservative.
Neither is looking after the centre, they only seek to appease the more vocal within their ranks... the extremists.
Typically when the pendulum swings things average out, but politicians have learned over the past several decades that if they want to gain 10 miles of political position they should negotiate for 100 miles from the outset and beat the other party into submission before settling on 20 miles (everyone's a winner).
The entire system seems to promote seeking an extreme position even if such a position isn't desired by anyone.
> That is, the Democrats are looking further left/liberal, and the Republicans are looking more right/conservative.
True, but misleading without comparing the degree of the same on either side.
For example, on the right, the manifestation of partisan polarization was the emergence of the Tea Party, which had successfully ran many candidates across the country, and significantly redefined the party platform at its peak of prominence.
What's the left equivalent? Sanders? He came later, and his successes were far more limited.
Here's a very simple exercise you can do. Look up Democratic and Republican platforms for every electoral cycle in the past decade. Observe how much each has changed.
"The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are."
There's a ton of value in this sentence, because I find especially amongst the tech crowd, people are so isolated in the echo chambers created by their local populations, their choice of friends on social media, etc. We seek out likeminded people, and eventually, once we surround ourselves with them, suddenly other views, even popular views, seem crazy and radical. But they do come from somewhere, and generally those people have legitimate reasons for feeling the way they do.
Please provide a list of DNC officials that support from fire bombing. The candidate that he supports has said it was terrible. Democrats organized money specifically for the office to be rebuilt.
You're not adding anything of value to the conversation here.
I'm sure I'll be labelled a cynic, but I'm pretty sure if Thiel didn't make a shit ton of money and is likely to make more money in the future, YC would have dumped him over politics a long time ago.
There is definitely a core of this message that I agree with, but another part that when I think about it makes me disagree somewhat with it.
I understand that a good chunk of the country supports Donald Trump. I also don't understand why, and I would also like to understand why.
However, there are too many parallels between what Donald Trump publicly supports with things of the past that I cannot ignore. An example that some may believe to be an exaggeration but I think is a close parallel. Segregation. There was a time in which a person running for office would be in full public support of segregation. I did not live through those times. But I imagine that those that privately frowned upon those views regret not publicly distancing themselves from those that did support that view.
Let's take that example into today. Where is the line that we draw when we talk about political opinion vs moral opinion? If Donald Trump was a public defender of segregation, would you then make an effort to publicly distance yourself from his associates? If so, what's the difference between segregation and xenophobia? Is the difference that many had to loose their lives and sacrifice their well being for years for us as a country to realize what an awful mistake we made?
I'm not asking rhetorically. I'd like to understand where the line is drawn, because frankly I don't see this as a political difference but a moral one that I'd like to understand, but not to excuse it.
> if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator.
I find this logic is similar to the logic some GOPs use to support Donald Trump. Even though they condemned him for saying lewd/racist comments (or even committed to), they still give him the support. I don't know how you would continue dodging this for Peter when Donald Trump is being sued for actually committing to a criminal offense. YC needs to draw a line instead of playing this blurred line.
Is really Thiel just a mere supporter as Sam put it or more of a partner in crime?
He's clearly investing in his vision for your country to turn them into reality, and therefore should be dealt with accordingly and not just dismissed as just some politically uninformed and misguided guy on the street who happened to espouse dangerous and vile political views but he'll grow out of it in due time.
1. YC banning companies that supported SOPA was a mistake. I'm sure they now acknowledge that.
2. Mr Thiel donating $1M does not mean he believes or endorses in everything Trump stands for or says. I don't happen to agree he should have made the donation, but please use common sense.
3. Mr Altman used his personal blog not the YC blog. This is important. But the line is blurred between this being a personal statement or a statement on behalf of a corporation (YC).
4. Nobody should be persecuted or fired a political belief that a large part of a country endorses. This point is clearly stated and easily defended. Those attacking it should have a deep think about representative democracy - both the good parts and bad. Representative democracy is a decent, practical system but it is not perfect and America's flavor of it could do with a lot of refinement. This election cycle should make that pretty clear to the average HN reader.
> The only two vocal Trump supporters I am close to are Peter Thiel and my grandma.
Ignoring the Thiel stuff in this particular comment to focus on the grandma part. If you read this, sama, is her support based on anything more than him being the Republican nominee? I ask because my grandparents (from a very rural upbringing, and lifelong Republicans) are also the only Trump supporters I'm close to. It's been illuminating to me, as they vehemently opposed him in the primaries, and his policy positions (if you can call them that) are at odds with everything they've ever discussed believing in. Their justification seems to be based on a simple assumption that once he's elected, he'll just become a generic Republican, and that everything he says during the election is irrelevant bluster. It honestly has made me question if they'd vote for Hillary had she run as the Republican nominee.
What is really bad here is that we have to vote against a very bad candidate, not for a good one. Hilary needs to commit to certain priorities for all those groups that decided to vote for her - potentially compromising what she has promised so far - simply voting against Trump. Otherwise voting for her is a lost vote...
> The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are. The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us. We should talk to each other more, not less.
This really resonated. It's hard to overestimate how isolated we are from The Outgroup and how rarely we actually do anything about it.
If anyone is genuinely interested in talking to someone who is very different than themselves, I'm volunteering to play recruiter/matchmaker and coordinate some (hopefully) interesting conversations. I started a Ask HN thread to discuss so please let me know: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=12729057
I think this whole thread should be purged there is nothing substantive here. Just a bunch of people espousing opinions that approximately half of people disagree with (me included).
I personally have gained nothing out of reading all of this and I suspect that this is the case for the majority of people here.
If I had an employee whose job description involved hiring (or providing advice about hiring) a high-level addition to our company, and said employee advised that we should hire an individual who is widely known to be:
- racist
- erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage
- a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants
- shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency
I would conclude that my employee has bad judgement. Very bad judgement. I would fire said employee immediately. I would also likely shun said employee on a personal level.
I don't think people get a pass on this one just because this decision is being made in the context of politics.
This is exactly the kind of "my politics are so certain they aren't even politics anymore" manipulation that I'm seeing everywhere.
Movements don't exist in a vacuum. A massive trend like roughly half the country making a choice you don't agree with is pressing back against _something_, and one of the things it's pressing back against is attitudes like this.
but since when is racist, bragging-about-sexual-assualt-against-women, anti-muslim, "politics"?
I'm critical of supporters of Trump not because of his (Trump's) politics but because of his personal characteristics.
If I was interviewing someone for a job at my company, and I saw a video of them bragging about how they like to sexually assault women, I would not hire that person. No matter how bad-ass a coder he/she was.
I never said trump supporters are racist. I just said trump supporters are supporting a racist. And someone who likes to brag that they sexually assault women.
Would you hire a person for your company who brags about sexually assaulting women?
Yes. Someone bragging outside a work environment about who they support is fine. Someone bragging inside a work environment is less fine. Someone bragging about supporting Trump, in front of Mexican colleagues is even less fine.
The problem I have with this campaign is that _both_ candidates present a legitimate threat to the republic, in different ways. Sam is of course correct, but a similar argument can be made for Hillary.
Is it really that they support Trump or are just anti-Hillary? From this post, you are not really pro-Hillary, you are just anti-Trump, so consider that it goes the other way too.
Funny how two attendees of the 2016 Bilderberger meeting and partners in YC - Altman and Thiel - support opposing candidates - Clinton and Trump. USofA never ceases to amaze me.
I'm an American voter and I'm not voting for either creature. I did my civic duty in the primaries by not voting for either. For the election, I'll just write-in someone I prefer and sit this circus out.
I have to assume that there were a LOT of uninformed voters that had their anger whipped up by Trump. I suspect there was a lot of cross-over voting in open primary states.
Perhaps we've made it too convenient to register to vote, and the misinformed/lazy have stolen the show.
I have never really liked Donald Trump, he is an abrasive egocentric character and I quite like Hillary she being an attractive intelligent woman. Now I am not so sure, I find Hillary smug and untrustworthy and am finding Trump refreshing honest, if a little over-exited at times. its important to respect diverse views even if they fly contrary to your deeply held beliefs. Its not easy but if there is an open debate. thats probably a good thing
> That kind of diversity is painful and unpopular, but
> it is critical to health of a democratic and pluralistic
> society.
Is it? How does having someone who endorses xenophobia, sexism, etc, as one of the most visible members of your organization achieve these goals? If we tolerate this kind of thinking, how many opportunities are we losing out on because of people who couldn't get past the barriers it sets up?
I can relate to both sides, but I think the logic of wanting to engage is that at least having a dialogue path is an avenue to submit contrary evidence or examples for consideration. Sort of like "All X are like Y!" and then the refutation of showing "Several X are not like Y" without trying to attack the conversation participants. It takes both parties agreeing to the rules, and I'm not claiming either side always works through the dialogue in a mature or analytical fashion.
"I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian." - Peter Thiel [0]
Leaving aside all the drama surrounding YC and Peter Thiel, this is where it all breaks down for me. How am I supposed to take Thiel at his word today, when less than a decade ago he was convinced that politics is "too intense" because it angers people, divides them into us-vs-them groups, and tears them apart.
Is it simply that he's changed who he is in that time? I mean, that's a legitimate reason, and one I could respect even if it means I don't agree with who he is today. I'd want to know what changed his mind.
Or are there different Peter Thiel personas? I can understand this, too. As Hillary Clinton pointed out, Abraham Lincoln believed that politicians have a private and a public persona, because most of the electorate would shudder to see how our tasty, democratic sausage was being made.
Or is he a capricious man who doesn't stick to his principals when motivated by financial or political need? That would be disappointing, but the cynic in me says it wouldn't be surprising.
Without knowing who he truly is, and why there is such a divide between just 7 years ago (still fully within his adult life) and now, his whole persona just doesn't compute with me and I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that he's too chaotic to trust.
> This submission has received a huge number of user flags. We've overridden flags and other software penalties for several of these stories already for being related to YC, but our primary duty is to the community and we have to let it protect itself from being ripped apart by politics.
Btw, how can this 383 (currently) points article, posted 1 hour ago be below a 34 point article of 16 hours ago. This feels like a multi-hour front-page article to me...
Edit: Ah flags, just reading about what they are. We have to be protected from ourselves then.
Why would Sam not go for a third party who was less problematic? There are third party candidates available. Is it because they are unlikely to be elected? If so, this thinking keeps on trapping us into voting for the least bad of the bad.
It's more than unlikely. There is effectively zero chance of a third party candidate getting elected president in 2016.
Voting for one is throwing away your vote. Worse than that, it's throwing away an opportunity to indicate your second choice preference.
The US's first-past-the-post electoral system is not great, but voting for a third-party candidate does not at all address that problem. Instead, it plays exactly into the agenda of the two dominant parties by effectively disenfranchising yourself.
If you don't like the US's voting system, great, work to change it. Probably start by pushing for more small scale and local elections to switch to smarter voting systems. That way, citizens can used to them there and the venues are easier to change. Maybe eventually that will percolate all the way up and we can change the Constitution and change how the president is elected.
In the meantime, vote strategically for which of the two options to choose from that is most closely aligned to your interests.
No. It is not. The reason the two party system continues to exist is because so many people insist on there not being other options, despite there literally being other candidates on the ballot. There's a reason why Democrats have continued to spend money on turning Texas blue for years, despite the argument that they are "throwing money away." Momentum matters. Please don't listen to this. It's the absolute worst outcome of the two-party system: they've effectively convinced people that they're stuck with them, and it's why there are regular Republicans voting for Trump. Someone told them that not voting for him was throwing their vote away, and they listened.
> The reason the two party system continues to exist is because so many people insist on there not being other options, despite there literally being other candidates on the ballot.
No, it's because the mechanics of the voting rules themselves lead to a stable two party system.
Right, it doesn't count as doing anything about the electoral system.
There are ways to do things about the electoral system, both within the parameters of partisan politics and outside of them (at least, in the latter case, in the states with direct citizen initiative.)
If you really care about improving the viability of third parties in this country, please do that in local and state elections where it is actually possible to elect third parties.
Voting for 3rd parties in Presidential elections is fine, but really doesn't do much really and if you actually dig deep into 3rd party Presidential candidates, they're usually not great either.
I initially was upset at mr Nader, when Gore lost. I got over it and, in retrospect, the blame is fully on Gore. He simply didn't convince enough people with his message. It wasn't Nader's (or anyone else's) responsibility to make Gore more electable, it was Gore's responsibility.
Extremely well said. The point of multiple candidates is to offer voters a choice, and it's the job of a candidate to convince voters to choose him or her. Just because a candidate won a primary in a major party does not entitle the candidate to votes from people who find another candidate more appealing. If you want to vote strategically, fine. You have that option. If you like one candidate best, but the major party candidate is close enough that you're willing to vote for them in the interest of protecting against another outcome, that's also fine. But to the people arguing that voting third party is throwing your vote away: this is the argument that is used to convince otherwise reasonable Republicans to vote for Trump.
>There is no right or wrong way to vote for third parties.
Sure, I agree with you.
However, if your goal is to make third parties viable long-term in Presidential elections and not dependent on having very unfavorable candidates from the major 2 parties, I would argue that strong local and state 3rd parties are important.
In most social and business circles, especially wealthy ones, supporting a 3rd party presidential candidate puts you in the "out out group", a severe career limiting move (TM).
To be fair, this pretty much describes why the two party system remains dominant despite increasingly fractured and contentious primaries. Take a look at how aggressively Hillary campaigned against Obama in the 2008 primaries, for example.
If Trump were to win, Dems would for sure do a reshuffle and look introspectively. If Hillary were to win, there will be little introspection.
If Clinton wins, the Repubs will go into a tailspin and introspect, if Trump were to win, Repubs and Dems will have to both look inwardly to figure out how their machinery failed so miserably in the face of a hack -a blowhard with no political experience who will say anything to win and who likely, if elected would make Taft look like a good executive.
My view is Trump is an existential threat to our way of life and society. His authoritarian trigger-finger views and sheer lack of understanding of anything related to governing a nation will yield a world war and erase many decades, if not centuries, of progress.
Democrats and Republicans are already, and will continue, to investigate the failure of their machine. That much is true regardless. It's whether or not we're still here to do that introspection that I'd prefer to save.
I honestly don't know a ton about Taft's presidency, but what made him such a bad executive? I really should invest in some books about him, since on the surface, he's pretty interesting: only dual President/Supreme Court justice (which, even if it's inarguable that he was great there, seems completely at odds with the ostensible non-partisanship of the Supreme Court), Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Presidential run was a somewhat direct outcome of his tenure, all on top of the many apocryphal stories about his girth. If you've got any recommendations for learning about his weakness as a President, I'd appreciate them.
By the way it seems like both presidential candidates' main selling point is is that they are not the other candidate. Really not how things should be.
On some glorious day, notorious vampire Peter Thiel will be hoisted by his own petard, find himself stranded in the sunlight, and turn into a column of ash.
In the meantime, this was an appropriate stance to take.
> (of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator)
This is the difference, in my book, between casting a ballot and writing a big check. Casting a ballot is what you have the right to do privately, without judgement from the world. When you write a check (especially one of the 7-figure variety), and amplify the message, you bear far more responsibility than a voter.
One of the best ways to fix our broken campaign finance system would be to hold asshats like Thiel responsible for what their dollars are funding.
Sure (and to some extent, Obama did it in '08, and Bernie did it this year). It's 100% reasonable to run a campaign on a message of "My opponent is funded by $BANK and $PHARMA and whatnot. I'm funding this out of my own pocket / I'm funded by small-dollar donors / My entire staff is living off of ramen".
Does it single-handedly win an election? Probably not. Does it win some # of votes? Most certainly.
> I don't understand how 43% of the country supports Trump.
I don't understand how 43+% of the country supports Hillary. A lot of what Trump says makes sense to me - questioning why the US military is involved all over the world, questioning TPP etc. Hillary is more militaristic, historically more pro-TPP etc.
It seems more sensible to get tough on people illegally crossing our border than to get tough secretly bombing Syria as she suggests in Wikileaks e-mails. She's picking a fight, he is not.
Also, 43% of people don't fully support Trump. Some see him as the lesser of two evils. They may not like aspects of his personality or policies, but they prefer it to the alternative. The congress that will be elected will more accurately reflect how Americans think, with Trump and Clinton the choice is binary.
I don't support Trump, mainly because I think he would increase tensions between Latinos and non-Latinos in the US. However I also don't like Hillary's desire for military adventurism, how she leaned towards TPP etc. before polls quieted that down etc.
Trump is not the creation of yahoos from rural Indiana. He is the creation of the museum and concert hall sponsoring Koch brothers, whether their calculations include funding him or not. He is the creation of one of our media oligopolies, News Corp. He's the creation of neutered government regulators which allow scams like Trump University to exist.
Rural white workers voted for FDR, Truman, LBJ, Carter and Clinton. They haven't changed, it's the Democratic party which changed. Soros and company have destroyed the decentralized, grassroots Democratic machine and replaced it by a centralized, technocratic, machine learning targeting party focused on fundraising, not voters, and the interests of wealthy and upper middle class urban liberals.
From 1932 to 1996, West Virginia was a fairly reliable voter for the Democrats. Overwhelmingly white, poor and working class and rural. The Democratic leadership started writing them off, and the Republicans courted them, and now they vote Republican. Why do you think Trump and Pence drop mentions of supporting coal?
One thing the author seems do not understand is that people could be non-racist but also refuse their own country be occupied by more and more illegal immigrants and people of different religion. They do not hate those people, but they just do not want this country to be taken over by a group of people very different from themselves. Is this OK to the author?
I was not talking about making laws, I was talking about people's feeling. Maybe you are right, even if the country is taking over by more and more Muslims, and Christians slowly become minority and they cannot legally do anything about it and should just swallow it.
I have weighed the issues in reference to the interests of myself, my family, my community, and my country. As an independent, I kept seeing the same pattern: people on the right are open to discussing issues, people on the left want to alienate me and act hostile and throw around pejoratives without providing substantive evidence. That's honestly enough for me.
But here's the real kicker - it is going to take an outsider to deal with corruption. This was the tipping point for me: https://i.sli.mg/jozAB1.jpg
That's what tipped it for me too. We have to fix corruption first because so much else depends on it. I just don't know when the next time we'll see an outsider get this far, and while there's plenty I disagree w/ him on, I'm willing to risk it can be corrected later.
There was a post the other day on the front page about how someone's wife got offended on a subway.
This site has been shit for a while. Every now and then I pick up some new tech, but it is mostly news about SV housing market and self important "technologists" stroking their ego.
Some consistency would be nice. If it's OK for the boss to talk about this, then bring back the Thiel piece out of flagblivion. If this is a politics-free forum, then absolutely flag the boss.
EVEN WITH Clinton's "Correct The Record" online (and PAID) team of internet jokeys, she can't come close to competing with the passion of Trump supporters online. The key point: you cannot honestly believe that this disparity will not correlate with the popular vote. If you do, you're in denial and your candidate will probably lose. "Oh it's just online raids" - do you not think these people will be passionate enough to vote, but waste hours of their time for free discussing and liking the other candidate?
One final comment:
> I am endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
You mean the one that wanted to drone strike Julian Assange?
Trump's said mean things, has different policies than typical liberals, and has had a ton of personal accusations conveniently come up 3 weeks before the presidential election -- after over 30 years in the public eye.
Given how corrupt the democrats are and how they treated Bernie Sanders, how can one trust Clinton and the Dems at all? Many people think Bernie was cheated out of the nomination. And there are more than emails, some interesting studies, to show this as a strong possibility as well:
Castigating/firing people for their opinions is illegal under the constitution. Even if Thiel said the things Trump did, it's his right to free speech, and YC, as an employer, cannot fire him on any constitutional ground.
Disclaimer - before HN goes on a witch hunt, I do find Trump repugnant. But I'll defend his constitutional right to say it.
> Castigating/firing people for their opinions is illegal under the constitution.
Citation Needed.
Edit: Here's a link on the front page of a google search for 'firing people for their opinions is illegal under the constitution' that refutes your claims.
"Activity outside work: Some states and localities prohibit employers for firing or disciplining employees for legal activities outside work. If you’re involved in a political campaign and you work in one of these states, you can’t be fired for your political activities as long as they are legal activities."
Good point. I was just pointing out that the US constitution itself doesn't provide a protection, as the original comment suggested. You're right that states certainly could place additional requirements on businesses. I edited my post to reflect that. Thanks
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716825
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12720673
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12726970