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First, the comment you replied to didn't argue both sides are problematic, just that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bad person. Both sides being problema

First, the comment you replied to didn't argue both sides are problematic, just that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bad person. Both sides being problematic also doesn't imply that one side isn't more problematic than the other. I think it's crazy that so many people voted for Trump and honestly believe he's the best person to run the country. I'd have a hard time respecting someone who didn't see how bad Trump was in a lot of ways. But I think most people on the left seem to have no idea why anybody would vote for Trump, and don't realize that is more of an indictment of the extent they are out of touch with 49% of the country, rather than an indication of the idiocy of their political opponents. An effective rejection of Trumpism must first involve understanding and relating to the people who supported him, and I think a lot of people are lamenting the general lack of interest in such discourse. Edit: fixed two words which drastically changed the meaning of sentence.

aerovistae 6y ago
Sure, but when you engage on why they voted for Trump, you receive a litany of mistruths and nonsense and it goes nowhere. Biden is going to raise taxes! Biden is going to take away guns! Hunter Biden's corruption! It's pretty hard to have a conversation when a third party is honking and playing a tuba five feet away, and that's essentially what Fox News, Facebook, Breitbart, et al are doing.
- andrewclunn 6y ago
  You would, but we were banned long ago if we made anything approaching valid points on places like this. Your ignorance is the result of the bubble, which follows from censorship. You cannot see it because the censorship makes the edges of your bubble invisible to you.
  - golergka 6y ago
    And to make it even more ironic, this comment was dead, and invisible to most HN readers.
  - aerovistae 6y ago
    The problem is the points you perceive as valid are the products of your own bubble, which operates as an automated factory of lies and deception. As with holocaust deniers, arguing with you is not a valid approach: only shutting you out. https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...
- 5252352435245 6y ago
  >Biden is going to raise taxes Biden campaigned on raising the corporate income tax rate from 21% back to 28%. If you have a stock market portfolio (including an IRA or 401(k)) and this proposal is enacted, it will adversely affect the value of your investments. It's also been tied to student loan forgiveness, so people without college degrees who are investing for retirement (and those who've paid off their degrees) will in effect be subsidizing those with student loan debt, which is a demographic that skews affluent: >https://www.educationnext.org/mass-debt-forgiveness-not-progressive-idea-fallacy-of-forgiveness-forum/ https://www.educationnext.org/mass-debt-forgiveness-not-prog... >Households in the upper half of the income distribution hold more student debt than those in the lower half. The highest-income quartile of households owes about one-third of that debt; the lowest-income quartile owes about 12 percent. People who don’t go to college don’t have student debt. They have lower incomes and more constrained job opportunities than others.
gurkendoktor 6y ago
> I think it's crazy that so many people voted for Trump and honestly believe he's the best person to run the country. ...out of the two options on the ballot. Which is also the only reason why so many people voted for Biden. The most mind-boggling thing from my German point of view is how little movement there is to leave the two-party system behind.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Exactly! While our (Czech Republic) voting system is far from perfect (the current president is rather controversial and the prime minister is a populist with some rather shady financial deals) political parties regularly go out of business if they fuck up strong enough. And this system will likely also fix the current problems over time, resulting in possibly less bad state. Having just two parties is insane, that simply means they can get away with anything & just take turns once in a while as voters have no other choice.
  - aerovistae 6y ago
    I was under the impression from recent reading that the situation in Czechia is really bad with mass protests and serious problems. You're happy with the system though?
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      There were some protests against anti covid measure a few weeks ago that got quite a bit of publicity due to taking place on the iconic Old Town Square in Prague - but nothing relly major or really ongoing. The situation is not perfect and the protest not without merit, as the government preatty much squandered any success we had handling the first wave of covid by doing preatty much no preparations, releasing almost all restrictions and then failed to respond in time when things turned for the worse in september. I guess it can make people angry, if their livelyhood is in danger due to the restrictive measures needed after you fuck up the initial response to the second wave like we did here. Still violent protest is not really an answer and it was indeed an one-off so far. Hopefully people will remeber at least a bit of they not to vote the populist currently in power during the next elections next year. Also there are regular protests in Belarus and now even in Poland these days that are bigger by many orders of magnitude that what we managed to pull off here since the Velvet Revolution when indeed preatty much everyone was in the streats, which resulted in the fall of the soviet aligned comunist regime back then.
taharvey 6y ago
Not sure they are bad people per se... but where do you draw the line? Sure Hitler improved the German economy, does that make it defensible to support him? This is the fundamental question in nationalist movements that are driven by ideologies, tribalism, and cult of personalities... instead of real facts backed up by science and data. Given that provably almost nothing Trump ever says is even true, how can these people know he is the best person to govern? If there are no facts, it is just beliefs... and that is incredibly dangerous.

aerovistae 6y ago

Sure, but when you engage on why they voted for Trump, you receive a litany of mistruths and nonsense and it goes nowhere. Biden is going to raise taxes! Biden is going to take away guns! Hunter Biden's corruption! It's pretty hard to have a conversation when a third party is honking and playing a tuba five feet away, and that's essentially what Fox News, Facebook, Breitbart, et al are doing.

andrewclunn 6y ago
You would, but we were banned long ago if we made anything approaching valid points on places like this. Your ignorance is the result of the bubble, which follows from censorship. You cannot see it because the censorship makes the edges of your bubble invisible to you.
- golergka 6y ago
  And to make it even more ironic, this comment was dead, and invisible to most HN readers.
- aerovistae 6y ago
  The problem is the points you perceive as valid are the products of your own bubble, which operates as an automated factory of lies and deception. As with holocaust deniers, arguing with you is not a valid approach: only shutting you out. https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...
5252352435245 6y ago
>Biden is going to raise taxes Biden campaigned on raising the corporate income tax rate from 21% back to 28%. If you have a stock market portfolio (including an IRA or 401(k)) and this proposal is enacted, it will adversely affect the value of your investments. It's also been tied to student loan forgiveness, so people without college degrees who are investing for retirement (and those who've paid off their degrees) will in effect be subsidizing those with student loan debt, which is a demographic that skews affluent: >https://www.educationnext.org/mass-debt-forgiveness-not-progressive-idea-fallacy-of-forgiveness-forum/ https://www.educationnext.org/mass-debt-forgiveness-not-prog... >Households in the upper half of the income distribution hold more student debt than those in the lower half. The highest-income quartile of households owes about one-third of that debt; the lowest-income quartile owes about 12 percent. People who don’t go to college don’t have student debt. They have lower incomes and more constrained job opportunities than others.

gurkendoktor 6y ago

> I think it's crazy that so many people voted for Trump and honestly believe he's the best person to run the country. ...out of the two options on the ballot. Which is also the only reason why so many people voted for Biden. The most mind-boggling thing from my German point of view is how little movement there is to leave the two-party system behind.

m4rtink 6y ago
Exactly! While our (Czech Republic) voting system is far from perfect (the current president is rather controversial and the prime minister is a populist with some rather shady financial deals) political parties regularly go out of business if they fuck up strong enough. And this system will likely also fix the current problems over time, resulting in possibly less bad state. Having just two parties is insane, that simply means they can get away with anything & just take turns once in a while as voters have no other choice.
- aerovistae 6y ago
  I was under the impression from recent reading that the situation in Czechia is really bad with mass protests and serious problems. You're happy with the system though?
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    There were some protests against anti covid measure a few weeks ago that got quite a bit of publicity due to taking place on the iconic Old Town Square in Prague - but nothing relly major or really ongoing. The situation is not perfect and the protest not without merit, as the government preatty much squandered any success we had handling the first wave of covid by doing preatty much no preparations, releasing almost all restrictions and then failed to respond in time when things turned for the worse in september. I guess it can make people angry, if their livelyhood is in danger due to the restrictive measures needed after you fuck up the initial response to the second wave like we did here. Still violent protest is not really an answer and it was indeed an one-off so far. Hopefully people will remeber at least a bit of they not to vote the populist currently in power during the next elections next year. Also there are regular protests in Belarus and now even in Poland these days that are bigger by many orders of magnitude that what we managed to pull off here since the Velvet Revolution when indeed preatty much everyone was in the streats, which resulted in the fall of the soviet aligned comunist regime back then.

taharvey 6y ago

Not sure they are bad people per se... but where do you draw the line? Sure Hitler improved the German economy, does that make it defensible to support him? This is the fundamental question in nationalist movements that are driven by ideologies, tribalism, and cult of personalities... instead of real facts backed up by science and data. Given that provably almost nothing Trump ever says is even true, how can these people know he is the best person to govern? If there are no facts, it is just beliefs... and that is incredibly dangerous.