The 2016 Election • Hacker News Board

Re: The 2016 Election

#281

Post by masklinn » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

jgroszko wrote: post #208

mtgx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rig…

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…

> 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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#282

Post by kybernetikos » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

rtx wrote: post #75

>unprecedented threat to America 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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#283

Post by noir_lord » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

eternalban wrote: post #257

> His racist, isolationist policies ... 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 U…

> 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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#284

Post by tormeh » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:54 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #17

sethbannon wrote: post #4

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 stil…

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.

"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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#285

Post by postcarnival » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

xorgar831 wrote: post #128

lhnz wrote: post #6

> 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…

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

Re: The 2016 Election

#286

Post by twoodfin » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #76

gkoberger wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam tweeted that this was his favorite article about the election: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on... It really does a great job of helping explain Trump supporters.

> 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.

Holy moly that number keeps getting bigger.

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".

[1] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

Re: The 2016 Election

#287

Post by DougN7 » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #224

DougN7 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Re: The 2016 Election

#288

Post by Yhippa » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #29

lhnz wrote: post #6

> 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…

Sam tweeted that this was his favorite article about the election: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on... It really does a great job of helping explain Trump supporters.

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#289

Post by Latty » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #63

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 s…

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#290

Post by menacingly » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

plg wrote: post #105

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…

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.