Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread • Hacker News Board

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#151

Post by dataflow » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:21 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #127

tstrimple wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine there had been no Nuremberg trials. The Nazis just got a slap on the wrist and almost immediately let back into politics as usual. That's how we got here. We're still fighting the remnants of the confederacy. Germany and Japan in particular purged most of those elements from their society. Here we built statues to the evil fucks.

Here's a map which attempts to estimate when slavery was abolished across various parts of the world: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/zsnr8q/year_of_abo... The US wasn't much of an outlier. As a general rule, anyone who tries to use slavery as a skeleton key to understand US politics is most likely an ideologue with an agenda. Sane people don't propose struggle sessions for events which happened 100+ years…

You don't seem to believe that something like generational wealth makes much of a difference?

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#152

Post by vjvjvjvjghv » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #72

pseudosavant wrote: post #38

Looking at their charts, Democrats and Independents clearly think corruption is up a lot since 2024. But Republicans think corruption is down from 2024. The polarization of the electorate in the U.S. is pretty incredible.

U.S. Trust in Government Depends Upon Party Control https://news.gallup.com/poll/697421/trust-government-depends...

Same for supporting issues. If the "other" party proposes something, people are automatically against. As soon as "their" party supports it, they are all in.

The MAHA movement is a good example. If democrats had said something about the problems with high sugar food or additives, republicans would have shouted "nanny state". Now that Kennedy is talking about it, they support it.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#153

Post by otterley » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:27 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

ModernMech wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genghis Khan died 800 years ago. The last American to have born into slavery died in the ~1970s~ 1960s.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

What’s your angle here, exactly? I don’t get it.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#154

Post by tw04 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:30 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

ModernMech wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genghis Khan died 800 years ago. The last American to have born into slavery died in the ~1970s~ 1960s.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#155

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:31 AM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #149

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.

>It's recent enough that people living today knew a slave.

Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened.

In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count.

You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead.

I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#156

Post by CyberDildonics » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:33 AM UTC

Interesting that so far I don't see any comments about the epstein files and half of them not being released even under congressional order, let alone congress now being recessed for two weeks to avoid another vote for a second eptein transparency act.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#157

Post by CyberDildonics » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:34 AM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #54

yongjik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worse. It's not that the government doesn't care that the public hates it; it's more like the government is doing whatever it wants and half the public is going wild absolutely loving it. Well, maybe a bit less than half these days.

The half that supports this nonsense genuinely believes this level of corruption has always existed. They're just happy it's their team this time. I simply do not understand American politics.

It's not comprehensible without understanding that huge amounts of people are watching straight up lies and propaganda all day every day for their 'news'.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#158

Post by cindyllm » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #114

iamnothere wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems that happened during the Clinton admin (with the exception of Whitewater) weren’t so much corruption as they were short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country. But this was also an unusual period in US history due to the end of the Cold War, so this administration could be an exception. Most of the scandals from this per…

An under-examined axis of this problem is that people choose to believe in corruption because it's better than the alternative. It's way more comforting to believe that Bill Clinton's buddies (or whoever) got rich selling industrial America overseas to the cheers of the progressives who thought all that stuff was dirty any way because at least that way it looks sane and planned and rational, albeit selfish, than it w…

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Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#159

Post by tstrimple » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

stinkbeetle wrote: post #106

I remember when this used to be a far right conspiracy theory.

The far right won office and made it manifest. Just like they complain on government inefficiency and that it can never accomplish anything while explicitly making those things worse while in power to prove their point.

Re: Record-High 89% in U.S. Say Government Corruption Widespread

#160

Post by the_gastropod » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:36 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #135

the_gastropod wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you’re going to get downvoted to hell, but you’re pretty much spot on. There’s something strangely desirable about being seen as the edgy contrarian “not left, not right” person. But 9 times out of 10, that person has approximately the same incoherent worldview most Trumpists have.

He's not spot on at all, and that's why he's being downvoted. He's examining the world through a false dichotomy of "if you aren't on my side, you support my enemies". But the reality is that most people who consider themselves independent are actually independent and vote for whomever they consider to be the best candidate.

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