3 ms·

So without hitting real-world politics too much... The idea is that Gregory was based on Thiel. Peter Thiel did in fact join the Trump campaign and administra

So without hitting real-world politics too much... The idea is that Gregory was based on Thiel. Peter Thiel did in fact join the Trump campaign and administration as an advisor. The Trump campaign was, in fact, far-right -- which is part of why it took the Republican Party by surprise in the primaries. However, Gregory died when his actor did (of blessed memory). I think that a good Silicon Valley storyline on this subject would have been a great use of the character they had. I don't want them to introduce a replacement character to hit a plot-point, after going through the trouble of mourning Peter Gregory and replacing him with Laurie Bream. For me it would cross the line from affectionate parody into, in a sense, appropriation of Thiel's life. The other issue would be that the show has no plans of actually giving us hard-biting political satire. That's not its thing in the first place. Maybe if they picked it up with Laurie delving into far-libertarian and far-right politics as a part of inheriting Raviga Capital from Gregory? Maybe he left some will saying whoever runs the company has to get involved somehow under certain conditions? Then they can at least make the comedy of this all-business-all-the-time character Laurie seeing how Gregory's weird hobbies play out. Hmmm... and it could turn out Russ Henneman was involved in it, too, so she'd have to swallow her hatred for the guy and do weird stuff alongside him, lest other Raviga partners accuse her of failing to carry out Gregory's wishes.

dmix 9y ago
Ah, okay I figured you were making the leap from financially backing Trump's presidential campaign over Clinton to being far right ideologue. Thiel was quite bold by staying quiet following his choice to do that, then being vague and non-commital in the only interview he did with NYTimes (the only real response he made regarding a Trump policy is flatly rejecting supporting a muslim registry and that he thought Trump was good on gay rights), people filled in the blanks otherwise. HN's not the right place for these discussions, so I'd rather not dig into it more, I was just curious why you said that.
blfr 9y ago
The Trump campaign was, in fact, far-right The winning candidate in at least a semi-functional democracy cannot be far-anything. Trump's a mainstream American politician by definition.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >The winning candidate in at least a semi-functional democracy cannot be far-anything The Weimar Republic in 1933 seems like a pretty good counterexample to that. Incidentally, it shortly stopped being the Weimar Republic and became known instead as the Third Reich.
  - dmix 9y ago
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-much-for-donald-mussolini-1490653551 https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-much-for-donald-mussolini-14... Having read a number of books on WW2 era Germany, attempting to compare the politically chaotic post-WW1 Germany, including the economic crisis, deep nationalist tensions, and the daily murders and gang fights in the streets of the capitals of Germany between the fringe nationalist socialists vs communist parties compared to America in 2016/17 is incredibly dubious. And even ignoring the numerous lack of comparisons to the political environments before the elections and the differences of the subsequent assent to power that Hitler took compared to Trump, the differences after the elections are countless. Most notably how the courts (via a republican judge) quickly shut down the dubious middle east immigration ban - probably the only far-right policy Trump managed to push into reality - which demonstrated that checks and balances are far from being sequestered. An essential 101 indicator of proto-fascism. This type of fear mongering is becoming less and less persuasive. Even though there are real and significant problems with the current administration it's not helping anyone to blow them out of context and pretend you're this vanguard against some modern version of Nazi germany. That's more likely to lose you support than help you achieve anything. If anything the anyone-who-supports-Trump-is-a-Nazi brigade did more to help elect him than prevent it. I've read a number of profiles of people who voted for Trump and who now regret it who said they voted for him merely as an affront to what the opposition represents, rather than actually supporting him. Peter Thiel seems to fit into this category.
    - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      I wasn't making that comparison. I was pointing out that getting elected doesn't make a candidate centrist, especially when that candidate doesn't win a majority. Hitler's NSDAP got about a third of the seats in the Reichstag to put him at the head of government in 1933. Trump got about 46% of the votes in the US Presidential election of 2016. Neither of these needed to be mainstream to win, even though Hitler is a great deal further right than Trump. The error is to claim that Hitler became "center-right" or "middle of the road" upon becoming Reichskanzler. The center didn't move ultra-rightward (remember: the Communists also did well in that election), an ultra-rightist happened to win the plurality in a heavily polarized election.

dmix 9y ago

Ah, okay I figured you were making the leap from financially backing Trump's presidential campaign over Clinton to being far right ideologue. Thiel was quite bold by staying quiet following his choice to do that, then being vague and non-commital in the only interview he did with NYTimes (the only real response he made regarding a Trump policy is flatly rejecting supporting a muslim registry and that he thought Trump was good on gay rights), people filled in the blanks otherwise. HN's not the right place for these discussions, so I'd rather not dig into it more, I was just curious why you said that.

blfr 9y ago

The Trump campaign was, in fact, far-right The winning candidate in at least a semi-functional democracy cannot be far-anything. Trump's a mainstream American politician by definition.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>The winning candidate in at least a semi-functional democracy cannot be far-anything The Weimar Republic in 1933 seems like a pretty good counterexample to that. Incidentally, it shortly stopped being the Weimar Republic and became known instead as the Third Reich.
- dmix 9y ago
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-much-for-donald-mussolini-1490653551 https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-much-for-donald-mussolini-14... Having read a number of books on WW2 era Germany, attempting to compare the politically chaotic post-WW1 Germany, including the economic crisis, deep nationalist tensions, and the daily murders and gang fights in the streets of the capitals of Germany between the fringe nationalist socialists vs communist parties compared to America in 2016/17 is incredibly dubious. And even ignoring the numerous lack of comparisons to the political environments before the elections and the differences of the subsequent assent to power that Hitler took compared to Trump, the differences after the elections are countless. Most notably how the courts (via a republican judge) quickly shut down the dubious middle east immigration ban - probably the only far-right policy Trump managed to push into reality - which demonstrated that checks and balances are far from being sequestered. An essential 101 indicator of proto-fascism. This type of fear mongering is becoming less and less persuasive. Even though there are real and significant problems with the current administration it's not helping anyone to blow them out of context and pretend you're this vanguard against some modern version of Nazi germany. That's more likely to lose you support than help you achieve anything. If anything the anyone-who-supports-Trump-is-a-Nazi brigade did more to help elect him than prevent it. I've read a number of profiles of people who voted for Trump and who now regret it who said they voted for him merely as an affront to what the opposition represents, rather than actually supporting him. Peter Thiel seems to fit into this category.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    I wasn't making that comparison. I was pointing out that getting elected doesn't make a candidate centrist, especially when that candidate doesn't win a majority. Hitler's NSDAP got about a third of the seats in the Reichstag to put him at the head of government in 1933. Trump got about 46% of the votes in the US Presidential election of 2016. Neither of these needed to be mainstream to win, even though Hitler is a great deal further right than Trump. The error is to claim that Hitler became "center-right" or "middle of the road" upon becoming Reichskanzler. The center didn't move ultra-rightward (remember: the Communists also did well in that election), an ultra-rightist happened to win the plurality in a heavily polarized election.