I remember reading in a reputable publication quoting sources that Trump is considering him as the most serious candidate.
If anything Trump would be afraid of non-politicians, given the anti-establishment sentiments prevalent recently and fueled by Sanders.
In my opinion, Trump won because Hillary and the DNC in general is full of corrupt crooks. The DNC conceded nothing to the Sanders side during the nomination, turning off lights on their side. That's the votes that swung in Trump's favor. Rather than reforming themselves, they diverted attention by concocting Russia collusion story, something that fell completely flat.
With Zuckerberg/Sanders/xyz-not-establishment running, I think we may have a chance at beating Trump for the second term.
Trump won because Hillary and the DNC in general is full of corrupt crooks.
As a non-american I honestly can't tell democrats and republicans apart when it comes to corruption. For me trump's win was because he was the only candidate left who promised a genuine change. The thing americans seem to want most of all is a real change away from the traditional washington politics, with it being almost irrelevant whether that change comes from the left or the right. It's why both obama and trump could sway the same electorate, despite having no politics in common.
I saw some of Hillary's ex team putting ideas out now that _Sanders_ was under Russian influence. They just can't get over the idea that she was "the senator's daughter" to turn a phrase and all but won.
The Dems abandoned their working class and decided to go for identity politics which in turn turned off lots of people such that white women voters, Hillary's wheelhouse, voted for her opposition, and some commentators even called this a whitelash, implicitly implicating identity politics as having turned a cruel mistress.
> The Dems abandoned their working class and decided to go for identity politics
Sounds like a rationalization made backwards from a premise, even though the issues raised in 2016 were basically identical to the issues raised in 2012. The only difference was, ironically, the introduction of "white identity politics" by Trump.
I would vote for Trump to prevent Sanders or Zuckerberg from being President. As far as I'm concerned the Democratic party died sometime during Obama's second term when they decided that they didn't need working class people anymore.
I can understand your disdain for the Democratic party. I share it.
However, if I may offer up some counter points on Sanders specifically.
First, let's be clear that the republican party does not have the interest of the working man at heart either. Let's not forget that the first actions of almost any republican candidate in recent times almost always involve tax cuts for higher income brackets and budget cuts on education, infrastructure, health care, and environmental programs. These budget cuts adversely effect the working class.
Second, Sanders wasn't really aligned with the democratic party. In fact, the system was purposefully rigged against him. This isn't a conspiracy theory. Many high ranking officials of the DNC have admitted to it.
Third, Sanders was the working class' best hope. He was in favor of raising taxes in all brackets in order to raise money for public works programs, universal healthcare and no-cost tuition for higher education. As you might imagine, these platforms definitely rustled some feathers. Not only was his platform based around dismantling the racketeering industries that are higher education and medical insurance, his platform also seemed somewhat gasp socialist. Socialism is a dirty word in the U.S. no doubt because of the cold war. However, these programs were shown to be successful in other nations in Europe and also in Canada.
Fourth, Sanders was the most honest and squeaky clean candidate that has ever run for the office. He legitimately believed in his ideas, he wasn't in the pockets of large corporations, he had a voting record consistent with his platform, and there is historical evidence of him supporting strikes and equality protests.
All I'm asking is that you understand that Sanders wasn't a Dem candidate. He wasn't running on party platforms. He was purposefully ousted by the party because they knew he wouldn't listen to them and their corporate backers. Sanders used the Dem as a way to gain legitimacy. He really had no choice considering that most people in the U.S. consider third party candidates to be a joke.
>Fourth, Sanders was the most honest and squeaky clean candidate that has ever run for the office. He legitimately believed in his ideas, he wasn't in the pockets of large corporations, he had a voting record consistent with his platform, and there is historical evidence of him supporting strikes and equality protests.
That scares me the most, I want a pragmatic president, not an ideologue.
>higher income brackets and budget cuts on education, infrastructure, health care, and environmental programs. These budget cuts adversely effect the working class.
No, the budget cuts do not adversely affect the working class. The working class collectively pays more taxes than the richest because working class makes a much larger portion of the population. That money is being wasted on education which is useless as far as getting employment after it is concerned and other government programs let the corrupt politicians decide who gets the business. Tax cuts on the rich doesn't affect the amount of money collected significantly and in addition to that encourages the lower income people to justify earning more.
>Sanders wasn't really aligned with the democratic party
Even the Democratic party was not in favor of Sanders because socialist and communist parties in failed countries, the DNC understands that socialism doesn't really work. They pretend that it does and might say it for votes, but seeing someone who would actually go ahead and try to do it would make things much worse for the country. As evil as Hillary is, everyone should be thankful that she made sure Sanders didn't get a chance.
>Sanders was the working class' best hope.
>He was in favor of raising taxes in all brackets
Yeah right... because if you want to help people, you should take their money forcefully and then give it to a slow, inefficient bureaucratic system which will solve all their problems.
>However, these programs were shown to be successful in other nations in Europe and also in Canada.
No. All big healthcare programs around the world are costing a bigger chunk of the budget every year and have thus far been sustainable because most of the healthcare innovation happens outside of them i.e. in the US, which they simply import.
>Sanders was the most honest and squeaky clean candidate that has ever run for the office.
Except for the corruption he is being investigated for.
>He legitimately believed in his ideas
Having no experience in anything else outside of mindless activism and politics makes one delusional, so while I also think he legitimately believed in his ideas, I can't see it as a good thing.
> No, the budget cuts do not adversely affect the working class. The working class collectively pays more taxes than the richest because working class makes a much larger portion of the population.
Well, yeah. The wealthy benefit from all the things their taxes fund even more than the working class does. The wealthy pay disproportionately little considering that their wealth is built upon the infrastructure that the working class pays for. Consider that a wealthy person cannot make any money if their workers are not able to get to work because of poor infrastructure. Consider that the wealthy benefit from public education training their workers.
> That money is being wasted on education which is useless as far as getting employment after it is concerned and other government programs let the corrupt politicians decide who gets the business.
I'm trying to parse this. I'm not sure what you mean, but you seem to be claiming that education is "useless"? You go on to say that education does not help people get jobs. I mean, it's clear that education has a large role to play in employment rates. Besides that, the goal of education is not to ensure people are employed; it is to ensure that there is a well educated populace capable of making sane, rational decisions. I'm not going to try and tackle the last part of your statement here because I have no clue what you're trying to say.
> Tax cuts on the rich doesn't affect the amount of money collected significantly and in addition to that encourages the lower income people to justify earning more.
"forces the lower income people to justify earning more"? I apologize if you're not a native English speaker, but I'm really having trouble trying to make sense of what you're saying here. Why do lower income people have to "justify" earning more? We live in a society where the amount of effort you put in generally determines what you get out of life. No one has to "justify" earning more except for maybe trust fund babies and people who inherit large corporations.
> Even the Democratic party was not in favor of Sanders because socialist and communist parties in failed countries, the DNC understands that socialism doesn't really work. They pretend that it does and might say it for votes, but seeing someone who would actually go ahead and try to do it would make things much worse for the country. As evil as Hillary is, everyone should be thankful that she made sure Sanders didn't get a chance.
I see a lot of people parrot this exact point all over the place but no one ever offers any logical argument as to why. No one can explain how socialist policies/programs would ruin the U.S. They just say it and then move on assuming its some sort of universal truth.
> Yeah right... because if you want to help people, you should take their money forcefully and then give it to a slow, inefficient bureaucratic system which will solve all their problems.
You mean like the manner in which the U.S. currently operates? We have the ability to build a post-scarcity society but most of those who control the means of production are too selfish to see past their own noses.
> No. All big healthcare programs around the world are costing a bigger chunk of the budget every year and have thus far been sustainable because most of the healthcare innovation happens outside of them i.e. in the US, which they simply import.
[citation needed]
Seriously though, I'm gonna need some numbers on that before I take it at face value. Even if this is true, I'm sure there are some factors that you are willfully ignoring.
> Except for the corruption he is being investigated for.
Got a source for that? The only thing I found was something about sanders paying his wife and daughter to work on his senate campaign from 2002-2004. A total of $90,000 dollars for his wife over two years and $65,000 dollars for his daughter over four years. Broken down, that's a $45,000/yr salary for his wife and a $16,250/yr salary for his daughter. Seems to actually be a rather low salary for campaign officials. And a bunch of unconfirmed reports about Bernie's wife overstating donations for the college she worked at in order to secure a pledge from the catholic diocese. The accusations seem to be levied by a formal Trump campaign official as well. Could be a smear campaign. Doesn't seem like much is coming of it. On top of this, none of the articles I read offered any credible sources whatsoever. There's just not enough there for me to draw any reasonable conclusion. This is the closest thing to a credible source that I found: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-and-jane-sanders-under-f...
> Having no experience in anything else outside of mindless activism and politics makes one delusional, so while I also think he legitimately believed in his ideas, I can't see it as a good thing.
Why do you jump from "believing in ideas" to "mindless activism"? Why can nobody ever see the middle ground. For most people it's walways black or white. Well, sometimes, the correct answer is gray.
>The wealthy benefit from all the things their taxes fund even more than the working class does.
Someone is not wealthy by coincidence. To gain wealth, you have to create a product or a service that people are willing to pay for i.e. people value the product/service more than the money that they have. Otherwise, they wouldn't be parting away from their money to get that product or service.
>The wealthy pay disproportionately little considering that their wealth is built upon the infrastructure that the working class pays for.
Not necessarily. Bill Gates didn't make a lot of money because government made computers for him. Mark Zukerberg did not make a lot of money because the government gave them the world wide internet network. Apple didn't make a lot of money because the government gave them something. If you look at the any money making businesses, they most likely made it despite of the government not because of it.
>I'm not sure what you mean, but you seem to be claiming that education is "useless"?
It's a huge waste of money for what it is.
>You go on to say that education does not help people get jobs. I mean, it's clear that education has a large role to play in employment rates.
Not necessarily. Most companies fall back to education for selection only when they don't find people with experience in the industry unless it is enforced by government regulations for people to get a degree, a degree is not very valuable.
>Besides that, the goal of education is not to ensure people are employed; it is to ensure that there is a well educated populace capable of making sane, rational decisions.
Such "goals" have been misused by totalitarian regimes to instill their brainwashing to the general populace so that the establishment can remain in power... and it is not untrue in the US given that most campuses are full of politics, sometimes even when it shouldn't be.
>I'm not going to try and tackle the last part of your statement here because I have no clue what you're trying to say.
Here is what I am trying to get at: when the government is in charge of healthcare for example, even the "socialist" countries like Norway and China have learnt that government is too incompetent to actually own and manage hospitals and insurance companies. So, they usually give this to one or more privately run companies. Which companies they pick for this is too much prone to corruption because when this happens, the company getting the contract generally gets a monopoly status and a huge number of customers by default. Even if the government doesn't pick a particular company, it can create regulations that can weed out small competitors eventually leading to a monopoly, and not necessarily the company that deserves to be one.
>We live in a society where the amount of effort you put in generally determines what you get out of life.
Exactly! So, if you tax someone heavily above a certain bracket, people making just below the bracket do not have a high enough incentive to put in any more effort, because they get to keep a small amount of what they make above that. So, people may be prone to stagnate. When they do, they are not contributing to the economy as much as they could otherwise have. On top of that, people willing to make more could move their businesses away to other countries when possible, doing further harm to the economy.
>No one can explain how socialist policies/programs would ruin the U.S.
Socialist programs harm everyone. Let me try to explain in the simplest possible way. When a politician promises to give things for "free", the government has to buy it from someone. But the government doesn't have any money of its own. It makes all the money by collecting taxes from the very people it says it's giving for free. So, whatever free thing it says it is giving away, it will have to stop spending money somewhere else or raise taxes. So, people are still paying. However, not directly anymore but via a middle man... but not just any other middle man. Government policies and programs react very slowly and poorly to market demands. It is made up of insane number of bureaucratic layers which are very difficult to maintain. So, additional companies spawn up to help maintain these processes. Meanwhile, the related industries have to follow strict regulations imposed by the government for "quality of service". More useless businesses then pop up to try to get around these regulations and laws. So, without insane amount of capital, nobody can hope to enter the industry because you have to pay insane amount just to keep it running. As a result, many existing companies gain monopolies and lose any incentive to do any better.
So, as a result, people may end up paying more for the same service, except it has no competition and shows no incentives for improving it.
>We have the ability to build a post-scarcity society but most of those who control the means of production are too selfish to see past their own noses.
Exactly! This is because it is virtually impossible for anyone to enter certain industries because of insane number of regulatory hell as I mentioned earlier.
>[citation needed]
>Seriously though, I'm gonna need some numbers on that before I take it at face value. Even if this is true, I'm sure there are some factors that you are willfully ignoring.
All governments publish their budgets and expenditure for everyone to see. It's not very hard to look up if you are interested.
>Why do you jump from "believing in ideas" to "mindless activism"? Why can nobody ever see the middle ground. For most people it's walways black or white. Well, sometimes, the correct answer is gray.
Because anyone who knows anything about how the world operates can clearly see how mindless and simple his ideas are. There is nothing profound he has to say. "We need less corruption and more government programs" is the gist of everything he has to offer.
> With Zuckerberg/Sanders/xyz-not-establishment running, I think we may have a chance at beating Trump for the second term.
If the democrats nominate Zuckerberg, they can count me out. I might even vote for Trump to keep Zuckerberg out. He's the only possible candidate I can think of who makes me even more nauseous than Trump does.
Even among friends of mine who have been life-long democrat voters, I know for a fact that I'm not alone on this.
Republicans said the same thing when Trump first started running. As it turns out, birtherism and his comments on Mexicans brought him a wide base in the Republican party that quite a few pundits didn't see coming. I'm sure if Zuckerberg played his cards right he could pull something off as well (albeit likely without the racism).
> I remember reading in a reputable publication quoting sources that Trump is considering him as the most serious candidate.
Strategy wise there are plenty of reasons to make a candidate that you think you can beat appear to be a threat to you.
Let's take a business example.
Say you have 5 competitors. Do you want your customers comparing you to the strong competitor Or one with weaknesses that you think you can beat?
Saying he is a serious candidate makes it likely that that will get bandied about instead of someone is actually stands a better chance of winning.
(Doesn't matter if this is actually the case here I am using it to illustrate a point of how things that are said have to be taken with a grain of salt..)
> they diverted attention by concocting Russia collusion story, something that fell completely flat.
I mean, other than Trump Jr. admitting that it happened, yeah, completely flat.
We're well past the point where it's reasonable to pretend that the Clinton campaign "concocted" the story entirely, or to dismiss the mountains of (admittedly circumstantial) evidence that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to undermine the Clinton campaign. That seems to be passing from the realm of conspiracy theory to likely fact.
A lot of people ARE "conspiring" to get Trump out of office. Do you realize that a "conspiracy theory" does not necessarily imply that it is wrong? Deep State has been trying to get rid of Trump for a long time and some of them have admitted their intent publicly.
I would love Zuckerberg presidency. Get these old dinosaurs out of office and put some new blood actually in touch with modern times in office. Zuckerberg has spoken positively about basic income, about socialized education, healthcare etc. All of the things that will move our country towards the actual modern post-industrial era we live in where 'jobs' are a legacy idea being slowly phased out by technology. I think the boomers are still stuck in a post-ww2 mentality and are steering the country in a misguided direction.
Zuckerberg is only hyping running so he looks more important to the Chinese government so he can get more leverage for getting Facebook into China. He's doing this because rolling over by creating backdoors and censorship tools to appease the Chinese Gov was apparently not enough. It's a scummy move but given our current president ......
Whenever his other merits or demerits Zuckerberg seems to have very little mass charisma (i.e. the ability to fire up a crowd or inspire people over tv).
Look at some recent matchups and think about who had more mass charisma:
Clinton v Trump
Obama v Romney
GWB v Kerry
GWB v Gore
Clinton v Dole
Does it make any sense at all for a party to nominate a candidate with poor mass charisma?
No. Especially since Trump is a master at projecting emotion on a mass scale. Zuckerberg could not rely on photo ops and videos to convey an emotional message when Trump is going to be shouting to audiences of thousands. He should just sit this one out, don't jump the gun on this one.
The ol' Zuck means well and I think he'd give the go a nice solid try with proper intentions. But I do not think he would be that successful in the office, whatever "successful" means these days.
Means well? God I hope you're joking. Where Trump is merely a narcissistic buffoon, Zuckerberg is truly evil. We should count ourselves lucky he has no charisma, and that his lizard-like soulless personality shines through as soon as he opens his mouth.
You could say the same thing about Nixon - he was a paranoid, anti-Semitic sociopath, but he created the EPA and tried (but failed) to pass healthcare reform and universal income.
"Truly evil" doesn't mean anything objective, every President I can think of is or has been considered truly evil by some significant segment of the American populace, and many have probably been more evil than people are aware of.
What would matter is what Zuckerberg's policy agenda was, whether it would benefit the US and whether or not he could be effective in passing it.
> The ol' Zuck means well and I think he'd give the go a nice solid try with proper intentions
What makes you so sure? Do you know him personally?
I don't see how any reasonable person could look at Facebook and say "the creator of that company means well". He's actively trying to destroy the concept of personal privacy (for everyone but himself, it seems), and his platform is designed to be as addictive as possible.
Their "internet.org"/"free basics" effort is a blatant attempt to fool poor people into thinking Facebook is "the internet", and permanently capture them within Facebook's data collection machine. Their emotional contagion experiment most likely resulted in at least a few people offing themselves. Etc.
He clearly wants people to believe he means well, but actions speak much louder than words.
Well, okay. Since we're talking about him as a potential politician, then I suppose our opinions are engaging now in political debate, so perhaps it's not an ideal candidate for HN.
That said, I agree with you that he is trying to make FB the center of the known Milky Way, perhaps the universe itself. But then so many entrepreneurs do that. I do not know him personally, to answer your question, but it does appear to me that the rather superficial ramblings he offers in articles and blog posts and interviews are at least skewed to the idea that he can do some good in the world, even if his idea of good is perhaps different than yours.
Incidentally, the addictive nature of FB is by no means unique to FB. Every social media company does this now, the whole concept of mobile notifications on any platform is enough to hook users into the gateway. And if you were a big media company, you'd most likely want your service to be addictive also (just as those who make TV shows or movie sequels want their stories to be addictive so audiences will keep coming back).
Yeah, but many people would choose not to pursue a business that sells out a large numbers of people on ethical grounds. That doesn't even get into his corporate backstabbing and other acts.
Simply because he can exploit a large quantity of rubes to make money doesn't change the fact its not exactly an ethically sound choice.
> I do not know him personally, to answer your question, but it does appear to me that the rather superficial ramblings he offers in articles and blog posts and interviews are at least skewed to the idea that he can do some good in the world, even if his idea of good is perhaps different than yours.
Every "liberal" CEO does that and tries to make themselves sound generous and empathetic. It is good for their income, it is good for their corporate image, and its good for the professional prospects.
Even his charitable acts are largely grandiose tossing of money that frequently fails due to a lack of even basic research. He doesn't genuinely care and its pretty damn obvious when people who donate a couple grand put more effort into researching how well its used than he researched pretty much any of his charitable attempts.
Facebook is a company that _badly_ needs public good will to remain in operation because if people lose faith they'll abandon the network.
I genuinely do not understand how people fail to realize these sorts of things are a combination of ego, self-interest, and political leanings rather than genuine desire. If they were genuine desire, he would have retired from running Facebook like Bill Gates and focused on charity.
I'll never understand what makes people take the focus-grouped, carefully worded speeches and statements of CEOs and politicians at face value, and then label those CEOs/politicians "good people" or "nice guys" based on that. It's obvious that critical thinking skills are severely lacking across most of society.
It's the equivalent of believing a company is "run by comedians" because their marketing team injected some dull humor into an ad that played on TV, or believing an oil company is "environmentally friendly" because they published a picture of someone wearing their logo planting a tree.
> The flip side of that is they can't really hide when they fuck up.
That's what they employ social media "reputation management" teams for.
You'll notice this entire thread we're commenting on was quietly deleted from the main post listing on HN after it started rising up the front page. Though, I'm guessing that was more HN mods doing someone a favor (or protecting the guy they want to see become president) than full-on reddit-style reputation management, where the entire thread is suddenly full of people who love whoever got caught with their pants down.
Why not? Zuckerberg is clearly a smart man, and he seems to be as qualified as any one else. Infinitely more qualified than the current occupant of the office. Just because you don't think of him as a politician doesn't mean that he won't do a good job.
Why is Zuckerberg infinitely more qualified than Trump? Both came from wealthy families. Both are billionaires. Both are only capable of running due to their billionaire status. Neither has any experience of any kind in politics.
Folks were worried about Trump's conflicts of interest, but Zuckerberg quite literally owns one of the nation's largest news redistributors which is already actively taking steps to control which news is shared.
> Zuckerberg quite literally owns one of the nation's largest news redistributors which is already actively taking steps to control which news is shared.
Not just the nation. He controls much of what the developed world sees and reads, and has access to and control over much of the developed world's public and private communication.
> Just because you don't think of him as a politician doesn't mean that he won't do a good job.
This is a really silly argument. Zuckerberg is not a bad candidate because it is hard to imagine him as a politician. He is a bad candidate because we can see the impact of Zuckerberg's attitude toward the general population in the way he manages the Facebook platform. That is not a society anyone wants.
The product zuck runs is sleazy by nature, and he's made a lot of statements that tell me he's either naive or out of touch with the average persons reality.
I think Trump is a twit but I would rather have someone that seems grounded, like bill gates for example, than a guy with floaty dreamland ideas that Facebook can make everyone like each other.
> Why not? Zuckerberg is clearly a smart man, and he seems to be as qualified as any one else. Infinitely more qualified than the current occupant of the office. Just because you don't think of him as a politician doesn't mean that he won't do a good job.
I'm pretty sure we'll see a Zuckerberg Presidency the same way we see Facebook being run as a business. He'll do the minimum to keep people happy and then quietly sell you out behind closed doors.
Intelligence is important, but intelligent people with very little in the way of ethical standards are far more dangerous than they are helpful.
If by "qualified" you mean not being misogynistic, racist and mentally unstable, then yes. Zuckerberg is more qualified.
But being a politician is not just having an opinion about things - it's also being a strategist, and having a sound knowledge about how the political system works, ethics and being able to cooperate with people you disagree with. Traits Zuckerberg has yet to show he has.
Being smart is not by itself a positive trait just like a hammer is not per-se a good tool. It all depends on how you use your smarts (and your hammer).
Zuckerberg in office could do better than Trump but for now I don't see him as a net positive to the world, magnifying that by handing him the keys to the kingdom could do a lot of damage.
I think the exact opposite. I still question his moral stature (he's certainly trying), but I'd love to see what happens with a techie in the office. The current abstract definition of success may not apply to that situation - tech has redefined business; politics is long past its due date for a shake up.
I don't know. Asian nations like Singapore and Japan have done very well with highly-technical public servants, mathematicians and physicists are often in government in Singapore. Anything that gets technical people into office is good in my books. Zuck is a great leader, smart at the level that politicians were in the past and have not been for generations. He could be extremely good. He could be awful. But he is at least an extremely impressive human being, which is more than can be said for recent presidents.
If he didn't own Facebook and was just a guy, I would take him over Sanders and Trump any day. But FaceBook is a scary thing to own, scarier still if you a president.
As a side note, Zuck's admiration for Caesar is a little more disconcerting in the context of politics than business, especially since he operates the most effective surveillance infrastructure ever constructed.
I don't think Singapore is the best study in comparisons with the U.S. as it has quite explicitly managed to place high-restrictive control on its population in a way that would not fly (explicitly, anyway) in most Western nations. Singapore is hardly what Americans would consider to be a democracy or free society, and by a very very large stretch.
I have thus far avoided any Zucker interviews, but I will say that I have had enough of presidential conflicts of interest. Facebook is too big, and he would need to completely divest.
I hold a contradiction over Zuckerberg. He would work harder than most to understand issues, fundamentally transform government to embrace tech, and also have a very powerful platform to reach out to voters directly.
However, given all of this, running as a Democrat would not protect him from the same pressures and problems as Trump. It would probably exacerbate tensions, with him ending up much more isolated than Trump from the political establishment. If we think the Trump presidency and its coverage are hectic, just imagine the air when Zuckerberg blows through all of the weak political candidates. Everyone D and R will unilaterally oppose Zuckerberg, 10x as they do Trump, just because of his power.
Additionally, it's dangerous gamble for Zuckerberg to run, as all Facebook products WILL face a massive exodus stoked by political enemies. The debate of him vs Trump will not please anyone. His path to the nomination will feel so forced like a repeat of Hillary's campaign without all the enthusiasm.
Despite all of this, in my recommendation, it would be incredibly foolish of Zuckerberg not to run. If not in 2020, at least afterwards.
2020 is not an election anyone should want to be involved in. Ever. With the optics and warping that Trump's campaign style involves, traditional campaigns (and even with an adept tech strategy, direct messaging, etc.) do not work against Trump. Even co-opting his strategy and style (energy, heart, voice) is suicide. It would take an exceptionally practiced person to channel, reflect and amplify the frustrations of the electorate as a candidate to displace Trump.
>"I hold a contradiction over Zuckerberg. He would work harder than most to understand issues, fundamentally transform government to embrace tech, ..."
What does this mean?
Do you believe that the US government doesn't currently "embrace tech"? Look up 18F and the USDS.
Do you not think that every law maker in Washington doesn't have a smart phone and an ipad?
Would "embracing tech" somehow result in less pork barrel politics, partisan gridlock, deficit spending or kicking the can down the road on policy making? These are the real structural issues with Washington not the lack of tech in the workplace.
Doesn't matter who the president is. The current election cycles and the kind of panderers that get propped up remind me more of third world democracies than anything else. The outcomes of whomever has got elected in the last 30-40 years have been so pointless that I'd be happy to have decisions be taken by a random number generators, than these time and resource wasting clowns.
I think the modern presidential role needs more technological savvy and broad-scale systems thinking than in the past. I'd put those abilities at a greater weight than typical political communication / dealing. There are tech CEO/Founders/Businessmen I would rather have in the White House than Zuckerberg, but there are very few politician/lawyer types that I would prefer over Zuckerberg.
Facebook's practice of experimentation and data-driven decision making is something our country needs more of. Incentives are pretty out of wack, in many cases the only way to align incentives is with information systems regulating more complex relationships. I'd also like to see some really aggressive pushes towards infrastructure improvements in internet, education, and transportation . All of these are things I think Zuckerberg would be a good bet to organize.
El Presidente (Señor Teflon Trump) has a unique set of skills that Mr. Zuckerberg probably doesn't have. These have been covered by the hypnotist cartoonist, Scott Adams:
Like many of you, I have been entertained by the
unstoppable clown car that is Donald Trump. On
the surface, and several layers deep as well,
Trump appears to be a narcissistic blow-hard
with inadequate credentials to lead a country.
The only problem with my analysis is that there
is an eerie consistency to his success so far.
Is there a method to it? Is there some sort of
system at work under the hood?
Probably yes. Allow me to describe some of the
hypnosis and persuasion methods Mr. Trump has
employed on you. (Most of you know I am a
trained hypnotist and this topic is a hobby of
mine.)
[...]
Milton Erickson (the grand master) -> John Grinder -> Anthony Robbins -> Donald "Teflon" Trump
The Clintons [Bill & Hillary] are also friends with Anthony Robbins. I don't know why Hillary didn't learn anything - maybe it's because she was a career politician who spent her formative years interacting with politicians, instead of with real people.
Adams pointed out somewhere that Teflon Don's pastor growing up was Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking and other books about effective mental habbits. Señor Trump used his persuasion training in his reality T.V. show, in building his twitter audience, and in his presidential campaign.
One Saturday morning, when I was going to get the taxi, I heard a blurb on NPR about the screening of the Milton Erickson Foundation's new documentary, Wizard of the Desert [2] [3]. I called one of my "Project Passengers" [4] and let her know that we were going to this screening.
Later I had a session with the president of the organization. Dr. Zeig precisely identified how I was sabotaging my efforts...
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13286085 - she is doing very well now, no thanks to the State's efforts. Her family & "art therapy" & "peer support" training were much more helpful with getting her alcohol use under control than was 2 years in minimum security prison.
The entire line of thinking that Scott Adams has is basically comparable to being a dedicated pickup-artist.
Adams has studied all the tricks of how to manipulate people and rationalizes it to the point of deluding himself. It's like saying that if you're a pickup-artist who successfully seduces your target using all manner of clever and manipulative tactics, well, they were indeed seduced so, you judge that they liked it and had a good time, so it's all good.
Adams is obsessed with persuasion to the point of completely ignoring what you persuade people to do or think. Like an avid pickup-artist who treats Casanova as the hero to model, Adams sees that Trump is successful at manipulating people, so he sees that as all the proof needed that Trump is to be admired and treated as the ultimate model to follow.
Short version: Adams is a lousy source for actually understanding Trump. Adams is right about some things and wrong about others, and he is among the most extreme victims of confirmation bias I've ever seen.
> Adams has studied all the tricks of how to manipulate people
There is more than "tricks" to effective communication. THIS is Milton Erickson's insight, and this was what my comment was about. 'Tricks' were all Hillary Clinton had in her linguistic arsenal (ex: calling Trump 'dark').
You ignored my whole comment, and just compared El Presidente to a 'pick up artist'. (The premise of that field is the lesson I had to give to one of my female passengers one night, about the 'difference between boys & girls': http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys-... - women get to take their pick of potential suitors, whereas men have to market themselves effectively. Sometimes men resort to using linguistic 'tricks' to get women into bed. Women would be well-served by being able to recognize the language patterns that are sometimes used...)
"If the definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different result, then that's exactly what Clinton was doing in this campaign. There was zero evidence from the Republican primary that a traditional campaign would work against Trump. But she ran one anyway. Why?" - https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/09/06/politics/hillary-clinton-...
Your New Republic article is from 2015, which was before El Presidente steam-rolled the republican primary field. Do you have anything newer?
There's better and worse tricks, and then there's real communication. Scott Adams is like Hillary Clinton — both full of mediocre tricks, although there's a big difference. Adams seems to really believe what he's saying and so comes across more compellingly (despite lacking real substance and intellectual rigor). Clinton seems to be obviously deceptive and bad at hiding it (even as she's deluded herself much of the time).
The New Republic article aged better than almost all the other press out there. I referenced it because it's correct and clear.
I'm not sure why you brought up Clinton, but let me make this completely explicit: zero of the insights or persepctives on Trump need to describe him in contrast to Clinton, and there's no basis to think that critics of Trump have anything good to say about Clinton necessarily.
My point mostly wasn't even about Trump. I'm not saying Trump himself is a pickup-artist and that's it. I'm saying that SCOTT ADAMS has an ideology comparable to that of pickup-artist culture and his (Adams') admiration for Trump is based on seeing Trump as a master pickup-artist who also can be assumed to just have the best of intentions for everyone. Adams and Trump are different types of fools.
If anything Trump would be afraid of non-politicians, given the anti-establishment sentiments prevalent recently and fueled by Sanders.
In my opinion, Trump won because Hillary and the DNC in general is full of corrupt crooks. The DNC conceded nothing to the Sanders side during the nomination, turning off lights on their side. That's the votes that swung in Trump's favor. Rather than reforming themselves, they diverted attention by concocting Russia collusion story, something that fell completely flat.
With Zuckerberg/Sanders/xyz-not-establishment running, I think we may have a chance at beating Trump for the second term.