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

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

#31

Post by ineedasername »

war1025 wrote: post #29
kelnos wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

I normally don't admit to it, but I've become less fearful of the backlash lately. Current plan is to vote for him in 2020. Worst case I will abstain from voting for President. The economy is still on fire as much as it's ever been in the midwest. Can't complain there. The trade war is unfortunate, but the alternative is to bend over and take it from China. Everyone agrees that they don't play fair. So the options ar…

"The racial crap" appears to be crap media mongering primarily to those who haven't been on the receiving end of the fire hose (metaphorically or literally) some time in the past few decades. I'm sure it makes for good ratings, and the media makes the most of it, but that doesn't mean it's any less of an issue than portrayed.

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

#32

Post by ineedasername »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #17
war1025 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. That's more or less why I voted for him.

Trump is far less "burn it to the ground" than his fans like to imagine. He's a friend to Wall Street, K Street, Raytheon Acres and the good old Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

He tends to dog-whistle "burn it down" in his rhetoric while his actions wink to the entrenched interests a sort of, "don't worry, I don't mean it"

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

#33

Post by notus »

ineedasername wrote: post #25

I think the verbiage is misleading and inflammatory. "Need For Chaos" can more reasonably be understood as "desire for change" when the individuals see no actual path for that change to occur. Calling it a "need for chaos" further alienates those whose very alienation is the cause of the phenomenon on display. Better to use more neutral language that doesn't inflame the population being observed or bias those doing t…

I think this is pretty on point. You have a lot of disaffected people who want something to change but don't see a reasonable path for the type of change they want. Instead they just make decisions towards the most amount of change, even if it isn't good change.

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

#34

Post by ineedasername »

Apocryphon wrote: post #6
yourbandsucks wrote: post #3

And why not? The entire political process is kabuki interspersed with conversations with important donors and lobbying groups that actually establish policy. Nihilism isn't the answer, but neither is demanding a particular kind of we're-all-professionals kabuki without any real change. Flipping over tables is at least something.

Funnily enough, just a few months before the Anglosphere dove into the current populist wave, people like Charles Stross were talking about a future of beige bureaucratic dictatorships dominated by financialization and security states: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9106983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5187236 Not that we haven't departed too far from that future, but now we have the added problem of re…

For those unfamiliar with Stross & his site, the site name is not "anti-pope" as in "against the catholic pope". It was a drunken mistake a few decades ago-- the site name was supposed to be "autopope" (specifically autopope.uucp)

Otherwise, just like his highly entertaining books, he often offers up incisive commentary on society. Whether or not you always agree with it, it always makes for an interesting read.

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

#35

Post by jdietrich »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #3

And why not? The entire political process is kabuki interspersed with conversations with important donors and lobbying groups that actually establish policy. Nihilism isn't the answer, but neither is demanding a particular kind of we're-all-professionals kabuki without any real change. Flipping over tables is at least something.

Unless you're currently resident in DR Congo or North Korea, you have a lot to lose. Rock bottom is far rockier than most people can imagine. Civilization is immensely precious and remarkably fragile.

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

#36

Post by mistermann »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #23
lopmotr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet almost everyone keeps on voting for the same people to run the country. They mostly believe keeping the enemy other party out of power is more important than all of the other problems combined. Either that or they don't vote which is itself a vote for the establishment.

I think Trump is a particularly skilled con artist, who manages to sell himself as the tableflipper candidate even though he is as much a creature of the establishment as all the rest of them. So I don't think it's true that people are voting for continuity even though (so far) that's been the practical result. As another counterpoint, Bernie Sanders consistently attracts a large share of the vote while explicitly ad…

And like Bernie, another relatively non-establishment candidate that could have given people something actually new to vote for seems to have now been taken care of, once again with some fancy footwork (cherry picking of polls this time) by the DNC.

It's pretty hard to not vote for the same people when anyone that doesn't fit the proper mold isn't handicapped through the nomination process.

I'd post some supporting links, but for every article I could post supporting my thesis someone could easily post one that denies it. Articles and discussions on such topics are rarely substantially based on facts, the whole thing is largely propaganda.

The best commentary I've heard on the subject of nomination shenanigans in both parties has been from Dan Carlin (of Hardcore History fame) on his lesser known podcast "Common Sense with Dan Carlin". He knows a thing or two about history and politics, and he is fairly disgusted with the entire political system in the US.

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

#37

Post by war1025 »

ineedasername wrote: post #32
AndrewBissell wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is far less "burn it to the ground" than his fans like to imagine. He's a friend to Wall Street, K Street, Raytheon Acres and the good old Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

He tends to dog-whistle "burn it down" in his rhetoric while his actions wink to the entrenched interests a sort of, "don't worry, I don't mean it"

Since I've waded into downvote territory anyway:

It's interesting that his opponents are the only ones that hear these "dog whistles".

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

#38

Post by alphabettsy »

chmaynard wrote: post #2

Exactly. Trump is one of these people, which is why they love him so much. That he is in a position of such great responsibility is incredibly dangerous.

He’s not actually one of these people so much as he pretends to be, but I agree he is dangerous.

For me it’s mostly the way that he openly lies, even about recorded things he’s previously said, is disturbing and that he takes the already toxic political rhetoric of the last decade to the next level.

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

#39

Post by mistermann »

kelnos wrote: post #18
war1025 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. That's more or less why I voted for him.

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 te…

> 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?

I'll throw my hat in the ring and say yes to both questions, under the circumstances.

> ignorantly bumbling his way through economic, trade, and foreign policy

I disagree with this characterization, but can certainly understand how someone could come to this conclusion.

> 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 suspect the way they evaluate the situation is dramatically different than yours. There are a handful of people who are actually looking into what's behind the seemingly paradoxical (and coordinated) behavior of a large number of people around the world rather than just wagging their finger, but unfortunately hardly anyone seems interested in what they've found.

One such person is Jonathan Haidt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/home.html

https://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_haidt-what-makes-...

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jonathan+haidt

Two others I'd recommend looking into are:

Mark Blyth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Blyth

http://markblyth.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGuaoARJYU0 Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Blyth

Thomas Frank

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Frank

https://www.tcfrank.com/essays.php

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Thomas+Frank+po...

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

#40

Post by ineedasername »

war1025 wrote: post #37
ineedasername wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He tends to dog-whistle "burn it down" in his rhetoric while his actions wink to the entrenched interests a sort of, "don't worry, I don't mean it"

Since I've waded into downvote territory anyway: It's interesting that his opponents are the only ones that hear these "dog whistles".

No, I think his supporters see the dog whistle too, but in reverse: the "wink" to establishment as the dog-whistle with the message to them as the "real" one. I don't think either interpretation is strictly correct. I don't think President Trump himself has a "canonical" interpretation of these things-- his sentiment is changeable, not ideological or even political.
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