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I really enjoy hearing the minds here on their opinion of why Peter Thiel is backing Trump. I don't quite get the motivation and if there are any insights to th

I really enjoy hearing the minds here on their opinion of why Peter Thiel is backing Trump. I don't quite get the motivation and if there are any insights to this, please fire away.

verytrivial 8y ago
Likely because he thinks he has a good chance of winning regardless of whether it is right or wrong, and that being on his side will personally benefit him, so the usual motivation. He's very similar to Trump.
- sebringj 8y ago
  Right but how does this benefit Peter directly? I was trying to think of many ways, both positive and negative. Tax benefits is a simplistic one...a possible negative way maybe crazy but if US innovation goes down because of Trump, possibly New Zealand will prosper as the alternative silicon valley but I don't have enough understanding to say such things.
burkaman 8y ago
Peter Thiel is opposed to democracy[1], and he thinks Trump is the most efficient way to destroy the American democratic system so he can build some kind of capitalist libertarian utopia in its place. [1]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Most fun quotes from that: > Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. > The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
- sebringj 8y ago
  actually i thought this but was too cowardly to say that directly.
- chc 8y ago
  Interesting. I would have taken this for a lazy slur, but that article does seem to be saying basically that democracy is something he wants to escape from. That's a fascinating angle here.
rchaud 8y ago
1) He's rich and directly benefits from the tax cuts. 2) The cuts to social services don't affect people in his pay grade. 3) He lives in a gated community and wouldn't be targeted for harm by the sort of people that are now emboldened to say the quiet part out loud. 4) He founded Palantir and wants to secure more government contracts 5) His experience with being outed by Gawker (completely unethical IMO) probably also led to him viewing "the media" as a monolithic force out to get him.
- ams6110 8y ago
  The rich pay most of the taxes, therefore they will "benefit" most from tax cuts, if you define "benefit" as "keeping your own money." How can someone who pays no or little income tax get a huge benefit from a tax cut?
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Why are you framing your question as though there aren't 10s of millions of Americans who live somewhere between "billionaire" and "poverty level". They are the <$100k household income level that are paying a bigger % of their income on taxes than Thiel ever will. And unlike Thiel, they don't have access to accountants that can shuttle their cash away into tax shelters or lobbyists who will buy off politicians for peanuts to get them to vote for even more cuts.
- sebringj 8y ago
  The media one is a really interesting point. I did not consider that but makes sense.
- colpabar 8y ago
  Everyone who has a job directly benefits from the tax cuts.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Untrue, because the tax cuts aren't unilateral cuts and inclide increases,and even the cuts alone don't affect all people with jobs.
atq2119 8y ago
If in doubt, follow the money. Peter Thiel is rich and has a Randian "fuck you, I got mine" attitude. The GOP's policies disproportionally favor the rich without regard for practically anything else. A Trump presidency means that control is largely in the hands of the GOP. Hence Thiel favors Trump. It's probably that simple.
hokumguru 8y ago
On the surface I'm confident he has as much distaste for mainstream liberal media as Trump does. Other than that, historically he's been pretty conservative hasn't he?
darawk 8y ago
Partly cynically because he knows Trump is an incredibly simple man. He likes people that like him. That's it. That's all it takes to be on Trump's good side, whether you're a Saudi or a white nationalist. He really doesn't discriminate as long as you say nice things about him. The other reason is that he agrees with at least a decent chunk of Trump's policies. He probably supports lower taxes, reduced regulations, and probably greater isolationism.
earthicus 8y ago
I've seen a presentation by Thiel, which i can't search for at the moment, in which he makes a somewhat nuanced argument that globalization is only sometimes good, depending on how much technological innovation is happening in the economy. He observes that outside of computing, technological development has to some degree stalled since the 70s, and concludes that in such an economic environment, unfettered globalization is to be avoided.
- rchaud 8y ago
  No political party in the world supports "unfettered globalization". If that were so, WTO conferences would not drag on for years because countries were deadlocked over relaxing agricultural subsidies.
Leary 8y ago
Thiel is a libertarian. Trump is closer to the libertarians than any other plausible candidate who can win.
d--b 8y ago
I'd say tax cuts and a seat at the table. Also Thiel's Palantir thrives if there is more surveillance (though Obama was pretty bullish on surveillance too...). Other than that, he's fairly libertarian, so he _should_ be for free trade and free immigration rather than protectionism.
kodablah 8y ago
Wild guess: he fears having more money taken from him in business and personally if the opposition wins (both directly and indirectly via policies). He likely feels the opposition continually asks for more (from those at his level) and mismanages it. One might suspect it's party driven, not Trump in particular.
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
Trump, like all politicians, is doing things that benefit some people and hurt other people. People with lots of money like Peter Thiel are getting many of those benefits - ie. tax cuts and their wealth insulates from the things Trump is doing that may hurt people - ie. some change in the coverage of pre-existing conditions. It's just basic self-interest.
refurb 8y ago
He's a libertarian and Trump at least advances things in that direction?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Trump's (by policy at least) an anti-democratic racist right authoritarian. He's not a libertarian by any stretch, though a right libertarian might tend to agree with his views on what government should not do. (Though if the “libertarian” part means anything, probably have strong disagreements with much of what he deployed government to do.)
  - jki275 8y ago
    lol. On what planet is trump any of that? He's a left-leaning independent who happens to espouse a few republican type ideals like low taxes to stimulate the economy, and a few democrat type ideals such as legalizing pot and lgbt rights. He could have credibly run for the democrat party's nomination and probably won it, in which case he'd be the darling of the left (and Hillary would still hate him). Remember, everybody on the left, including the last president, said all the same things he said about the immigration issue just a few years ago. He's not "right" or "racist" in any way, and he got where he is through the democratic process... I would agree with you he's not a libertarian. I am going to laugh my rear end off when he tells the DEA to take pot off the schedule though.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > He's a left-leaning independent Trump is obviously a Republican (whatever he may have had as an affiliation before), and equally-obviously not “left-leaning”, a shown by his actions with control over actual policy (whatever he might have pretended to make favorable connections with various, especially New York, politicians when his only interest in policy was getting favorable treatment for his own personal business interests.) > He could have credibly run for the democrat party's nomination and probably won it That's an interesting fantasy, that is only plausible in that (given his ambiguous political positions before the campaign) one might imagine him adopting a completely different persona that didn't back bigoted and right-wing causes and yet was no less inconsistent with his pre-campaign persona. But his campaign persona, and even moreso his policies and appointments in office, have been consistently hard right, and often outright bigoted, from his demonizing immigrants (including currently-legal ones as part of his campaign to curtail currently-legal immigration, especially family-based immigration) to the Muslim ban to his his anti-LGBT policies, to his stance against investigations of police civil rights violations that were ongoing when he took office (which were echoed even louder and given concrete policy substance by his appointee as Attorney-General, who is in lockstep on this issue even if they have not seen eye to eye over Trump's personal legal exposure.)
hopefulengineer 8y ago
A couple I can think of 1. Zero to one talks about the importance of optimism vs pessimism for the future. Compare Obama saying the US needs to get used to sub 2% GDP growth vs Trump saying we can hit 5%. Trump isn't afraid to think big at the very least when it comes to space force and similar big projects 2. Thiel is libertarian and sees Trump as a means to reduce government. Romney got in trouble a few years back for saying a hard truth, that 47% of people don't pay taxes and are never going to vote for less free stuff. At some point it becomes two wolves arguing with a sheep on what's for dinner 3. Personal gain, Thiel has Palantir as well as another company that would use AI to create a "virtual" boarder wall via image recognition

I really enjoy hearing the minds here on their opinion of why Peter Thiel is backing Trump. I don't quite get the motivation and if there are any insights to this, please fire away.

verytrivial 8y ago

Likely because he thinks he has a good chance of winning regardless of whether it is right or wrong, and that being on his side will personally benefit him, so the usual motivation. He's very similar to Trump.

sebringj 8y ago
Right but how does this benefit Peter directly? I was trying to think of many ways, both positive and negative. Tax benefits is a simplistic one...a possible negative way maybe crazy but if US innovation goes down because of Trump, possibly New Zealand will prosper as the alternative silicon valley but I don't have enough understanding to say such things.

burkaman 8y ago

Peter Thiel is opposed to democracy[1], and he thinks Trump is the most efficient way to destroy the American democratic system so he can build some kind of capitalist libertarian utopia in its place. [1]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... Most fun quotes from that: > Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. > The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

sebringj 8y ago
actually i thought this but was too cowardly to say that directly.
chc 8y ago
Interesting. I would have taken this for a lazy slur, but that article does seem to be saying basically that democracy is something he wants to escape from. That's a fascinating angle here.

rchaud 8y ago

1) He's rich and directly benefits from the tax cuts. 2) The cuts to social services don't affect people in his pay grade. 3) He lives in a gated community and wouldn't be targeted for harm by the sort of people that are now emboldened to say the quiet part out loud. 4) He founded Palantir and wants to secure more government contracts 5) His experience with being outed by Gawker (completely unethical IMO) probably also led to him viewing "the media" as a monolithic force out to get him.

ams6110 8y ago
The rich pay most of the taxes, therefore they will "benefit" most from tax cuts, if you define "benefit" as "keeping your own money." How can someone who pays no or little income tax get a huge benefit from a tax cut?
- rchaud 8y ago
  Why are you framing your question as though there aren't 10s of millions of Americans who live somewhere between "billionaire" and "poverty level". They are the <$100k household income level that are paying a bigger % of their income on taxes than Thiel ever will. And unlike Thiel, they don't have access to accountants that can shuttle their cash away into tax shelters or lobbyists who will buy off politicians for peanuts to get them to vote for even more cuts.
sebringj 8y ago
The media one is a really interesting point. I did not consider that but makes sense.
colpabar 8y ago
Everyone who has a job directly benefits from the tax cuts.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Untrue, because the tax cuts aren't unilateral cuts and inclide increases,and even the cuts alone don't affect all people with jobs.

atq2119 8y ago

If in doubt, follow the money. Peter Thiel is rich and has a Randian "fuck you, I got mine" attitude. The GOP's policies disproportionally favor the rich without regard for practically anything else. A Trump presidency means that control is largely in the hands of the GOP. Hence Thiel favors Trump. It's probably that simple.

hokumguru 8y ago

On the surface I'm confident he has as much distaste for mainstream liberal media as Trump does. Other than that, historically he's been pretty conservative hasn't he?

darawk 8y ago

Partly cynically because he knows Trump is an incredibly simple man. He likes people that like him. That's it. That's all it takes to be on Trump's good side, whether you're a Saudi or a white nationalist. He really doesn't discriminate as long as you say nice things about him. The other reason is that he agrees with at least a decent chunk of Trump's policies. He probably supports lower taxes, reduced regulations, and probably greater isolationism.

earthicus 8y ago

I've seen a presentation by Thiel, which i can't search for at the moment, in which he makes a somewhat nuanced argument that globalization is only sometimes good, depending on how much technological innovation is happening in the economy. He observes that outside of computing, technological development has to some degree stalled since the 70s, and concludes that in such an economic environment, unfettered globalization is to be avoided.

rchaud 8y ago
No political party in the world supports "unfettered globalization". If that were so, WTO conferences would not drag on for years because countries were deadlocked over relaxing agricultural subsidies.

Leary 8y ago

Thiel is a libertarian. Trump is closer to the libertarians than any other plausible candidate who can win.

d--b 8y ago

I'd say tax cuts and a seat at the table. Also Thiel's Palantir thrives if there is more surveillance (though Obama was pretty bullish on surveillance too...). Other than that, he's fairly libertarian, so he _should_ be for free trade and free immigration rather than protectionism.

kodablah 8y ago

Wild guess: he fears having more money taken from him in business and personally if the opposition wins (both directly and indirectly via policies). He likely feels the opposition continually asks for more (from those at his level) and mismanages it. One might suspect it's party driven, not Trump in particular.

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

Trump, like all politicians, is doing things that benefit some people and hurt other people. People with lots of money like Peter Thiel are getting many of those benefits - ie. tax cuts and their wealth insulates from the things Trump is doing that may hurt people - ie. some change in the coverage of pre-existing conditions. It's just basic self-interest.

refurb 8y ago

He's a libertarian and Trump at least advances things in that direction?

dragonwriter 8y ago
Trump's (by policy at least) an anti-democratic racist right authoritarian. He's not a libertarian by any stretch, though a right libertarian might tend to agree with his views on what government should not do. (Though if the “libertarian” part means anything, probably have strong disagreements with much of what he deployed government to do.)
- jki275 8y ago
  lol. On what planet is trump any of that? He's a left-leaning independent who happens to espouse a few republican type ideals like low taxes to stimulate the economy, and a few democrat type ideals such as legalizing pot and lgbt rights. He could have credibly run for the democrat party's nomination and probably won it, in which case he'd be the darling of the left (and Hillary would still hate him). Remember, everybody on the left, including the last president, said all the same things he said about the immigration issue just a few years ago. He's not "right" or "racist" in any way, and he got where he is through the democratic process... I would agree with you he's not a libertarian. I am going to laugh my rear end off when he tells the DEA to take pot off the schedule though.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > He's a left-leaning independent Trump is obviously a Republican (whatever he may have had as an affiliation before), and equally-obviously not “left-leaning”, a shown by his actions with control over actual policy (whatever he might have pretended to make favorable connections with various, especially New York, politicians when his only interest in policy was getting favorable treatment for his own personal business interests.) > He could have credibly run for the democrat party's nomination and probably won it That's an interesting fantasy, that is only plausible in that (given his ambiguous political positions before the campaign) one might imagine him adopting a completely different persona that didn't back bigoted and right-wing causes and yet was no less inconsistent with his pre-campaign persona. But his campaign persona, and even moreso his policies and appointments in office, have been consistently hard right, and often outright bigoted, from his demonizing immigrants (including currently-legal ones as part of his campaign to curtail currently-legal immigration, especially family-based immigration) to the Muslim ban to his his anti-LGBT policies, to his stance against investigations of police civil rights violations that were ongoing when he took office (which were echoed even louder and given concrete policy substance by his appointee as Attorney-General, who is in lockstep on this issue even if they have not seen eye to eye over Trump's personal legal exposure.)

hopefulengineer 8y ago

A couple I can think of 1. Zero to one talks about the importance of optimism vs pessimism for the future. Compare Obama saying the US needs to get used to sub 2% GDP growth vs Trump saying we can hit 5%. Trump isn't afraid to think big at the very least when it comes to space force and similar big projects 2. Thiel is libertarian and sees Trump as a means to reduce government. Romney got in trouble a few years back for saying a hard truth, that 47% of people don't pay taxes and are never going to vote for less free stuff. At some point it becomes two wolves arguing with a sheep on what's for dinner 3. Personal gain, Thiel has Palantir as well as another company that would use AI to create a "virtual" boarder wall via image recognition