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The 2016 Election

blog.samaltman.com

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581–590 of 646 posts

Re: The 2016 Election

#581

Post by morgante »

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.

It doesn't do a good job of explaining why someone like Thiel (or my well-off friends) support Trump. They're city people with lots to lose.

Re: The 2016 Election

#582

Post by noobermin »

int_19h wrote: post #450
Aloha wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

> We should talk to each other more, not less. 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 toda…

>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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#583

Post by noobermin »

soccerdave wrote: post #269
Aloha wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

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.

There are two other candidates who have a +1% popularity.

Re: The 2016 Election

#584

Post by Aloha »

chirau wrote: post #570
Aloha wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You might enjoy this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUBE4YlTXvE

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#585

Post by int_19h »

grandalf wrote: post #575
int_19h wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 inte…

What is your baseline?

Re: The 2016 Election

#586

Post by morgante »

olalonde wrote: post #530
int_19h wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 politica…

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#587

Post by int_19h »

rtx wrote: post #516
int_19h wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Putin has genuine widespread popular support in Russia. There's no viable way to check him from inside the country at this point.

Sorry about my previous comment it might have been edgy. But when you see kids dying on beaches you become wary of America interventions. Which will only increase with Hillary. http://www.salon.com/2016/02/05/in_debate_hillary_clinton_bo...

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#588

Post by int_19h »

olalonde wrote: post #530
int_19h wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 politica…

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.

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.

Re: The 2016 Election

#589

Post by eternalban »

douche wrote: post #573
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…

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 dunno

I concur.

Re: The 2016 Election

#590

Post by Locke1689 »

douche wrote: post #544
Locke1689 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is from the April primaries. Donald Trump's demographic support is much different now.

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.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...

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