Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.gallup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 568 posts

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

#261

Post by majormajor »

dabinat wrote: post #251
hakunin wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying “US corruption isn’t new” is a truism. There are probably isolated incidents, and many unproven theories, but everyone is quick to agree with this statement because it’s a common feeling everyone has now for some reason. The reality of corruption is likely much smaller and more boring than people think. What we’re witnessing now is what should be called corruption. That corruption that everyone has been scream…

I guess it’s more accurate to say that corruption didn’t start with Trump (he wasn’t even involved in politics when Citizens United was happening, for example). The US has been marching in that direction for a while. The difference now is the openness and also the scale. If a president does one bad thing the press will dig into it, committees will investigate, etc. But what if the president does 20 bad things every s…

> The US has been marching in that direction for a while.

It's trivial to remember corruption issues from 100+ years ago (I learned about one in middle school with Teapot Dome and political "machines", and those are hardly the full extent) so this is another one of those cliches that is easy to claim but is never proven. There's always some. Humans gonna human. But that doesn't mean either (a) there's always a high and critical amount in magnitude-of-impact OR (b) it's been definitely increasing.

Let's stop saying it as a general trend without examples.

On the flip side, let's keep pointing to all the specific Trump examples.

It's naive to believe that corruption is impossible or vanishingly rare. It's also naive to believe that the current administration is not a major step change.

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

#262

Post by hakunin »

guerrilla wrote: post #237
hakunin wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying “US corruption isn’t new” is a truism. There are probably isolated incidents, and many unproven theories, but everyone is quick to agree with this statement because it’s a common feeling everyone has now for some reason. The reality of corruption is likely much smaller and more boring than people think. What we’re witnessing now is what should be called corruption. That corruption that everyone has been scream…

Reading things like this help me understand how so many people fall for scams. You're so extremely trusting that it's hard to wrap my mind around... I can't relate on any level.

I get where you're coming from (been there too).

Bad news is, you're probably in the midpoint of that meme bell curve. Grown up structures and institutions are designed well, with accountability built-in. Many many good people work in them, who hate corruption as much as you do. Bad actors are whistle-blowed upon, persecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. It's incredibly difficult in practice to do anything significantly corrupt and stay unnoticed. I don't know if you work (like, at a large-size workplace), but imagine doing something shady at your work, surrounded by your colleagues. It's not easy. The amount of surveillance, paper trail, auditing that government work entails is way more than any normal business.

The irony is that your unending cynicism is actually turning you into a fool for the other side: the populists that constantly discredit institutions. They figured out that your cynicism (aversion to being scammed?) is so strong, that it can be used to scam you. They only need to discredit everyone else, that's easy. Make conspiratorial allegations based on perceived outcomes, not actual proof. Sell you all the cynicism in the world: everything is broken, everyone's bad, and you're one of the smart ones who sees it. US institutions are corrupt and worthless. This lets them pretend to be experts, because you're now a guest in their version of reality. And they directly financially benefit from your attention.

Institutions maintain real internal accountability (none of these alternative media populists do), implement real processes that work, tackle real issues in ways that take into account all stakeholders, and don't just produce slogans and talking points. I know they're old and not cool, but they work. Unfortunately, very few groups are left that actually defend them, you all got scammed by relentless, self-serving, financially incentivized alternative media into thinking that everything is broken.

Just because things are complex, doesn't mean they're broken. Just because measures taken aren't always satisfying, doesn't mean they are malicious. Don't get scammed into this world view by people who directly financially benefit from selling it.

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

#263

Post by potamic »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #247
guerrilla wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading things like this help me understand how so many people fall for scams. You're so extremely trusting that it's hard to wrap my mind around... I can't relate on any level.

Prove him wrong. Show us documented cases of corruption from, say Obama, or Biden, or Bush Jr. And then we'll compare it to the documented cases of Trump corruption, starting with his 2 crypto pump-and-dump schemes and his family's fake crypto company (3 already very brazenly open ones and there are more!) and let's see if you can pull similar for any of the previous presidents of the 21st century

What about the whole WMD debacle? Isn't it widely considered to be an act of corruption?

And bailing out bank shareholders during the '08 financial crisis.

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

#264

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

antonvs wrote: post #241
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a general rule, someone trying to use a simple single numerical measure as a skeleton key to understand politics across nations is an ideologue with an agenda. As for the Genghis Khan comparison, I may have made an error. We may just be dealing with severe cognitive limitations here.

If you think slavery is the key to explaining everything about the US, the burden of proof is on you to show that. Just because something gets discussed a lot does not prove that it's important. Donald Trump is himself the child of immigrants who immigrated to the US well after the end of slavery, and maintained a residence in a state (New York) which opposed slavery. The relevance of slavery to his presidency is at best unclear.

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

#265

Post by hakunin »

potamic wrote: post #263
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prove him wrong. Show us documented cases of corruption from, say Obama, or Biden, or Bush Jr. And then we'll compare it to the documented cases of Trump corruption, starting with his 2 crypto pump-and-dump schemes and his family's fake crypto company (3 already very brazenly open ones and there are more!) and let's see if you can pull similar for any of the previous presidents of the 21st century

What about the whole WMD debacle? Isn't it widely considered to be an act of corruption? And bailing out bank shareholders during the '08 financial crisis.

What exactly was corrupt with WMD debacle? There were multiple investigations that found that this is an analytical error, not corruption.

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

#266

Post by scott_w »

potamic wrote: post #263
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prove him wrong. Show us documented cases of corruption from, say Obama, or Biden, or Bush Jr. And then we'll compare it to the documented cases of Trump corruption, starting with his 2 crypto pump-and-dump schemes and his family's fake crypto company (3 already very brazenly open ones and there are more!) and let's see if you can pull similar for any of the previous presidents of the 21st century

What about the whole WMD debacle? Isn't it widely considered to be an act of corruption? And bailing out bank shareholders during the '08 financial crisis.

No, they’re not examples of corruption. Did Bush or Biden seek to profit from their actions financially? Not that I know of, unless you have proof showing what and how.

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

#268

Post by georgemcbay »

jeffbee wrote: post #17
swed420 wrote: post #5

Related: New High of 45% in U.S. Identify as Political Independents (January 12, 2026) https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...

An "independent" in America is a person who greatly desires everything Trump is doing but realizes that makes them a bad person and therefore refuses to admit it.

> An "independent" in America is a person who greatly desires everything Trump is doing but realizes that makes them a bad person and therefore refuses to admit it.

There's some truth to what you're saying, particularly a few years ago... but a rapidly increasing number of "independents" in America are strongly left leaning but feel that the Democratic party has abandoned them.

And they'll continue to vote Democrat, if they vote at all, for the purposes of harm reduction, but have renounced their official party affiliation.

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

#269

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

tstrimple wrote: post #170
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know that stuff happened, but I don't think it's some sort of universal explanation for everything which happens in US politics.

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

#270

Post by Chermska1 »

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…

The poster you responded to did not mention slavery, they mentioned the confederacy, which held a variety of views, many of which still inform the politics of many Americans today. Acknowledging this reality seems reasonable.

Your replies indicate your disdain for appeals to the history of American slavery in political discussions, yet you were the one who brought it into the conversation, diverting the thread by initially straw-manning the parents view.

Post reply on HN