Donald Trump Is Elected President • Hacker News Board

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#841

Post by pg314 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:43 PM UTC

sodafountan wrote: post #638

ajross wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all honesty: almost none. He just wanted to be president. Most of his time will be spend enriching himself by selling banal access and bloviating on the world stage. That's pretty awful, but not apocalypse-level awful. Of your list: The wall is a technical impossibility that everyone can recognize. There's no funding for a deportation force and the political optics of goon squads rounding people up is something co…

I don't think you understand how ego works. He wants to be more than just president, he wants to be a great president, that's in his nature. I truly believe he'll do what it takes to make himself into a great president. Do you think he wants to be remembered more as a George W. Bush or a Ronald Reagan? I'm about as worried about a Trump presidency as I am worried that I'll remember how to breath at night. Human Natur…

If only that was all it took: "do what it takes to make himself into a great president". Do you think George W. Bush didn't want to be a great president? If it was that simple, just pick a random person from the street.

The man, by his own account, doesn't read books. He gets his information from cable TV. He has the attention span of a gnat (couldn't be bothered to prepare for the debates; it showed). This is the man, back in 1984, who wanted to be the one to handle the nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviets. "It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles."[1] In 2016 he didn't know what the nuclear triad was.

His gaffes on foreign policy the last year and a half include: suggesting that the national debt in negotiable, support of Nato allies is not guaranteed, Japan should get Nukes, countries in Asia should feel free to nuke each other if they want to, "if we have the nukes, why can't we use them?". Those are just some of the things I can remember off the top of my head.

The best we can hope for is that he gets bored being a president very quickly and doesn't screw up too much in the meantime.

His entourage doesn't exactly inspire confidence either.

[1] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/433623/donald-trump-col...

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#842

Post by woodchuck64 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:44 PM UTC

advantark2 wrote: post #621

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #221

My takeaway from this is that our strategy of "shaming" people into voting a certain way doesn't work. Exit polls seem to suggest that plenty of people understated their support for Trump because they were embarrassed to admit they voted for him. But they still did. In effect, you don't stop people from supporting racism, homophobia, or misogyny by calling attention to it. That only makes them support it quietly. You…

>they were racist, sexist, or Islamophobic This is a big issue here, and something that I don't feel that many democrats seem to understand. It wasn't a race issue, it was an immigration issue since many illegal immigrants have taken American jobs. It isn't sexist to acknowledge differences in the genders. It isn't islamophobic to see cultural issues with Islam that would cause integration issues, especially with a l…

> It wasn't a race issue, it was an immigration issue since many illegal immigrants have taken American jobs.

This is factually wrong. Immigrants and native workers compete for different low-skilled jobs: http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/immigrant-and-native-workers...

The big issue is the sheer amount of misinformation and falsehoods that the Trump demographic takes as truth. The lack of a good education-- and particularly the lack of a science education-- means most Trump voters are ill-equipped to distinguish fact from feel-good fiction.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#843

Post by anthony_romeo » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #560

CWuestefeld wrote: post #313

In an election largely between two epically bad candidates, the outcome fell in the direction I'd felt would be less bad, but in a way that's worse than I'd expected. I had strongly criticized both Clinton and Trump, but felt that in the balance, Clinton was a more dangerous candidate. Seeing how the chips fell, though, I'm even less confident that this was the preferable outcome. There are two key factors leading me…

> And I hope that my Conservative friends who criticized President Obama for overreaches will remain consistent. Unlikely. A majority of people just want to pick a side and rabidly defend it. For example, the democrats contesting the Bush-Gore Florida results was just "sour grapes," but conservatives clamouring to see Obama's "long form" birth certificate to prove that he wasn't eligible for office wasn't?

Agreed, and the likely response is "You can't complain, Obama did it!" And the cycle goes back and forth. Just like trying to, say, filibuster the nomination of Supreme Court justices.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#844

Post by htns » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

jernfrost wrote: post #215

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #17

Now that the voices of the disenfranchised blue collar workers have been heard, what actually can be done to help them? I'm less worried about the accusations of racism, etc. because it appears to me a majority are voting because their livelihoods have been lost and, despite economics saying globalization will bring new jobs, they aren't showing up in the critical areas where they are needed. So, what policies can be…

You can do what the democrats have talked about, which we have successfully done in Nordic countries which is to spend a lot of money on re-educating the workforce and making sure those at the bottom get decent skills. I grew up in a rustbelt like industrial town in Norway. We has shipyards, glass factory, paper mill, textile industry, lock systems etc. Almost all of it got closed down and moved overseas as I grew up…

I would not consider the Nordic re-education system successful. Cynically speaking, it's designed to strike the unemployed from official counts, and the unemployment rate still ends up being higher than in the US. (Sweden 7.8%, US 4.9%)

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#845

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:49 PM UTC

As of this writing, this post has exactly 666 upvotes. I screenshot it.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#846

Post by advantark2 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:50 PM UTC

woodchuck64 wrote: post #842

advantark2 wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they were racist, sexist, or Islamophobic This is a big issue here, and something that I don't feel that many democrats seem to understand. It wasn't a race issue, it was an immigration issue since many illegal immigrants have taken American jobs. It isn't sexist to acknowledge differences in the genders. It isn't islamophobic to see cultural issues with Islam that would cause integration issues, especially with a l…

> It wasn't a race issue, it was an immigration issue since many illegal immigrants have taken American jobs. This is factually wrong. Immigrants and native workers compete for different low-skilled jobs: http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/immigrant-and-native-workers... The big issue is the sheer amount of misinformation and falsehoods that the Trump demographic takes as truth. The lack of a good education-- and partic…

Yeah, and they compete for different jobs because the immigrants take jobs that otherwise would require higher pay to get workers to do.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#847

Post by pc86 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:51 PM UTC

inthewoods wrote: post #586

koolba wrote: post #70

As someone who's actively vocalized his support for Trump in the past, both here[1] and in my meat space life, I'm ecstatic with the results of this election. Not just the POTUS, but the trifecta of the house and senate as well. That's as loud of a mandate as can be expected from a strongly divided country. On top of all that, with the SCOTUS picks that are expected in the next few years, this election is going to be…

"Now let's move forward on the direction that's been chosen and go about discussing it constructively." A few thoughts on this: - First, roughly half (and the majority of the votes) did not agree with this direction. That isn't much of a mandate. - Second, the party that won has repeatedly shown that they don't want to work on compromise, or follow standard procedure such as allowing a sitting President to get a hear…

> allowing a sitting President to get a hearing for a nominee for the Supreme Court.

Let's talk about George W. Bush's nominees...

Politics is politics and to pretend that one side or the other plays them "dirty" and the other side plays them "clean" is naiveté of an astounding level.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#848

Post by readhn » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

ryanx435 wrote: post #813

Artoemius wrote: post #133

Given that the race was pretty close, I wonder if we have Peter Thiel to thank for this result. Personally, I have a feeling that Trump would lose without Thiel's support.

the vast majority of Americans have either never heard of Peter Theil or straight up don't care what he thinks. Most people don't care about silicon valley because it doesn't affect their day to day lives in an overt manner.

That's part of the problem. We in SF, NY, Boston live in a bubble, "fantasy America". We do not see how the rest (75%) of America is doing. My friends are buying $800,000 - $1mil homes and think that they did pretty ok while some poor schmuck in Alabama is eating Oreos for dinner... The income gap is huge and these elections are the result of this historical inequality. I'm not calling for communism our socialism here just saying that half of the country are not doing well. Now if we get those self driving trucks rolling - what happens with the last accessible middle class paying job in USA - truck driver and huge portion of middle class America that is still hanging in somehow? We need a change that Hillary couldn't provide and I doubt that Trump could do it either.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#849

Post by pc86 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

username3 wrote: post #252

koolba wrote: post #70

As someone who's actively vocalized his support for Trump in the past, both here[1] and in my meat space life, I'm ecstatic with the results of this election. Not just the POTUS, but the trifecta of the house and senate as well. That's as loud of a mandate as can be expected from a strongly divided country. On top of all that, with the SCOTUS picks that are expected in the next few years, this election is going to be…

What about the people that voted for someone else? If popular vote mattered, more people in uncontested states would vote.

The popular vote does matter, to allocate the Electors for each state. Popular vote was never intended to elect the POTUS.

Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President

#850

Post by snarf21 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

pja wrote: post #100

curiousgal wrote: post #61

Ctrl - F Sanders 0 results. Hadn't Hilary been dishonest and, as much as I hate the word, crooked enough to not allow Bernie to face Trump, this wouldn't have happened.

Yup. I could also see an Elizabeth Warren / Joe Biden ticket doing well against Trump. This article in Current Affairs turns out to be prophetic: http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrat...

Even Clinton/Warren or Clinton/Sanders would probably have won.