6 ms·

The situation with Trump vs. Hillary and Brexit vs. Bremain seems almost identical to me, especially after having watched the TV debate the other evening (the f

by tomp 10y ago

The situation with Trump vs. Hillary and Brexit vs. Bremain seems almost identical to me, especially after having watched the TV debate the other evening (the first political debate I've ever watched in the UK). Sure, you can say that Brexit are incredibly populist and play on peoples fears, but... the Bremain side was no better. Essentially, my take on it was, that the Brexit side was targeting the incredibly stupid people with fears like immigration, whereas the Bremain was targeting the merely stupid people with fears like economy crash. Neither seemed to have any kind of justification to their main arguments, or any other sensible argument. The situation in the US seems very similar. Sure, Trump is spewing inconsistent nonsense left and right, but Hillary has nothing to say, period. Part of me thinks that she's so embroiled in potential scandals that it's actually better for her to say nothing, and hope that Trump auto-ignites and explodes based on his speech...

bogomipz 10y ago
Is remain Hillary or Trump then?
bkjelden 10y ago
> It's actually better for her to say nothing, and hope that Trump auto-ignites and explodes based on his speech... I saw something (jokingly) suggesting the other day that the best thing Clinton could do with her campaign's cash would be to loan it to Trump's campaign.
capote 10y ago
I'm a little bit put off by the mentality of "both sides are bad" that a lot of people seem to have in both of these issues. Yeah, both sides have massive flaws, but isn't it stifling to keep insisting on this fact and to keep preaching it? Shouldn't we all just accept the lesser evil, by however small a margin it's less evil? As good a point as you may have, isn't it more important to avoid a Donald Trump presidency/a brexit/a ridiculous fear of immigrants and Islam than to say what is technically correct so loudly and prominently? I feel like if we wind up with the worse cases, people might regret having made both sides seem bad. Plus, less intelligent people might avoid voting altogether rather than voting for the lesser evil because they keep hearing intellectuals say how bad both sides are.
- douche 10y ago
  Assuming that you think Trump would somehow be a disastrous clown - or at least more of a disastrous clown than Hillary. Really, it's Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich here, but from my perspective, Hilary has done nothing to inspire confidence, and a great deal to make me wary - Trump might be a jackass, but he is generally a shrewd operator, and really not liable to simple corruption.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - krapp 10y ago
    > but he is generally a shrewd operator, and really not liable to simple corruption. That would probably come as a surprise to the small army of people who have sued him over the years[0], or who have been sued by him for what seem to be vindictive or petty reasons[1]. You may prefer Trump, but the corrupting interests of business and politics very often intersect. I think it would be a mistake to assume he's neither corrupt nor corruptible. [0]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-trump-scandals/474726/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-t... [1]http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-lawsuits/ http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-lawsuits/
  - capote 10y ago
    My comment was mainly aimed at people who agree with me that Trump would be a disaster and Hillary would simply be the continuation of the not-so-great status quo. To those people, I plead to stop making the both-sides-are-evil argument. You seem to be a Trump supporter, so there you go, you're not on the both-sides-are-evil boat. I have no qualms with you other than the obvious political differences.
  - ericd 10y ago
    I'm no fan of Hillary, but have you listened to what Trump has been saying? I highly recommend reading https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer . It was written in the aftermath of WW2 and tries to break down the factors that go into the formation of mass movements like Naziism and Communism. I wouldn't say we've reached the same levels by a ways, but the parallels between the situation then and now are chilling.
dangjc 10y ago
They are incredibly similar movements. I think we're confronting the leading edge of disgruntlement as the working class is displaced by technology, globalization, and cheap immigrant labor. Immigrants become the scapegoat when it's really more complex than that. But the defenders of remaining an open society have a hard time explaining how they would fix these. Tech and urban elites have generally done well in this new world.
mynameishere 10y ago
incredibly stupid people with fears like immigration I've yet to hear an intelligent argument in favor of mass immigration, especially for a densely populated country like the UK. So, "stupid" to me is forcing a country with millennia of fairly consistent demographics to rapidly [0] turn into a squabbling Middle Eastern/North African/South Asian aggregate. Stupid. And by stupid, I mean stupid to the point of being utterly baffling. [0] By historical standards. Britain is being re-settled a lot faster than North America was for instance. That took hundreds of years.
- tomp 10y ago
  I'm not saying that arguing against immigration is stupid... Just that the way Brexit was arguing was devoid of any real factual data or rational arguments. They were playing purely on people's emotions. I agree, partially. Mass immigration is almost never a good idea. However, the populations you pointed out aren't from the EU so have basically nothing to do with Brexit.
- eru 10y ago
  > I've yet to hear an intelligent argument in favor of mass immigration, [...] It's good for the people moving! (There are other arguments, too.)
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  There is no mass immigration into the UK. That's the lie, I think.
bzbarsky 10y ago
Calling people "incredibly stupid" if they're worried about immigration is a bit condescending, especially if they are observing the immigrants compete for jobs with them. That sort of attitude towards non-upperclass people on both sides of the political spectrum is why they are pissed off with the political classes, in fact. And they are not stupid to be pissed off.
FunctionalMan 10y ago
Why does everyone assume that nobody here _likes_ Trump? Granted, it's dangerous to be pro-Trump her in Silicon Valley; getting beaten up for these beliefs really happens. But maybe we should all have open minds.

by tomp 10y ago

bogomipz 10y ago

Is remain Hillary or Trump then?

bkjelden 10y ago

> It's actually better for her to say nothing, and hope that Trump auto-ignites and explodes based on his speech... I saw something (jokingly) suggesting the other day that the best thing Clinton could do with her campaign's cash would be to loan it to Trump's campaign.

capote 10y ago

I'm a little bit put off by the mentality of "both sides are bad" that a lot of people seem to have in both of these issues. Yeah, both sides have massive flaws, but isn't it stifling to keep insisting on this fact and to keep preaching it? Shouldn't we all just accept the lesser evil, by however small a margin it's less evil? As good a point as you may have, isn't it more important to avoid a Donald Trump presidency/a brexit/a ridiculous fear of immigrants and Islam than to say what is technically correct so loudly and prominently? I feel like if we wind up with the worse cases, people might regret having made both sides seem bad. Plus, less intelligent people might avoid voting altogether rather than voting for the lesser evil because they keep hearing intellectuals say how bad both sides are.

douche 10y ago
Assuming that you think Trump would somehow be a disastrous clown - or at least more of a disastrous clown than Hillary. Really, it's Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich here, but from my perspective, Hilary has done nothing to inspire confidence, and a great deal to make me wary - Trump might be a jackass, but he is generally a shrewd operator, and really not liable to simple corruption.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 10y ago
  > but he is generally a shrewd operator, and really not liable to simple corruption. That would probably come as a surprise to the small army of people who have sued him over the years[0], or who have been sued by him for what seem to be vindictive or petty reasons[1]. You may prefer Trump, but the corrupting interests of business and politics very often intersect. I think it would be a mistake to assume he's neither corrupt nor corruptible. [0]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-trump-scandals/474726/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-t... [1]http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-lawsuits/ http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/donald-trump-lawsuits/
- capote 10y ago
  My comment was mainly aimed at people who agree with me that Trump would be a disaster and Hillary would simply be the continuation of the not-so-great status quo. To those people, I plead to stop making the both-sides-are-evil argument. You seem to be a Trump supporter, so there you go, you're not on the both-sides-are-evil boat. I have no qualms with you other than the obvious political differences.
- ericd 10y ago
  I'm no fan of Hillary, but have you listened to what Trump has been saying? I highly recommend reading https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer . It was written in the aftermath of WW2 and tries to break down the factors that go into the formation of mass movements like Naziism and Communism. I wouldn't say we've reached the same levels by a ways, but the parallels between the situation then and now are chilling.

dangjc 10y ago

They are incredibly similar movements. I think we're confronting the leading edge of disgruntlement as the working class is displaced by technology, globalization, and cheap immigrant labor. Immigrants become the scapegoat when it's really more complex than that. But the defenders of remaining an open society have a hard time explaining how they would fix these. Tech and urban elites have generally done well in this new world.

mynameishere 10y ago

incredibly stupid people with fears like immigration I've yet to hear an intelligent argument in favor of mass immigration, especially for a densely populated country like the UK. So, "stupid" to me is forcing a country with millennia of fairly consistent demographics to rapidly [0] turn into a squabbling Middle Eastern/North African/South Asian aggregate. Stupid. And by stupid, I mean stupid to the point of being utterly baffling. [0] By historical standards. Britain is being re-settled a lot faster than North America was for instance. That took hundreds of years.

tomp 10y ago
I'm not saying that arguing against immigration is stupid... Just that the way Brexit was arguing was devoid of any real factual data or rational arguments. They were playing purely on people's emotions. I agree, partially. Mass immigration is almost never a good idea. However, the populations you pointed out aren't from the EU so have basically nothing to do with Brexit.
eru 10y ago
> I've yet to hear an intelligent argument in favor of mass immigration, [...] It's good for the people moving! (There are other arguments, too.)
matthewmacleod 10y ago
There is no mass immigration into the UK. That's the lie, I think.

bzbarsky 10y ago

Calling people "incredibly stupid" if they're worried about immigration is a bit condescending, especially if they are observing the immigrants compete for jobs with them. That sort of attitude towards non-upperclass people on both sides of the political spectrum is why they are pissed off with the political classes, in fact. And they are not stupid to be pissed off.

FunctionalMan 10y ago

Why does everyone assume that nobody here _likes_ Trump? Granted, it's dangerous to be pro-Trump her in Silicon Valley; getting beaten up for these beliefs really happens. But maybe we should all have open minds.