6 ms·

Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be

by tdons 6y ago

Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be ashamed of that? (It’s easy for me to say ofc, I have no horse in this race)

typon 6y ago
There are plenty of Trump voters (Republicans in general) who would actually find the contents of that website abhorrent. I would say these people represent a minority (albeit a large one) of Trump supporters.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Which is fine when the leader in question ignores those minority opinions. The problem here is that the leader is going out of his way to specifically engage and this minority group by committing as many atrocities as possible.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump No, they didn't.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  Approximately 23% of the US population voted for him. Typically I don't like this arguement, the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did.
  - tstrimple 6y ago
    I don't think this is true. It's been shown over and over again that the more people who vote, the more likely Republicans are to lose the election. This is why Republicans have gone all in on their disenfranchisement efforts.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Whatever you assume about how they would have voted, they didn't “literally” vote. And the assumption that people who choose to vote have an equal distribution of political views to those who choose not to vote is ludicrous; people who, if they voted, would only vote for someone who isn't a major party candidate are going to be vastly overrepresented among nonvoters simply because they are more likely to feel participation is futile; it would be less inaccurate than assuming equal distribution—but still inaccurate—to assume every eligible nonvoter is equivalent to a vote against at least all of the major party candidates.
  - panopticon 6y ago
    > the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did According to Pew, the non-voter block is much less white, less educated, and poorer than the voting population. You can probably make several cases for which way that block breaks, but I would certainly not say they would vote proportionally the same as voters.
  - froh 6y ago
    voter turnout * share = .667 * .469 = 0.312823 or did you count in people not eligible to vote? like kids and foreigner?
Dylan16807 6y ago
They definitely didn't need that disclaimer. And it's a lot more complicated than who you voted for out of two choices.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  There are always more than "two choices". This "two choices" bullshit is the cause of Trump's entire presidency.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    If you're looking at it from that point of view, nowhere near half voted for Trump. And the real problem is first past the post, not the way you look at the votes.
proverbialbunny 6y ago
Half of the US has been told to not follow the news. Hacker News is a news site so I imagine little to no one on the Trump train is here.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Have a read though this and other related threads. It’s been surprising to me.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    I'm an active reader of threads on YC, and maybe I'm just lucky but I have yet to see anyone spouting MAGA based conspiracy theories. I did get downvoted one time for saying Trump invented the term Antifa (Which is absolutely true. I did a google search by date to verify.) but that's as close as I've seen.
    - wolco5 6y ago
      The downvote might be because the Antifa fact is inaccurate according to wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
      - proverbialbunny 6y ago
        Just because it's not mentioned in Wikipedia doesn't make it false.
    - fl0wenol 6y ago
      I think you got downvoted because the term/group Antifa has existed in several forms since the 30s, it was a movement started in Germany in response to the rise of the SPD between WWI and WWII.
      - proverbialbunny 6y ago
loceng 6y ago
Quite literally? Biden had ~81mm votes, Trump had ~74mm votes - and the US has a population of ~330 million. Edit to add: Downvoting facts?
- jchw 6y ago
  They're downvoting everyone who is pointing out that Trump did not win the popular vote. This is frustrating given it is absolutely relevant, even if it is somewhat of a nitpick; the statement that "half of the US" voted for anyone is genuinely misleading.
dijit 6y ago
The rub is always: association with the group is association with the worst of that group. Their worst right now is much worse than expected, I would be ashamed to be associated.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  > Their worst right now is much worse than expected, I would be ashamed to be associated. This doesn't follow. Trump has been promoting violence since 2016. There have been multiple attacks carried out by Trump supporters. Most Republicans think the election was stolen thanks to Trump. Anyone who was surprised by this hasn't been paying attention to the blatantly obvious signs that have been on display nor to the repeated warnings by many, many people saying this is where things were headed. I'm in no way surprised this happened. Why were so many other people?
  - d1zzy 6y ago
    It does follow if you think that most people that voted for Trump didn't actually think that Trump means most of the things he says. Which matches up with what Trump supporters say in interviews regarding Trump's stance on topics that even many of his supporters don't agree with. They will generally say something like "yeah, I don't agree with what Trump says about X and Y but I vote for him because of Z". And to be fair their stance is not totally unreasonable. On both isles of the political spectrum most voters for some candidate ignore at least part of what the candidate says _and_ does. No candidate perfectly matches up with what you think should be done, that's normal and expected, democracy isn't perfect. A part of this process is trying to guess what the political candidate really thinks/believes vs what they say just to gain political capital. All people living in a democracy learn to do this early on. I guess for many Trump supporters they guessed that even with all the seemingly violence inducing rhetoric it wouldn't end up with a mob assaulting a federal government institution. Mistakes were made. :)
    - tstrimple 6y ago
      My point still stands. Anyone surprised by violence from Trump supporters have not been paying attention for the last four years. All the warning signs have been there. You've got documented evidence of Trump and his followers setting small fires for four years and half the country shouting "HEY WE'VE GOT A FIRE!" suddenly people are surprised that the building is burning down around them? Mistakes were made, the President and supporters everyone has been warning about do the thing everyone has been warning about and try to stage a coup. Oops!
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
>Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be ashamed of that? I dont have a horse in the race neither other than stock market. It's not that strange. It's why elections are supposed to be confidential. Public opinion is always going to shift. During Clinton's reign we had the clinton crazies who hated him. George W bush? Did anyone like him? Obama derangement was readily labelled racism. Now Trump derangement is very strong. Biden will have his haters, that's coming. However, the derangement is real and even the illusion you're for trump will gain you hate.
- rat87 6y ago
  > Obama derangement was readily labelled racism. Because so much of it was tinged with racism > Now Trump derangement is very strong Yes some people are under the mistaken impression that there's anything good about Trump and therefore suprised when he doesn't seem to care for the future of our democracy and our country even a tiny bit
jchw 6y ago
Nitpick: 1/2 of the US did not vote for Trump. In 2016, of the eligible voting populous, only 54.8% voted in the election. Of them, the popular vote was lost by Donald Trump, who got around 63 million votes. So even winning, it doesn’t really need to be that close to half of the U.S. Not to say that isn’t a sizable chunk or anything.
boustrophedon 6y ago
Approximately 22% of the USA voted for Trump this election.
- wolco5 6y ago
  And 1+% voted for Biden. 23.5+% voted against Trump.
- froh 6y ago
  voter turnout * share = .667 * .469 = 0.312823 or did you count in people not eligible to vote? like kids and foreigners?
  - boustrophedon 6y ago
    Yes, they said "1/2 of America" so I replied with the actual percentage of "America".
proverbialbunny 6y ago
Is it just me or is downvoting tdons' comment bad form given YC's guidelines? Is there something I'm missing here?
- dleslie 6y ago
  From the guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    lol. That has to do with comments like, "Wow, look at that comment's downvotes!" not asking about guidelines in relation to votes. Of course, there is room for interpretation on this one.
- newen 6y ago
  Of course it's bad. It's just that no one cares because most people downvote comments they disagree with.
MereInterest 6y ago
Popularity does not imply morality. 46.8% of people voted for Donald Trump (not "quite literally 1/2"), a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office. People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote. That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of.
- jtxxwl 6y ago
  Hopefully the wonderful moderators on this board reprimand you for posting political flamebait and attempting to use hacker news for political or ideological battle.
  - arolihas 6y ago
    I hope the wonderful moderators don’t just censor anyone who happens to say something you don’t agree with or hurts your feelings.
- disown 6y ago
  > a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office. Are you talking about donald trump or joe biden? > People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote. Using your logic, those who voted for corrupt biden should be ashamed as well. > That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of. Have you taken a look in the mirror. People like you are what's wrong with the country. Extremist and blind to their own faults. We had two choices this year. Maybe I'll phrase it in a way you can understand. On the one hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male" and on the other hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male". People like you whine about rich privileged corrupt white males all the time and yet are slaving over a rich privileged corrupt white male.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    I'm rather tired of the "both sides" rhetoric. One candidate refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. One candidate has a history of racial bias (Central Park 5, apartment zoning, Judge Curiel, etc.). One candidate openly asked for and received aid from a foreign nation. One candidate built up a mob and pointed them at the Capitol in an attempted coup. On the other hand, one candidate lost a son to drug overdose. One candidate had debunked conspiracy theories regarding their other son's interactions with Ukraine. Do I think that Biden is perfect? Gosh, no. Do I think he is a good person? I don't know if it is possible to be a truly good person while holding any high office. Do I think that Biden is a better person and a better choice than Trump? Absolutely.
hindsightbias 6y ago
After 30 years of internets I've seen no evidence that a majority of people have the capacity to distinguish between analysis and advocacy.
caturopath 6y ago
It's a little strange indeed -- the US is at a very polarized time, where discussing such a mainstream thing as supporting Trump is treated like a breach of decorum by some. Very surreal in some ways. That being said, identifying that the support for Trump is about 50/50 does not _really_ tell the right story here with thedonald.win -- this isn't a representative of the ~half of us in the US who voted for Trump (or would if we voted)...it's a representation of a small, extreme culture, part real and part just trolling. I doubt OP would have apologized quite so hard for watching Fox News. Fox News's editorial content is somewhat to the right of the average Republican voter, but not by nearly as much as thedonald.win -- that's something that represents mainstream Trump voter (aka Republican voter) worldview.
ghostbrainalpha 6y ago
"Upvote if you still believe Trump will be our President for the next four years. People are forgetting this man is a genius and has always been ten steps ahead. Now is no different." This is one of the top threads on that site RIGHT NOW. Its easy to judge someone participating in that discussion.

by tdons 6y ago

typon 6y ago

There are plenty of Trump voters (Republicans in general) who would actually find the contents of that website abhorrent. I would say these people represent a minority (albeit a large one) of Trump supporters.

mywittyname 6y ago
Which is fine when the leader in question ignores those minority opinions. The problem here is that the leader is going out of his way to specifically engage and this minority group by committing as many atrocities as possible.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump No, they didn't.

VBprogrammer 6y ago
Approximately 23% of the US population voted for him. Typically I don't like this arguement, the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  I don't think this is true. It's been shown over and over again that the more people who vote, the more likely Republicans are to lose the election. This is why Republicans have gone all in on their disenfranchisement efforts.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Whatever you assume about how they would have voted, they didn't “literally” vote. And the assumption that people who choose to vote have an equal distribution of political views to those who choose not to vote is ludicrous; people who, if they voted, would only vote for someone who isn't a major party candidate are going to be vastly overrepresented among nonvoters simply because they are more likely to feel participation is futile; it would be less inaccurate than assuming equal distribution—but still inaccurate—to assume every eligible nonvoter is equivalent to a vote against at least all of the major party candidates.
- panopticon 6y ago
  > the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did According to Pew, the non-voter block is much less white, less educated, and poorer than the voting population. You can probably make several cases for which way that block breaks, but I would certainly not say they would vote proportionally the same as voters.
- froh 6y ago
  voter turnout * share = .667 * .469 = 0.312823 or did you count in people not eligible to vote? like kids and foreigner?

Dylan16807 6y ago

They definitely didn't need that disclaimer. And it's a lot more complicated than who you voted for out of two choices.

jessaustin 6y ago
There are always more than "two choices". This "two choices" bullshit is the cause of Trump's entire presidency.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  If you're looking at it from that point of view, nowhere near half voted for Trump. And the real problem is first past the post, not the way you look at the votes.

proverbialbunny 6y ago

Half of the US has been told to not follow the news. Hacker News is a news site so I imagine little to no one on the Trump train is here.

lostlogin 6y ago
Have a read though this and other related threads. It’s been surprising to me.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  I'm an active reader of threads on YC, and maybe I'm just lucky but I have yet to see anyone spouting MAGA based conspiracy theories. I did get downvoted one time for saying Trump invented the term Antifa (Which is absolutely true. I did a google search by date to verify.) but that's as close as I've seen.
  - wolco5 6y ago
    The downvote might be because the Antifa fact is inaccurate according to wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      Just because it's not mentioned in Wikipedia doesn't make it false.
  - fl0wenol 6y ago
    I think you got downvoted because the term/group Antifa has existed in several forms since the 30s, it was a movement started in Germany in response to the rise of the SPD between WWI and WWII.
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago

loceng 6y ago

Quite literally? Biden had ~81mm votes, Trump had ~74mm votes - and the US has a population of ~330 million. Edit to add: Downvoting facts?

jchw 6y ago
They're downvoting everyone who is pointing out that Trump did not win the popular vote. This is frustrating given it is absolutely relevant, even if it is somewhat of a nitpick; the statement that "half of the US" voted for anyone is genuinely misleading.

dijit 6y ago

The rub is always: association with the group is association with the worst of that group. Their worst right now is much worse than expected, I would be ashamed to be associated.

tstrimple 6y ago
> Their worst right now is much worse than expected, I would be ashamed to be associated. This doesn't follow. Trump has been promoting violence since 2016. There have been multiple attacks carried out by Trump supporters. Most Republicans think the election was stolen thanks to Trump. Anyone who was surprised by this hasn't been paying attention to the blatantly obvious signs that have been on display nor to the repeated warnings by many, many people saying this is where things were headed. I'm in no way surprised this happened. Why were so many other people?
- d1zzy 6y ago
  It does follow if you think that most people that voted for Trump didn't actually think that Trump means most of the things he says. Which matches up with what Trump supporters say in interviews regarding Trump's stance on topics that even many of his supporters don't agree with. They will generally say something like "yeah, I don't agree with what Trump says about X and Y but I vote for him because of Z". And to be fair their stance is not totally unreasonable. On both isles of the political spectrum most voters for some candidate ignore at least part of what the candidate says _and_ does. No candidate perfectly matches up with what you think should be done, that's normal and expected, democracy isn't perfect. A part of this process is trying to guess what the political candidate really thinks/believes vs what they say just to gain political capital. All people living in a democracy learn to do this early on. I guess for many Trump supporters they guessed that even with all the seemingly violence inducing rhetoric it wouldn't end up with a mob assaulting a federal government institution. Mistakes were made. :)
  - tstrimple 6y ago
    My point still stands. Anyone surprised by violence from Trump supporters have not been paying attention for the last four years. All the warning signs have been there. You've got documented evidence of Trump and his followers setting small fires for four years and half the country shouting "HEY WE'VE GOT A FIRE!" suddenly people are surprised that the building is burning down around them? Mistakes were made, the President and supporters everyone has been warning about do the thing everyone has been warning about and try to stage a coup. Oops!

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

>Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be ashamed of that? I dont have a horse in the race neither other than stock market. It's not that strange. It's why elections are supposed to be confidential. Public opinion is always going to shift. During Clinton's reign we had the clinton crazies who hated him. George W bush? Did anyone like him? Obama derangement was readily labelled racism. Now Trump derangement is very strong. Biden will have his haters, that's coming. However, the derangement is real and even the illusion you're for trump will gain you hate.

rat87 6y ago
> Obama derangement was readily labelled racism. Because so much of it was tinged with racism > Now Trump derangement is very strong Yes some people are under the mistaken impression that there's anything good about Trump and therefore suprised when he doesn't seem to care for the future of our democracy and our country even a tiny bit

jchw 6y ago

Nitpick: 1/2 of the US did not vote for Trump. In 2016, of the eligible voting populous, only 54.8% voted in the election. Of them, the popular vote was lost by Donald Trump, who got around 63 million votes. So even winning, it doesn’t really need to be that close to half of the U.S. Not to say that isn’t a sizable chunk or anything.

boustrophedon 6y ago

Approximately 22% of the USA voted for Trump this election.

wolco5 6y ago
And 1+% voted for Biden. 23.5+% voted against Trump.
froh 6y ago
voter turnout * share = .667 * .469 = 0.312823 or did you count in people not eligible to vote? like kids and foreigners?
- boustrophedon 6y ago
  Yes, they said "1/2 of America" so I replied with the actual percentage of "America".

proverbialbunny 6y ago

Is it just me or is downvoting tdons' comment bad form given YC's guidelines? Is there something I'm missing here?

dleslie 6y ago
From the guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  lol. That has to do with comments like, "Wow, look at that comment's downvotes!" not asking about guidelines in relation to votes. Of course, there is room for interpretation on this one.
newen 6y ago
Of course it's bad. It's just that no one cares because most people downvote comments they disagree with.

MereInterest 6y ago

Popularity does not imply morality. 46.8% of people voted for Donald Trump (not "quite literally 1/2"), a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office. People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote. That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of.

jtxxwl 6y ago
Hopefully the wonderful moderators on this board reprimand you for posting political flamebait and attempting to use hacker news for political or ideological battle.
- arolihas 6y ago
  I hope the wonderful moderators don’t just censor anyone who happens to say something you don’t agree with or hurts your feelings.
disown 6y ago
> a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office. Are you talking about donald trump or joe biden? > People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote. Using your logic, those who voted for corrupt biden should be ashamed as well. > That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of. Have you taken a look in the mirror. People like you are what's wrong with the country. Extremist and blind to their own faults. We had two choices this year. Maybe I'll phrase it in a way you can understand. On the one hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male" and on the other hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male". People like you whine about rich privileged corrupt white males all the time and yet are slaving over a rich privileged corrupt white male.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  I'm rather tired of the "both sides" rhetoric. One candidate refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. One candidate has a history of racial bias (Central Park 5, apartment zoning, Judge Curiel, etc.). One candidate openly asked for and received aid from a foreign nation. One candidate built up a mob and pointed them at the Capitol in an attempted coup. On the other hand, one candidate lost a son to drug overdose. One candidate had debunked conspiracy theories regarding their other son's interactions with Ukraine. Do I think that Biden is perfect? Gosh, no. Do I think he is a good person? I don't know if it is possible to be a truly good person while holding any high office. Do I think that Biden is a better person and a better choice than Trump? Absolutely.

hindsightbias 6y ago

After 30 years of internets I've seen no evidence that a majority of people have the capacity to distinguish between analysis and advocacy.

caturopath 6y ago

It's a little strange indeed -- the US is at a very polarized time, where discussing such a mainstream thing as supporting Trump is treated like a breach of decorum by some. Very surreal in some ways. That being said, identifying that the support for Trump is about 50/50 does not _really_ tell the right story here with thedonald.win -- this isn't a representative of the ~half of us in the US who voted for Trump (or would if we voted)...it's a representation of a small, extreme culture, part real and part just trolling. I doubt OP would have apologized quite so hard for watching Fox News. Fox News's editorial content is somewhat to the right of the average Republican voter, but not by nearly as much as thedonald.win -- that's something that represents mainstream Trump voter (aka Republican voter) worldview.

ghostbrainalpha 6y ago

"Upvote if you still believe Trump will be our President for the next four years. People are forgetting this man is a genius and has always been ten steps ahead. Now is no different." This is one of the top threads on that site RIGHT NOW. Its easy to judge someone participating in that discussion.