Your bias is predictable. I actually lean left and do support peoples choice, just not mandates. I am not a big fan of Joe Rogan, but you can believe whatever helps you sleep at night. You can think I'm a racist Nazi Trump supporter if it helps you build images in your mind of what you think people that have different thoughts of you must be like.
You seem reasonable, so please help me understand the other side.
I’m a big fan of conservative thinkers like Milton Friedman and George Will. I’m against the left’s attack on free speech and find their obsession with identity, at best, perplexing. I prefer isolationist foreign policy and less military involvement from the US. I’m originally from a conservative area and have many conservative relatives I know to be good people.
And yet I cannot conceive of how anyone could support Trump or the boot licking republicans who enable him. He is incapable of telling the truth. He does not seem to believe in reality, science, or expertise of any kind. He does not believe in rule of law. He is an authoritarian and egomaniac. Even before the election he challenged the idea of a peaceful transition of power. How is this supportable?
Edit: And to be clear I get that we live in a two-party country and that a vote for a candidate is not a wholesale endorsement. You look at the options you have and choose the "lesser of the evils," as it were. Hell, I would vote for Trump if the other candidate was Stalin.
Edit Edit: I know it’s bad form to make political rants like this on HN. I had a moment of weakness :/
From my side, you are wrong. The stances you think I have are probably inaccurate too. Your side seems to always lock us into a prison of two ideas without letting us speak for ourselves.
The extreme assumptions and generalizations don't help. There are many of us that don't agree with you but don't exactly line up with Republicans or even Trump supporters at times.
Many Trump supporters are Libertarians that do not agree full with Republican ideals completely, but it's the closest home.
Voting preference is voting preference. It doesn’t dictate a person’s entire set of beliefs. Personal observations lead me to conclude that plenty of Trump supporters know he’s crazy but still prefer that to the alternative.
There are two larges groups of people who are voting for Trump regardless of anything he does (as he said: he could shoot people down on 5th avenue and these people would still vote for him). The largest group of them are Republicans who will always vote Republican. My beef with these people is that I wish they were a little more loyal to our country's values than they were to their party, but fundamentally I've got no real problem with them.
The second group are all white nationalists. They honestly believe that Obama is a Muslim, that Jews control the banks and media, that immigration is bad for the country, etc.
That's an unwarranted statement. I'm just pointing out that you make comments under the guise of being "impartial" and supporting rational debate, when in reality you're clearly biased towards one political party.
Your comment was framed as "why can't people freely talk about which politician they support", which is a fairly neutral statement. But, afterwards, you proceeded to say that Trump has been beneficial for the U.S, which is a partisan statement (that most people in the U.S disagree with as per a variety of polls), and furthermore, you claimed that a vast majority of the people in the U.S would support Trump if it were not for their bias against Trump/conservatives, which is an incredibly subjective and partisan statement (and also plain wrong - because many people just dislike Trump's policies).
I mean, just look at this sentence:
>Why is it implied that the other party decides whether a position is right or wrong by simply choosing the opposite of what a politician they hate chooses?
You claim that people who don't support Trump's policies do so solely because they dislike Trump, instead of considering the fact that many people just dislike Trump's policies because they are just intrinsically bad.
Electing Trump doesn't contradict OPs perception. Just because Trump won doesn't mean everyone is surrounded by Trump supporters.
In fact, I am pretty left-leaning, as are most of my friends, co-workers, social-circle, and neighborhood.. Trump is not popular in the context of my life.
However, I don't agree with all of the left dogma. While I can talk frankly about my criticisms of those topics with close friends, even polite and genuine questioning of some left-dogma has been met with immediate vitriol by otherwise friendly acquaintances, despite having not made any statement of judgement, and otherwise agreeing on most topics!
If you grovel down and frame your discussion as "I am dumb, educate me!" they are willing to have a happy discussion where they tell you their opinion.
On the other hand, if you are mildly informed and frame it as "I question a few things and want to discuss for introspection's sake", you are in for a dismissive discussion.
I never said this only happens on the right (whether I think it occurs more on the right is a separate argument but not one that I made here). But the post I responded to was saying they voted for Trump (despite his repeated racism, sexism, and bullying) because the poster perceives the left as bullying. My point is simply that Trump and friends are serious bullies so this isn't a credible reason for choosing him over the left.
Here is the exact quote I responded to: "Its ironic that my biggest reason for voting Trump is to stop the bullying from the left"
I'm no trump supporter, but that's a straw man. Not every person who voted for trump believes those things. It seems like you're the intolerant one here, who pigeon holes people into neat little buckets.
Its ignorant for you to assume that people on the right are ignorant and honestly the attitude of people like you were one of the driving forces of me supporting and voting for trump.
Here I am, working as a software engineer, with a BS in computer science, fluent in multiple languages, able to criticaly evaluate evidence in order to make decisions, and just as educated as you are, and you automatically assume that just because I'm on the right I am ignorant.
Its people like you that have poisoned the well of society.
Well if you vote for Trump you like what he says or it doesn't bother you enough, then that speaks volumes. Like when he called Mexicans rapists/murderers/drug dealers, or when he made fun of a disabled reporter, or said a women was too ugly to rape. Trump is just a horrible person. I'm German, a and left wing European.(I used to live in the US also). I don't like democrats politically. But if I could have, I would've voted for them as I view them not as destructive as republicans. But, even if Trump was as left as Sanders, one of the few American politicians I actually like, I wouldn't vote for him.
I still don't see the bias? In this case it's clearly that the left has had far more saying in what's allowed on social media than the right, so if you have any integrity you'd stand on the side of the right to create some equality/justice. TDS is a real thing, I was subject to that myself for years. I still think he's a narcissistic shitbag but a lot of stuff was just completely overblown. See, now I'm being Trump apologetic as well even though I've been clearly left-leaning for most of my life.
I think both sides have a problem with assuming everyone on the other side fits a single mold. Apparently that mold fitting the more radical elements of the other side.
Actually, one of the magical things Trump did was prey on a lot of individuals individual desires while getting them to ignore all the stuff he promised to others that they don't agree with.
But anyway, just because you voted for somebody doesn't mean you agree with them on everything. That's as true for the left as it is the right.
You mean I chose MIT. I didn't vote for Trump; I'm not even in the US. And even though I think Trump is a crackpot, I'd rather keep HN on tech, science, and programming. Same with MIT.
this isn't the sort of rhetoric I enjoy seeing on HN
Conversely, I don't enjoy seeing social justice rhetoric on HN. I come here for the tech, startup, and programming news and commentary. So I suppose we're even. The fact that you mistakenly read my view as pro-Trump only highlights the dangers of this kind of content on HN.
So, his policies seem to be unconstitutional, racist, and based on dubious science.
I think must people voted for Trump because he had a great campaign, and as Scott Adams says he is a great persuader.
I infer from Adams' post that he thinks the anti-trump protesters are protesting based on beliefs rather than facts. However that's simply not true. The facts have been presented by Trump himself in the campaign promises on his website. I'm thinking that Adams himself might be engaging in some cognitive dissonance. What would be the reason for that? He's clearly highly intelligent, and understands that Trump is a great persuader. Could he himself have fallen for the persuasion? Or does he have some beef with Hillary which allows him to ignore Trump's nasty policies? (Again, more cognitive dissonance).
I mean, I don't disagree with you, but I feel you are missing my primary point, which is that I have no problem with people that have a strong preference for current Republican policy positions (or, on the flip side, Democratic).
My problem is that Trump is just a man of such awful character that it hurts to see how many supported him, regardless of policy preferences. I have never felt this way about any previous president, Republican or Democrat.
I do support Trump, despite disagreeing with some policies.
I’ll never forget when Ron Paul was called a racist by the media in 2012, and how he was screwed by the Republicans. It still makes me angry today. I don't trust our government, media, or major parties, and all are bad stewards of our Republic. From that perspective, Trump is doing great. This chaos is good in the same way that a controlled fire from time to time is healthy for a forest ecosystem.
I don’t believe he’s a racist or a mysogynist though and I feel pretty confident I could argue against every example people give. However, the only thing it would convince them of is that I am making excuses for a terrible person. It’s not worth it. I’ll just say I think he’s a generally good person operating in a tough environment, and came to that conclusion by going directly to source material.
As for Bannon, I generally like him but I'm happy he's back running Breitbart instead of in the White House. Too controversal. He gave a good interview on 60 minutes last week that I mostly agreed with. And Breitbart - it can be inflammatory, but I find it a good counterbalance to everything else.
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