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I think this sums it up, and whether you agree with it or not, is a valid distinction to make: Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "bet

by chubot 10y ago

I think this sums it up, and whether you agree with it or not, is a valid distinction to make: Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one." Now, it's perfectly reasonable to question if Trump has an actionable plan to make things better. I question that too. I also find it hard to ignore his remarks about ethnicity and women, but it seems clear to me that the media inadvertently helped Trump by screaming bigot, racist, sexist, etc. as loud as possible. When you call everything racist, it dulls the meaning of the word, and ends up hiding real racism. Another thing I appreciate from this election is that people don't like being told who to vote for. I didn't appreciate the shrill tone of every single news outlet and media source I turned to (and I barely watch news and didn't follow the election until very late.) I thought 538 would have "objective" coverage, but I didn't like that Nate Silver couldn't resist inserting petty personal insults about Trump in his articles. Even guys like Louis CK, Howard Stern, and Stephen Colbert turned out to have surprisingly little sense of humor about it.

fiveoak 10y ago
Yep, and by calling Trump a bigot, racist, sexist, etc, they're inadvertently calling his supporters the same thing as well, causing a lot of them to just become more entrenched in their support for Trump.
- feelix 10y ago
  The thing that bothers me both about Brexit and Trump is that the mainstream narrative is that it's about closed borders, racism, misogyny, etc. There is no evidence to suggest that the largest proportion of the voters for these things were motivated by that. One side loses, then they scream racist/bigot at the other side and then because it's the mainstream media those labels stick around. That does not help anyone and does indeed only widen the divide.
  - somebehemoth 10y ago
    Trump openly advocates closing the US border. He advocates racism against mexicans and muslims at least. He is misogynistic to the extreme. It is not a logical leap to assume people who voted for him hold the same ideals. In fact, by voting for such a candidate a voter provides all necessary evidence of their support. Can you support your "no evidence" claim given the candidate Trump has openly said these things multiple times?
    - Brendinooo 10y ago
      It's anecdotal, but most people I know who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they disagreed with Sec. Clinton on matters of policy (SCOTUS was a big one) and/or character. I voted third party, and those who disagreed with me doing so told me that voting for a candidate doesn't mean you align with all of the candidate's policies. I think most people in this camp knew of Trump's character issues, but thought that Clinton's character issues (corruption, e-mails) were more directly tangential to the office the two candidates were running for. I don't doubt that racist folks voted for Trump because they identified with some of his rhetoric. But to label every Trump voter is unfair in the short term and may make them more likely to identify with the label in the long term.
      - JBlue42 10y ago
        Character matters though. I have close family members, in a battleground state, that abstained despite voting Republican their entire lives. And, personally, I consider voting for a person, a person who's entire election has been based on personality and rhetoric, is endorsing their character. Which is also the problem with the lack of enthusiasm you could hear in a lot of Hillary voters as well but people would still vote for her because it'd be an incremental step forward (on some things) instead of a big step back (on a lot).
        Brendinooo 10y ago
        I don't disagree with you in terms of endorsing character. That's certainly a valid way to look at voting. Remember when some people didn't vote for Bill Clinton because of the character issues in his personal life? Other people said that the stuff in private didn't matter if he was good at the job. My perception was that in the case of Trump, those two arguments were the same but many of the people who said them flipped. I thought that was really interesting to watch.
- Melk 10y ago
  I know the feeling. Trump supporters inadvertently called me crooked, corrupt, elitist, a liar, a murderer, a bitch, a cunt, and a nasty woman. And I'm not even a woman.
TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
> Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one." Because saying that we are about to sink will attract more votes? So Thiel goes with Trump because he thinks he will win, not because he thinks Trump would be the better president? So Thiel knows where to invest his money? That's one way of looking at the presidential election, I guess.
- chubot 10y ago
  You don't think anybody in the country honestly believes that it's like the Titanic about to sink? I don't happen to believe that, but I believe Thiel and others honestly believe it. I would consider the possibility that there are things you don't understand here. Trump's victory is something that should cause people to reflect. It was certainly very surprising to me. Along those lines, Hillary and Obama's remarks about giving Trump a chance were gracious and sorely needed after such a noisy election.
  - helthanatos 10y ago
    I believe it. How much debt can a country go into before the lenders want it back? How many government programs have to exist for companies to shrivel? How does a county's reputation for being the global police affect it when it's sinking? I don't think it's necessarily doomsday soon, but if it isn't fixed, it could lead to very dark places.
    - thinkmoore 10y ago
      Uh, we are paying it back? Why would any sensible household or business pass on ~1% APR loans to fund investment? Our interest payments are less than 1.5% of GDP (down from 3% of GDP a decade or so ago). People always whine about not running government like a business...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
> And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one. I'd check how long that person had been claiming it was about to sink first. In Trump's case that goes back to the Reagan era.

by chubot 10y ago

fiveoak 10y ago

Yep, and by calling Trump a bigot, racist, sexist, etc, they're inadvertently calling his supporters the same thing as well, causing a lot of them to just become more entrenched in their support for Trump.

feelix 10y ago
The thing that bothers me both about Brexit and Trump is that the mainstream narrative is that it's about closed borders, racism, misogyny, etc. There is no evidence to suggest that the largest proportion of the voters for these things were motivated by that. One side loses, then they scream racist/bigot at the other side and then because it's the mainstream media those labels stick around. That does not help anyone and does indeed only widen the divide.
- somebehemoth 10y ago
  Trump openly advocates closing the US border. He advocates racism against mexicans and muslims at least. He is misogynistic to the extreme. It is not a logical leap to assume people who voted for him hold the same ideals. In fact, by voting for such a candidate a voter provides all necessary evidence of their support. Can you support your "no evidence" claim given the candidate Trump has openly said these things multiple times?
  - Brendinooo 10y ago
    It's anecdotal, but most people I know who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they disagreed with Sec. Clinton on matters of policy (SCOTUS was a big one) and/or character. I voted third party, and those who disagreed with me doing so told me that voting for a candidate doesn't mean you align with all of the candidate's policies. I think most people in this camp knew of Trump's character issues, but thought that Clinton's character issues (corruption, e-mails) were more directly tangential to the office the two candidates were running for. I don't doubt that racist folks voted for Trump because they identified with some of his rhetoric. But to label every Trump voter is unfair in the short term and may make them more likely to identify with the label in the long term.
    - JBlue42 10y ago
      Character matters though. I have close family members, in a battleground state, that abstained despite voting Republican their entire lives. And, personally, I consider voting for a person, a person who's entire election has been based on personality and rhetoric, is endorsing their character. Which is also the problem with the lack of enthusiasm you could hear in a lot of Hillary voters as well but people would still vote for her because it'd be an incremental step forward (on some things) instead of a big step back (on a lot).
      - Brendinooo 10y ago
        I don't disagree with you in terms of endorsing character. That's certainly a valid way to look at voting. Remember when some people didn't vote for Bill Clinton because of the character issues in his personal life? Other people said that the stuff in private didn't matter if he was good at the job. My perception was that in the case of Trump, those two arguments were the same but many of the people who said them flipped. I thought that was really interesting to watch.
Melk 10y ago
I know the feeling. Trump supporters inadvertently called me crooked, corrupt, elitist, a liar, a murderer, a bitch, a cunt, and a nasty woman. And I'm not even a woman.

TYPE_FASTER 10y ago

> Describing the presidential campaign, Mr. Thiel said it was "between one candidate who says everything is more or less fine, or it’s as good as it can be. And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one." Because saying that we are about to sink will attract more votes? So Thiel goes with Trump because he thinks he will win, not because he thinks Trump would be the better president? So Thiel knows where to invest his money? That's one way of looking at the presidential election, I guess.

chubot 10y ago
You don't think anybody in the country honestly believes that it's like the Titanic about to sink? I don't happen to believe that, but I believe Thiel and others honestly believe it. I would consider the possibility that there are things you don't understand here. Trump's victory is something that should cause people to reflect. It was certainly very surprising to me. Along those lines, Hillary and Obama's remarks about giving Trump a chance were gracious and sorely needed after such a noisy election.
- helthanatos 10y ago
  I believe it. How much debt can a country go into before the lenders want it back? How many government programs have to exist for companies to shrivel? How does a county's reputation for being the global police affect it when it's sinking? I don't think it's necessarily doomsday soon, but if it isn't fixed, it could lead to very dark places.
  - thinkmoore 10y ago
    Uh, we are paying it back? Why would any sensible household or business pass on ~1% APR loans to fund investment? Our interest payments are less than 1.5% of GDP (down from 3% of GDP a decade or so ago). People always whine about not running government like a business...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

> And then another one who says we’re on the Titanic, it’s about to sink. And so I prefer the second one. I'd check how long that person had been claiming it was about to sink first. In Trump's case that goes back to the Reagan era.