A Shocking Number of Americans Want to 'Just Let Them All Burn'

It also seems so open to interpretation, what it means to burn society to the ground, and how (if at all, which I suspect not) are they controlling for hyperbole and whimsy?

Edit: actually, I won't delete my comment, but I really don't want to be the guy that skims a * Vice article and comments like he's thought of something the author's of the underlying haven't. I remain sceptical, but acknowledge that 'whaddoiknow'.

> 40 percent concurred with the thought that "When it comes to our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking 'just let them all burn' "; and 40 percent also agreed that "we cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over."

Hard not to sympathize with this perspective when:

- The people running the country lie us into an unending, ruinous war with help from the establishment media, and no one is held to account.

- The people running the country demolish the economy with unsustainable debt-driven speculation, and no one is held to account.

- The people running the country openly associate with a convicted trafficker of children, who conveniently dies in prison before naming any names and while the cameras were "inoperable" and the guards asleep and his cellmate transferred out at just the right moment, and (just wait for it!) no one is held to account.

"Let them all burn" may not be the right answer, but at the very highest levels our political and social institutions are rotten to the core.

>Flipping over tables is at least something.

No, it isn't. It literally isn't anything. It wasn't even anything when Jesus did it, because he did it, and then the people he did it to had him nailed to a tree and they kept on doing business.

Out of curiosity, how do you feel now, 2.5 years in? If you knew in November 2016 what you know now, would you still have voted for him? Do you plan to vote for him in 2020? Not trying to troll or start a political flamewar here, I'm genuinely interested, especially as it's pretty rare that a HNer will "admit" to being a Trump voter.

The thing that always gets me is that even though Trump presented himself as this tear-down-the-establishment, drain-the-swamp kind of guy, it always seemed pretty likely that he'd just replace the political establishment with people in the business/finance establishment, which is essentially the same thing to many/most of the people who this platform resonated with. And, well... that's exactly what he's done, aside from the other expected outcomes of inflaming racial/gender/etc. divides; ignorantly bumbling his way through economic, trade, and foreign policy; and lying his way through every day in office. What is it about that which still lends him support? Is it still just the chaos? Because he's not actually fixing anything for most of his supporters; the elites are still just as elite as ever, and at best it's status quo, but in many cases things are worse.

Put another way: it just seems unlikely to me that all the "burn it to the ground" supporters expected or are happy with the fact that burning it all down also causes them more suffering, too; more suffering than the establishment has been hit with. And yet, here we are.

I take your point but Jesus has to be the worst possible example for your case.