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You know what a lot of people consider worse than Donald Trump? The status quo. That's what I feel is missing in all this indignation - where were you before?

• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• test1235 10y ago
  "Better the devil you know" vs "Out of the frying pan into the fire" Maybe change was needed, but this is so much worse than before.
• verbify 10y ago
  > he is an outsider to the established system He's a billionaire who inherited around $750 million. He didn't pay his taxes. His chief of staff was chairman of the Republican party. His cabinet have a combined net worth of $6 billion. If anyone represents the powers-that-be, he does. If anyone has a glib marketing campaign, it's the Trump presidency in claiming to be 'outsiders'. And if you think the political system is broken, well, you haven't seen nothing yet. > how hard the mainstream media is bent on pulling him down Maybe the media is criticizing him because, you know, he does things that deserve criticism.
  • mattmanser 10y ago
    Just because you're part of one club (business leaders) doesn't make you part of another club (political elite). America is a very odd place, there's cheerful talk about being the most democratic place in the world, but you have all these really bizarre ruling families who keep winning powerful positions. It's not normal to have two Bushes, let alone 3 in power in the space of a couple of decades. Or Clintons. Or Kennedys. How can you not look at your own politics and wonder, with 300 odd million, how do the same families keep winning? That the whole thing's not a stacked deck? It's really weird. To outsiders, there's obviously something deeply corrupt in America where a tiny ruling dynasty keep getting themselves elected. There's a 'queue' and Hilary was at the top because of her connections. SNL even joked before the election that if she wasn't elected, she'd be back next time as it was still her 'turn' to be president. Trump is not part of that club, that's what he's talking about. By supporting that corrupt status quo the democrats helped a monster like Trump be elected.
  • hueving 10y ago
    >He's a billionaire who inherited around $750 million He didn't inherit it with a bunch of strings attached from lobbyists. The Clintons have been pulling money into their foundation leveraging political connections built up over decades. People don't care that he's rich with daddy's money, they care that it's not "decades of political speeches and political fundraising money". >He didn't pay his taxes He would be a moron if he didn't pay the legally required amount. The fact that people think taking a loss write-off is some kind of black mark shows how stupid many people really are. >And if you think the political system is broken, well, you haven't seen nothing yet You may be right, but many people were voting in a massive change to the system. "drain the swap" was the slogan
    • _andromeda_ 10y ago
      Ah! A breath of fresh air on HN. >He would be a moron if he didn't pay the legally required amount Precisely. Why would anyone pay more taxes than they're legally required to? He'd be in jail otherwise. You see, people are caught up in complexity instead of asking simple questions such as these. It is however so blatantly obvious that folks attacking Trump on such issues don't have anything concrete to discredit President Trump. >>He's a billionaire who inherited around $750 million Again, WRONG! So blatantly obvious this is a lie. He did not inherit that much and even if he did, why is that a problem for anyone? Trump's voters weren't voting for his flaws (which were largely exaggerated by the dishonest media), they were voting for him because he was the only one who seemed to understand just how dire things have become, not just in America but globally. The left has largely been all about status quo and the vilification of producers. What has emerged now is that the left cannot be placated any longer. Time for radical action has come. Immorality, indolence, abortions, illegal immigration, egalitarianism, fundamentalism/Islamic radicalization and social welfare have no place in 21st century civilization. It is time for normalcy to resume and voters all over the world from France To Italy To America have realized that only the right can provide this normalcy. All the socialist parties in the world are losing and this is a clear indication that the pendulum has swung for the better. EDIT: Here's a list of world leaders likely to emulate the brilliant things Trump is doing when they come into power: Norbert Hofer - Austria, Marine Le Pen - France, Frauke Petry - Germany (with a very impressive movement called Alternative For Germany which has taken a cue from Brexit with their anti-EU mantra), Jimmie Akesson - Sweden, Andrej Babis - Czech, Beppe Grillo - Italy, Geert Wilders - Netherlanders, Nigel Farage - United Kingdom
  • belorn 10y ago
    To take a note from popular culture, I recall how the primary plot of House of cards - season 2, was the difference between power and money. Power is describe as created by favor and influence, while money mostly creates more money.
• rtpg 10y ago
  "Both parties are the same" is such a tired meme considering what has happened the past 8 days. Do you think President Clinton would be defunding planned parenthood? Planning a repeal of a healthcare law without a replacement, making 20 million people lose their health insurance immediately? Appoint a brain surgeon to HUD? Do you think Democrats would set up this muslim ban? Not a 6-month refugee ban, but a ban from people who were already legal permanent residents? Both parties might share a similar vein of imperialism, that deserved to be fought. But it ends there. One party wanted to carpet bomb Iran, another wanted to make peace. And, of course, Trump is the most extreme of this. How do you think someone who advocates nuclear first strike is less imperialistic than the other guys?
  • AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    It isn't that both parties are the same on all issues, it's that there are important issues that no viable candidate would actually address. Do you think President Clinton would end NSA mass surveillance? Reduce copyright terms? Meaningfully reform Wall St? Meaningfully reform the tax code or social spending? Republicans won't either. That's the problem. You get enough people frustrated enough and they vote for whoever they think will shake things up, even at the risk of burning it all down.
    • grey-area 10y ago
      Actually no, none of your stated problems are important to trump supporters or reasons for him to be elected. America first appeals to them, in spite of, or sometimes because of, all the nasty implications of it and the racial and social revolution it requires. Trump will not stop NSA surveillance, reduce copyright terms, meaningfully reform Wall St (he hired Goldman Sachs alumni), meaningfully reform the tax code or social spending. He is a nationalist not a globalist, that's his agenda not the points you raised. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-is-back-on-top-in-the-trump-administration https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-i...
      • AnthonyMouse 10y ago
• otikik 10y ago
  > You know what a lot of people consider worse than Donald Trump? The status quo. Well I hope those people like surprises.
• thedudemabry 10y ago
  This is a fair point. I don't agree with your conclusion, though. I have felt outrage against specific policies in the past. The news media has expressed outrage against specific policies in the past. But political inertia, for better and worse, was a thing that we could rely upon to temper the public whims of any particular commander-in-chief. It meant that meaningful change required constant attention and guidance. But it also meant that the actions of any individual were unlikely to crater our democracy. The new president has now shown in both tone and action that he intends to directly manifest some of the most extreme positions promised to his supporters. This, in the face of overwhelming ethical arguments, public opinion, and systemic protections that oppose them. This is not a threat to the local status quo, one which our political system has grown to evolve slowly but meaningfully over election cycles. It is a threat to the maximal status quo, in which we can proudly identify ourselves as Americans because we believe that we aren't perfect, but we're working towards that ideal.
• EdSharkey 10y ago
  Yes, the unsustainable, burned-out status quo. The last administration could create conflict, but couldn't eke out even modest support for a new ground war in Syria. The elderly Democratic party has no bench and the same old message. The Republican party has a massive spending problem and too many hawks. Even with a system rigged for the status quo, Trump was able to win. That's what I mean by unsustainable - people chose the deeply flawed naysayer over the alternatives.
• barking 10y ago
  Trump is not doing anything he didn't say he'd do. I don't suppose there was ever a possibility of Jeff or all the people currently protesting, voting for Trump in the first place. So, aren't we just seeing the same people who were anti-Trump before the election, protesting now? The election of Trump came as a shock even during the count because the Trump voters tended to be quieter and/or ignored. But they won the election and now what they voted for is being enacted.
  • lawless123 10y ago
    >Trump voters tended to be quieter and/or ignored. haha
• rimantas 10y ago
  One of the sad and amusing at the same time things is watching people not satisfied how things are bravely go and make them worse.
• chimprich 10y ago
  > There's a lot not to like about Donald Trump, but for one thing he is an outsider to the established system Or from another perspective a billionaire managed to get elected through spending enormous amounts of cash on a huge publicity machine that imprinted a simplistic and repetitive message of being an outsider on large numbers of people as if that in itself is a positive quality. /Serial killers/ are outsiders.
  • zimpenfish 10y ago
    To be fair, he didn't spend an enormous amount of cash -relative to other political campaigns-. Didn't need to because he got a lot of free advertising from the media (eg. his fake-birther/really-his-hotel announcement that got wide coverage.)
    • aniforprez 10y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/campaign-finance/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi... A billion dollars. Less than what Hillary spent sure but it's not as if he coasted into Presidency by spending a few nickels. Even relative to Hillary's ENORMOUS sum this is no small amount
  • hueving 10y ago
    He spent less than Clinton, no?
• m_fayer 10y ago
  The idea that the political system was "deeply broken" before Trump is a popular meme these days, one that IMO is utopian, ahistorical, and increasingly destructive. Rule of law and representative democracy, as we know them today, are quite young, and the modern take on basic human rights is even younger. When did black people win full equality in the US, even in the legal sense? When did Western colonialism in the middle east and India end? When was the last time Western countries opted for total war and incinerated civilians, en masse? These are all things that are today unthinkable that have actually happened within the lifetime of someone who could plausibly be alive today. Building a just state and society is a slow, delicate, multi-generational project, and we are just at the beginning. We're just now getting to a place where we're moving past barbaric mass violence and mass racist persecution. And you expect us to have a good handle on subtle, systemic problems like inequality and imbalance between state and private power? Have a little perspective and patience! It's like people look around, notice that we're not in fact in some enlightened Star Trek like utopia, declare that the whole edifice rotten, and decide that the best response is nihilistic glee - why not burn it all down? Get a grip.
  • mdemare 10y ago
    Exactly. People look at their government and give it 1/5 stars, then vote for anyone promising change, because they think they have nothing to lose. But the range doesn't start at 1 star. It goes down to minus infinity.
• JohnBooty 10y ago
  imperialist militaristic foreign policies abroad, This didn't exactly happen in a vacuum. A country can't be a major power without trying to gain influence throughout the world; all of the other major powers are doing it too. Of course, it's also possible to renounce the game of global influence entirely. But be careful what you wish for. Because that's what we've chosen with Trump: building literal and figurative walls around the country. Apparently we are planning to... isolate ourselves back to greatness? Perhaps in some ideal world we could be "noble isolationists" and close our borders, eyes, and ears to the world without a populist thirst for xenophobia and racism, secure in the knowledge that other global powers will shape the world (or perhaps become noble isolationists themselves?) for the better in our absence. I wish I shared that fantasy; it's a particularly nice one. The United States' meddling in world affairs has ranged from "helpful" to "disastrous." But it's absolute madness to think that others will not attempt to assert control in the power vacuum we're leaving behind. Do you really think Russia will be better for the world than us? Maybe you should ask Ukraine about that one. There's a lot not to like about Donald Trump, but for one thing he is an outsider to the established system (I believe in this because of how hard the mainstream media is bent on pulling him down). It is hard for me to see that as anything but an improvement. A literal billionaire with a cabinet of millionaires and billionaires is now an "outsider." What is wrong with you? I understand that they are "outsiders" in the sense that they have no experience running any form of government whatsoever. But these people are not outsiders to the system. They have profited from the system to a degree the average American cannot fathom. They literally are the system.
• selllikesybok 10y ago
  The status quo, such as it was, in 2016, was worse than... what? I'm just not seeing how my life, or my neighbors lives, are improved by anything that's come so far. Or that is on the promised list of things to come. It is actually already worse for some of us than it was 11 days ago.
• eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >The political system has been deeply broken for decades, with the same unjust policies being pursued regardless of which public face was on it - imperialist militaristic foreign policies abroad, economic inequality at home. Trump ran on making all of these things worse.