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

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

#161

Post by hackernud3s » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #111

Loughla wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Comparing MAGA to Nazis is a bit much, and I would argue that this kind of hyperbole is a better example of how we got here.

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

#162

Post by ozozozd » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:38 AM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #119

paisawalla wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What’s the implication here? Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is? Or more generally, the current state of affairs is somehow justifiable?

As long as Biden isn’t squeaky clean, no one on the other side can be blamed with any degree of corruption.

In other words: “I don’t have to do the right thing until everyone else does the right thing.”

do - it’s ok for me to be corrupt - because there is at least one person that’s also corrupt while(len(corrupt) != 0)

In short, they are ok with corruption.

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

#163

Post by NewJazz » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:39 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #110

autoexec wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EPA is a good example of why this is so bad. Even if 90% of the states pass rules to protect the air and water it takes only a small number of states not following environmental regulations to cause a massive amount of harm to air and water quality and the effects of that can be felt in other states. It also hurts businesses when they suddenly find themselves forced to follow an inconsistent/conflicting patchwork…

You're only looking at the glass half empty side of things. The environment in the US is very diverse so why is it federally regulated to the degree it is? Not having to put up with rules that make sense in the arid plains or western deserts is gonna be a huge boon to everyone east of the Mississippi. The "consistency" argument is like 99% red herring. There's already a huge patchwork because the way federal agencies…

Most of north dakota, south dakota, montana, wyoming, idaho, eastern Washington, and oregon are a very similar set of ecosystems.

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

#164

Post by ozozozd » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:40 AM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #32

xnx wrote: post #28

"Drain the swamp". Everything is projection. What they say about the Democrats is what they are or aspire to be.

I wonder if it's less projection than permission. They believe that all government is corrupt and thus they're not doing anything wrong by being openly corrupt.

I agree.

Though it’s a bit of a self-serving belief, rather than a genuine belief.

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

#165

Post by roenxi » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:41 AM UTC

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #150

matthewdgreen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hate Congress but love their Congressperson. It's even got a name: Fenno's paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenno%27s_paradox Diffuse organizations like "Congress" or "the party" aren't what you're voting for. Unfortunately Congress really does take it on the chin for the actions of the President in midterms, because that's very recognizable and personalized, and partisan votes (or just staying home) are…

"People hate Congress but love their Congressperson. " I honestly think most Congress people want to do good for the country. But the system has become totally dysfunctional making it basically impossible to really work on issues. The influence of money is just too much. To me this goes hand in hand with the rising inequality that gives a few people at the top outsized influence. Super PACs don't even have to deploy…

> I honestly think most Congress people want to do good for the country.

That seems wildly unlikely. Wouldn't there be evidence for it by now? Over the last decades there have been scant murmurs of the US congress sitting down and taking a serious look at what might be good for a country. I'm happy to say that the root cause is a voting public in the US (everywhere, really) rewarding unprincipled liars and punishing principled politicians. But the outcome is that the US Congress is full of unprincipled liars who have little regard for the good of the country, because that would be a principle that gets in the way of political expediency.

The system isn't some abstract concept foisted upon them from on high. They control it. There are some very high-level constraints on them that are all-weather good ideas and apart from that it is a free-for-all. The reason the system is dysfunctional is because that suits the congresspeople.

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

#166

Post by chr15m » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:42 AM UTC

Most democracy measurement projects and indices have shown a decline in democratic performance for the US over the past decade.

EIU reclassified the country from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016.

V-Dem went from "liberal democracy" to "electoral democracy" in 2025.

When you have a wide variety of entities measuring the same trend, it is probably broadly correct.

The hope the good citizenry find a fix.

[To be fair the trend is global unfortunately: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-democracies-aut...]

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

#167

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:43 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…

Some people believe they have a right to land based on claims from millennia ago.

I suppose you could question their sanity, but the point stands - history has a short memory, and a few generations are nothing.

Especially when the after-effects of slavery, including segregation, disenfranchisement through gerrymandering and for-profit imprisonment, and other forms of continuing violence, are still live issues today.

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

#168

Post by creato » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:46 AM UTC

otterley wrote: post #153

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

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

That the issue of slavery has weak explanatory power for what is happening today.

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

#169

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:46 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #133

spicymaki wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. That is why I changed from independent to an actual political party. There is no point, it is highly improbable that I would ever vote for the party that is against my values. The two main US political parties are diametrically opposed.

So, vote for a third party. If you don't actually like the candidate you vote for, you're engaging in political negligence. When I vote, I almost never vote for a Republican or Democrat candidate because they are, by and large, not people I want representing me. So I vote for someone I do want representing me.

That can work, if you are strategic about it. If your candidate is polling at 5%, you might as well have not voted at all.

Something I read once, probably 50 years ago now: you may not see a candidate you want to vote for, but you will probably see a candidate you want to vote against.

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

#170

Post by tstrimple » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 2:46 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…

Sounds like you’re completely ignorant to US history post civil war. You seem to know nothing about the daughters of the confederacy. Know nothing about segregation and Jim Crow. You have no idea that conservatives fight to this day to maintain monuments to literal traitors to the country. Or that they still routinely fly the flag of traitors to the country. Or more likely you do know about all of that and agree with it and just want to white wash conservative history in the US.