4 ms·

Your comment is nothing but alarmist rhetoric. I mean, each sentence is specifically engineered to be as negative-sounding as you can make it. People don't usua

Your comment is nothing but alarmist rhetoric. I mean, each sentence is specifically engineered to be as negative-sounding as you can make it. People don't usually do that, even with actual dictators. > being powered by Donald Trump needs a supernatural explanation, presumably because you think he's incompetent. At the least, you're saying he can't do what he's doing by himself. > conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon The term "conspiracy theory" is supposed to discredit him. But, if he has trouble telling truth from reality, why is he enabling Donald Trump? People who make mistakes interpreting data lose elections. > board member of Cambridge Analytica, an analytics firm that used psychological profiling to cynically exploit the American electorate. It's called "marketing", and everyone here does it. Nothing wrong with it. Again, how's a "conspiracy theorist" going to exploit psychological profiling? They're supposed to see patterns where none exist, which means whatever analytics they're doing would be ineffective. > This is an existential threat to the American public and to the world You haven't actually described anything that could be an "existential threat". Examples include: Nuclear war, a large asteroid, an incurable highly contagious disease, etc. You can only call him an "existential threat" if you believe America and the world will literally stop existing in 4-8 years. You did say it right after a comment about being appointed to a "national security" position. I imagine many people on HN get triggered by the phrase "national security", getting flashbacks to George Bush and the Patriot Act. If you think politicians have been abusing the term "national security" to push their bad policies, you should welcome the position being effectively removed from the President's advisory. Nothing you've presented is really bad, so I'm not really sure how to respond to the facts. People might be interested in Stefan Molyneux's "The Untruth about Steve Bannon" video[1], though. He's not as bad as people are making him out to be. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI0aAVh0dJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI0aAVh0dJc

tptacek 10y ago
His comment is rhetorically partisan, but you haven't come close to establishing with evidence that it's "alarmist". I'd direct your attention to Eliot Cohen's essay in The Atlantic from this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clarifying-moment-in-american-history/514868/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clari... Cohen is no liberal; he cofounded PNAC and served as a deputy under Rice in the Bush administration. And his take on Trump's last week is even more urgent than the parent comment's. It is in fact not normal at all for the President's "chief strategist" --- an informal, non-confirmable role, created to house someone who stood a decent chance of washing out of Senate confirmation --- to replace the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of National Intelligence on the NSC PC. Someone watching this unfold dispassionately might be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that Bannon is there because he doesn't trust Trump alone in a room by himself with a bunch of actual adults; Trump is, as has been reported for over a decade, famously impressionable.
- facetube 10y ago
  The intended goal of my comment was not partisan – I believe that Steve Bannon's reckless disregard for objective fact represents a threat to the United States, independent of any party allegiance.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That's a partisan point, and it's unrelated to the article, so you can expect pushback. The better rhetorical strategy is to confine your criticisms as closely as you can to the subject at hand, and to take extra care in linking other concerns to it. "Partisan" doesn't mean "wrong".
    - facetube 10y ago
      Thanks, point taken.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  > an informal, non-confirmable role, created to house someone who stood a decent chance of washing out of Senate confirmation This is a good argument. Many of these White House roles need to be confirmed; even if they are mostly advisory, because the law assumes that the President's advisors influence his decisions. If people want to say "Steve Bannon needs to be confirmed by the Senate", that's something I could probably be convinced of. To be clear, there are probably some good arguments against the executive order. In particular: * It affects green card holders, who are legally allowed to travel to the US. * There are rumors of people being asked to voluntarily renounce their green cards, which if not illegal is at least immoral. * The order probably shouldn't include Iran. I think the list of countries was based on one that's already in law? * Maybe they should've given people a week or a couple days to get back into the US, rather than immediately banning them. It's only saving grace is that it only lasts for 90 days, so it was intended to be temporary while they write up some actual reform. And I know of at least one other case where the court has allowed something unconstitutional because it was temporary to solve a specific problem(Affirmative Action). It'd be nice if there was a "Stefan Molyneux of the left". As it is, it's hard to read through all the fear to find the arguments.

tptacek 10y ago

His comment is rhetorically partisan, but you haven't come close to establishing with evidence that it's "alarmist". I'd direct your attention to Eliot Cohen's essay in The Atlantic from this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clarifying-moment-in-american-history/514868/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clari... Cohen is no liberal; he cofounded PNAC and served as a deputy under Rice in the Bush administration. And his take on Trump's last week is even more urgent than the parent comment's. It is in fact not normal at all for the President's "chief strategist" --- an informal, non-confirmable role, created to house someone who stood a decent chance of washing out of Senate confirmation --- to replace the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Energy, and the Director of National Intelligence on the NSC PC. Someone watching this unfold dispassionately might be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that Bannon is there because he doesn't trust Trump alone in a room by himself with a bunch of actual adults; Trump is, as has been reported for over a decade, famously impressionable.

facetube 10y ago
The intended goal of my comment was not partisan – I believe that Steve Bannon's reckless disregard for objective fact represents a threat to the United States, independent of any party allegiance.
- tptacek 10y ago
  That's a partisan point, and it's unrelated to the article, so you can expect pushback. The better rhetorical strategy is to confine your criticisms as closely as you can to the subject at hand, and to take extra care in linking other concerns to it. "Partisan" doesn't mean "wrong".
  - facetube 10y ago
    Thanks, point taken.
MichaelBurge 10y ago
> an informal, non-confirmable role, created to house someone who stood a decent chance of washing out of Senate confirmation This is a good argument. Many of these White House roles need to be confirmed; even if they are mostly advisory, because the law assumes that the President's advisors influence his decisions. If people want to say "Steve Bannon needs to be confirmed by the Senate", that's something I could probably be convinced of. To be clear, there are probably some good arguments against the executive order. In particular: * It affects green card holders, who are legally allowed to travel to the US. * There are rumors of people being asked to voluntarily renounce their green cards, which if not illegal is at least immoral. * The order probably shouldn't include Iran. I think the list of countries was based on one that's already in law? * Maybe they should've given people a week or a couple days to get back into the US, rather than immediately banning them. It's only saving grace is that it only lasts for 90 days, so it was intended to be temporary while they write up some actual reform. And I know of at least one other case where the court has allowed something unconstitutional because it was temporary to solve a specific problem(Affirmative Action). It'd be nice if there was a "Stefan Molyneux of the left". As it is, it's hard to read through all the fear to find the arguments.