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What I Heard from Trump Supporters

blog.samaltman.com

251–260 of 906 posts

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#251

I can give him a data point from outside the US, from one of the other progressive, English speaking countries in the world, New Zealand: I don't know if it has fully sunk in yet to the US populace how completely they have humiliated themselves, on the world stage. We don't get exposed to Fox, or Breitbart, or even CNN. I get most of my international news from the BBC, for example. From our perspective, the election…

I tend to believe that there are fairly deep similarities in the US's situation and Korea's situation four years ago.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#252
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you lack compassion for people who come from less fortunate countries What I'm hearing people saying is that they want a candidate who will talk about compassion for the economic futures of Americans. If you are barely making ends meet, you don't want a candidate talking about compassion for people from less fortunate countries, when out in the countryside of America you see a lot of people who could hardly be l…

Yes, this was in the feedback: “I’d love to see one-tenth of the outrage about the state of our lives out here that you have for Muslims from another country. You have no idea what our lives are like.”

But there is outrage over it.

Americans have decried the poor state of the rust belt for decades and multiple attempts have been made to save it. Didn't Obama literally inject billions into American car companies to save them?

People on HN are either too young or too forgetful.

In the era before the internet Fox News was an accomplished craftsmen of the echo chamber. Heck Americans taught me and many other countries how hyper polarized and polarizing news should look like, and that was before the internet.

Simply put - liberals could literally repeat a conservative document letter for letter and it would be disowned/ criticized by conservatives.

The fact that people believe that liberals care more for Muslim countries is Unsurprising.

Liberals wonder why conservatives are so worried about bombing middle eastern countries.

People are in their bubbles and keep themselves there

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Trump didn’t write any of his own books, and hasn’t read a whole book in decades (including the ones he puts his name on), why would reading “his” book give an accurate impression of his ideas, vs. just listening directly to the source (his tweets and campaign rallies)? Anything “coherent”/“nuanced”/“subtle” is the invention of the ghostwriter, a kind of best-guess translation from word salad to something…

When all politicians rely on speech writers, what is the point you are making? The result is the same: someone was commissioned to draft statements that the speaker endorses.

When a ghostwriter is present, I've found that a book's subtle exposition often arises from them more than the OP. With someone as raw, blustery, and self-promotional as Trump, any suggestion of nuance will inevitably invite circumspection.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#254
post #11

This one (from the "What don't you like about him?" section) I thought was the most striking: > “I, too, worry about the dishonesty. His relationship with Russia, his relationship with women. His relationship with questionable financial matters. These all worry me and were they to continue I would lose all respect.” All that stuff was covered extensively during the election. There's no reason for it to be a different…

> This is a rationalization of regret, it's not the result of a new decision-making process. You're missing the point. These voters chose him despite those weaknesses because they prioritized other issues more highly. Their decision making processes involved looking at both pro's and con's and the other pro's outweighed those con's. Making the blanket assumption that a vote for a candidate is an endorsement of _all_…

I might be missing the point, but a lot of the responses sound emotion driven, with the overwhelming emotion being the fear of change. So, it seems patronizing to attribute any sort pro/con formalism. Basically, Trump has a lot of fear driven rhetoric, and if you heard one of your fears, then regardless of the validity, you felt that someone was taking your side.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#255
post #52

Trump won largely because of disenfranchised blue collar caucasians resonated with him. Watching the witch hunt over the last 2 months you would think it would be anything but that. Fake news (just call it propaganda), russian hackers, 4chan memes and white supremacists have all received the majority of blame. I'm curious to whether the Democrats will ever come to terms with reality here, or will they just double dow…

I'm curious to whether the Democrats will ever come to terms with reality here, or will they just double down and continue the blame game? I've been following. They're doubling down on the Russia conspiracy theories, identity politics, alluding to Trump being Hitler. The party is in shambles, philosophically speaking. It's a shame. It's also ironic that Trump has pictures of President Andrew Jackson(D) in his office.

Trump alluded to himself being Hitler the other day with "enemy of the people," so that doesn't really seem all that problematic. I do agree that the Democrats desperately need to get their shit together overall.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#256
post #40

This one gave me the most pause: > “Silicon Valley is incredibly unwelcoming to alternative points of view. Your curiosity, if it is sincere, is the very rare exception to the rule.” Substitute "Silicon Valley" for any major liberal enclaves, like universities and cities, and I think you see the same thing. I am skeptical by nature and try to take a scientific view of new ideas. However I feel like I get shouted down…

I spent a summer working for some very conservative business owners. They asked me what I felt about the great society program during Johnson. I said that I thought it was a fine program that lifted a lot of people out of poverty. The following day they presented me a framed photo of Joseph Stalin. It's not just liberals that can be closed minded.

That's kinda hilarious. If I talked about virtues of small govt, and the guy next day hands me a one way ticket to Somalia (or some stuff like that), I would find it extremely hilarious.

Keep in mind, giving a framed photo of Stalin is totally different than screaming "You're effing Stalin!" (which he didn't do).

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#257

What a great example of white male privilege. "My access to toys like shotguns is more important than your rights to abortion/basic human rights as a trans person/..."

What a useless and unhelpful comment? This whole article was about figuring out why people voted for Trump so it doesn't happen again. Moral of the story was that comments like your's have drove a lot towards Trump. Some one makes a comment about why they support Trump, contributing to the article, and you immediately jump to an -ism that will probably push them farther towards that side. Do you not realize that you are part of the problem?

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#258
post #213
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General immigration reform along these lines is what's needed: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigrat... Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor.

> Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor. See, this is what would be most interesting for me to discuss with my friends. There is obviously a demand for those services that Americans possibly don't want to do (I'm not completely clear on if they want to or not). What can we do to make this a more sane process for e…

> What can we do to make this a more sane process for everybody involved?

It probably doesn't involve starting from the premise that they're "bad people".

My answer would be more along the lines of "ok, you can come and work, just register and complete this background check, and you'll be good to go in a month". It might involve a longer wait for citizenship or no access to certain benefits, which is something that is, of course, already in place for legal immigrants, or other compromises, but making otherwise honest people 'illegal' isn't really working. Letting honest people go through an easy process also has the benefit of 'separating the wheat from the chaff' - if you see someone who is sneaking around or otherwise not documented, you have a much stronger reason to think they're up to no good, rather than simply washing dishes on the sly.

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#259
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are "2A voters" don't even consider the status quo to be acceptable -- they want HPA (removal of suppressors from NFA); probably a removal of SBR/SBS (treat them like handguns), repeal of Hughes and 922(r), and potentially nationwide reciprocity and potentially pre-emption. They also want reinforcement in SCOTUS decisions of 2A as an "individual right" vs. a "collective right" (which is why I don't support…

I'm pretty liberal and (used to be) a gun owner. I can see supporting those things (I personally would like nationwide reciprocity [0]). It's just very hard for me to understand how this issue (or others like abortion) would be above all others. You are voting for a government with a tremendous amount of power and responsibility (military and defense, infrastructure, running a huge economy, world trade, healthcare, e…

I wouldn't want Trump as dictator but believe institutions and laws constrain what he can do in most of the other areas where I disagree with him; improving 2A rights is more complex and discretionary.

(I'd be supportive of both some kind of pre-purchase background check AND of some way to trace a physical gun used in a crime to a registered owner provided it also did NOT build a registry of all guns owned by a given owner, or a way to identify that a given person was an owner of guns or not. There are some technical ways to implement this, especially the latter.

There have been technical improvements to NICS over the past few months which have made it both more efficient AND more accurate; there's a lot of potential to improve the existing background checks used for all sales via dealers, and once it gets good enough, it's a lot easier to provide access to it for private party transfers as well. If I were in a state where I could privately sell a gun to someone w/o going through an FFL, I'd be uncomfortable selling to anyone I didn't know personally, and given that I know how hard it is to validate physical credentials well without checking a centralized database, even something like LE ID wouldn't be as comforting as being able to make a NICS check. Outside of known-person transfers, I'd generally rather just spend the $10-25 to let an FFL handle the transfer for me, although this is already legally required in WA state.)

Re: What I Heard from Trump Supporters

#260

I can give him a data point from outside the US, from one of the other progressive, English speaking countries in the world, New Zealand: I don't know if it has fully sunk in yet to the US populace how completely they have humiliated themselves, on the world stage. We don't get exposed to Fox, or Breitbart, or even CNN. I get most of my international news from the BBC, for example. From our perspective, the election…

> the biggest loss was your media [...] The stern, respectable, dignified leader that the hero must protect...

After the Obama Spider-Man cover in 2008, I've been carefully watching Marvel comics for any appearance of the US president. I've seen a few phone-call presidents which the reader can imagine as anyone, and one appearance of the president shown in silhouette, from the back, with a glimpse of darker skin. This was published after the inauguration, but likely drawn during the lame duck period.

No comment, just some anecdotal notes on how some creators are handling this.

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