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So Republicans have completely flipped on the sovereignity of private companies? Or is this just posturing to please the number one of the GOP (Dave Yost filed

by Hamuko 5y ago

So Republicans have completely flipped on the sovereignity of private companies? Or is this just posturing to please the number one of the GOP (Dave Yost filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of invalidating 2020 votes in Pennsylvania)?

dimitrios1 5y ago
This is the beginning of the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again, since democrats have abandoned that cause long ago. They simply seek to be the in charge political force, and they are winning, as evidenced by every major corporation seemingly overnight bending over to satisfy democratic candidates and democratic voting blocs.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again Or at least the party of some people. If they thought they had the majority on their side, they wouldn't be afraid of the popular vote, or need to gerrymander every map they get their hands on.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Not that I want to get into politics on HN but care we seriously forgetting which party didn’t vote to pass a stimulus bill for the people a couple a months ago?
  - dimitrios1 5y ago
    Also not to get into politics, but this one is near to me -- Is anyone in our ___ing government ever going to actually care about this insane debt we've accumulated? Do you know how long HN made fun of Uber for burning through investor cash? What about our Government? Are they beyond critique? What's wrong with not passing a stimulus bill? It was the correct move in my opinion. What in god's green earth are we doing adding trillions more to our deficit when we are rapidly approaching 30 trillion in the red? We are sacrificing many future generations. No one has stopped to think if the long term trade offs are worth it. No one stopped to think if all this damage to the mental health of our young ones, our future, is worth it, if the isolation is worth it. No one stopped to think at all. Arguably if the federal government would stop being everyone's baby sitter, it may push states and local governments to do their own jobs instead. But alas, no one thinks like this anymore. They just think there's an infinite well of money, and big daddy government is always going to be there to give me a loan, and it will always continue to be this way, when there are many, many examples of this not being the case. Rome will fall.
    - Jcowell 5y ago
      I feel like this highlights a disparity between the users on Hacker News and the common people. For the majority of us , our work was easily transferable online or we we’re (for the most part) essential workers. This was not true for a good chunk of Americans who struggle to make ends meet and lived in states were unemployment benefits were so inaccessible that people had to write their state politicians to push the backlog along. For people like this the stimulus and other just as important things were crucial to their survival. What’s an absolute joke is that the Richest Country on this planet showed the most embarrassing display of helping it’s citizens while our neighbor up above was able to. I cannot see the how states on their own would be able to help their citizens when they have no ability to print money. This was absolutely the role of the federal government and it botched it in the most insane way possible.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Every state that is not deep blue is not Alaska levels of red. Ohio and much of the mid west is moderately red or moderately blue depending on the policies in question so you get middle of the road policy like this that isn't hard-line one way or the other but appeals to the tons of people on both sides of the isle who think big tech is f-ed up right now. While this move might alienate people on the far right for being a violation of a business's right to freely associate and far left for failing to go far enough, it's kind of a no brainier if you want to appeal to people who want something done and don't care which side of the isle that something is from is as long as it's not too extreme. Big tech is getting out of control according to many on both sides and utilities are an existing legal framework for regulating big but essential consumer facing business. I don't know exactly how the Ohio state government is formed but it's also highly likely that this is political maneuvering by the AG or the executive branch and they expect it go nowhere.
- mikey_p 5y ago
  Ohio GOP have really ramped up their rhetoric in the last year or so, including their attacks on their own like the infighting with Dewine over how he handled the states response to covid.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > Every state that is not deep blue is not Alaska levels of red Maybe not the state, but the Republican leadership is. There are vanishingly few moderate Republicans left in any office in the country.
  - api 5y ago
    Mike DeWine in Ohio is fairly reasonable and was among those whose lips were not attached to Trump's behind, but now the Republican base in rural Ohio is angry at him about that.
    - ihumanable 5y ago
      Yea, the Ohio Republican Party has rewarded DeWine's reasonable approach to the pandemic by his party threatening to impeach him (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ohio-gov-dewine-faces-impeachment-calls-gop-rebels-over-n1249548 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ohio-gov-dew...) strip him of his executive power (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ohio-republicans-defy-their-governor-limiting-his-power-manage-pandemic-n1261989 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ohio-republicans-...) and their leader, trump, has called for him to be challenged in a primary (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/11/16/trump-pushes-primary-challenge-against-dewine-showing-risk-to-republicans-who-break-with-him/?sh=b0e31e97ed9c https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/11/16/trump...). His great crime was that he listened to a medical doctor, implemented pretty reasonable common-sense strategies, and for a while did a pretty good job keeping Ohio's pandemic rates low.
hirundo 5y ago
You're expecting Republicans to be consistent libertarians? It seems to me that as practiced, the intersections between the two philosophies are rare and ephemeral and much more common in word than deed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kyrra 5y ago
Republicans are a coalition party, just like the democrats are. It's really important to remember just how broad of a group those 2 parties cover. AOC said it correctly in Jan 2020[0]: "In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are." So while there are free-enterprise republicans, there are also those that worry about how companies behave. At this point, there are D's and R's in Washington that agree on how big-tech should be treated (Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren for example[1]). [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/06/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-biden-not-same-party-094642 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/06/alexandria-ocasio-c... [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/29/20932064/senator-josh-hawley-tech-facebook-google-mark-zuckerberg-missouri https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/29/20932064/senator-josh-...
- api 5y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes. A consequence of our two-party system is that both parties end up being uneasy coalitions of many different "parties." The Republicans have long been an uneasy coalition of the religious right, paleoconservatives, fascists, economic libertarians, right leaning neocons and neoliberals, and mid-century centrist "Eisenhower conservatives." Major fault lines have been between the libertarians and the religious right and between the neocons and the paleocons and nativists. The Democrats have long been an uneasy coalition of left leaning neocons and neoliberals, social libertarians, anti-war activists, minorities who feel threatened by Republican tolerance of racism and nativism in their "big tent," atheists and minority religions who feel threatened by the religious right, and socialists. Major fault lines have been between the socialists and the various economic centrist or libertarian factions, between socially conservative minorities and the social liberals, and between the neocons / neoliberals and the anti-war / anti-empire factions. Each party contains at least three or four other parties within. A shuffle seems to be happening right now where the nativist, paleocon, and fascist parts of the Republican Party have gained power at the expense of the neocons and neoliberals after the latter discredited themselves with the Iraq war disaster and the 2008 financial bailout shitshow (which can technically be blamed on both parties since Obama presided over some of it). Another shuffle occurring is that libertarianism has really taken a hit as a result of anxiety over wealth distribution and issues with globalism and neoliberalism. Many libertarians on the right have been converted to the alt-right/fascist side, and on the left quite a few have gone further left economically and joined the AOC wing of the party.
RobRivera 5y ago
No
stale2002 5y ago
Even republicans are opposed to anti-competitive behavior done by firms with large amounts of market power. You would be hard pressed to find a modern day Republican who thinks that all water, electricity, and telephone services should have their common carrier status changed. Common carrier laws are uncontroversial, on both sides of the political spectrum. Few people would argue in favor of cutting off power and water, to their political opponents.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Wasn't GOP behind the net neutrality protections repeal?
  - stale2002 5y ago
    Maybe on net neutrality, but the point still stands. You are not going to be able to find many modern day republicans who think that it would be OK for electric companies, or water companies, to cut off power from their political opponents. There are lots of common carrier laws, and anti-monopoly laws that are uncontroversial. Few people would come out in favor of the standard oil monopoly, for example.
api 5y ago
Only when it comes to private company actions that could harm the Republican Party. Also: RTFA and this is not really about political stuff. It's about prioritization of businesses in search results in ways that are anti-competitive.
Covzire 5y ago
Regulating monopolies is a bipartisan issue isn't it? The fact is that three companies in the same or adjacent zip codes have a monopoly over the online square, which means that especially during times of a pandemic, if they take away someone's voice their free speech is effectively null and void.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by Hamuko 5y ago

dimitrios1 5y ago

This is the beginning of the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again, since democrats have abandoned that cause long ago. They simply seek to be the in charge political force, and they are winning, as evidenced by every major corporation seemingly overnight bending over to satisfy democratic candidates and democratic voting blocs.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> the Republican rebrand to be the people's party again Or at least the party of some people. If they thought they had the majority on their side, they wouldn't be afraid of the popular vote, or need to gerrymander every map they get their hands on.
Jcowell 5y ago
Not that I want to get into politics on HN but care we seriously forgetting which party didn’t vote to pass a stimulus bill for the people a couple a months ago?
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Also not to get into politics, but this one is near to me -- Is anyone in our ___ing government ever going to actually care about this insane debt we've accumulated? Do you know how long HN made fun of Uber for burning through investor cash? What about our Government? Are they beyond critique? What's wrong with not passing a stimulus bill? It was the correct move in my opinion. What in god's green earth are we doing adding trillions more to our deficit when we are rapidly approaching 30 trillion in the red? We are sacrificing many future generations. No one has stopped to think if the long term trade offs are worth it. No one stopped to think if all this damage to the mental health of our young ones, our future, is worth it, if the isolation is worth it. No one stopped to think at all. Arguably if the federal government would stop being everyone's baby sitter, it may push states and local governments to do their own jobs instead. But alas, no one thinks like this anymore. They just think there's an infinite well of money, and big daddy government is always going to be there to give me a loan, and it will always continue to be this way, when there are many, many examples of this not being the case. Rome will fall.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    I feel like this highlights a disparity between the users on Hacker News and the common people. For the majority of us , our work was easily transferable online or we we’re (for the most part) essential workers. This was not true for a good chunk of Americans who struggle to make ends meet and lived in states were unemployment benefits were so inaccessible that people had to write their state politicians to push the backlog along. For people like this the stimulus and other just as important things were crucial to their survival. What’s an absolute joke is that the Richest Country on this planet showed the most embarrassing display of helping it’s citizens while our neighbor up above was able to. I cannot see the how states on their own would be able to help their citizens when they have no ability to print money. This was absolutely the role of the federal government and it botched it in the most insane way possible.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

Every state that is not deep blue is not Alaska levels of red. Ohio and much of the mid west is moderately red or moderately blue depending on the policies in question so you get middle of the road policy like this that isn't hard-line one way or the other but appeals to the tons of people on both sides of the isle who think big tech is f-ed up right now. While this move might alienate people on the far right for being a violation of a business's right to freely associate and far left for failing to go far enough, it's kind of a no brainier if you want to appeal to people who want something done and don't care which side of the isle that something is from is as long as it's not too extreme. Big tech is getting out of control according to many on both sides and utilities are an existing legal framework for regulating big but essential consumer facing business. I don't know exactly how the Ohio state government is formed but it's also highly likely that this is political maneuvering by the AG or the executive branch and they expect it go nowhere.

mikey_p 5y ago
Ohio GOP have really ramped up their rhetoric in the last year or so, including their attacks on their own like the infighting with Dewine over how he handled the states response to covid.
jonny_eh 5y ago
> Every state that is not deep blue is not Alaska levels of red Maybe not the state, but the Republican leadership is. There are vanishingly few moderate Republicans left in any office in the country.
- api 5y ago
  Mike DeWine in Ohio is fairly reasonable and was among those whose lips were not attached to Trump's behind, but now the Republican base in rural Ohio is angry at him about that.
  - ihumanable 5y ago
    Yea, the Ohio Republican Party has rewarded DeWine's reasonable approach to the pandemic by his party threatening to impeach him (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ohio-gov-dewine-faces-impeachment-calls-gop-rebels-over-n1249548 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ohio-gov-dew...) strip him of his executive power (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ohio-republicans-defy-their-governor-limiting-his-power-manage-pandemic-n1261989 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/ohio-republicans-...) and their leader, trump, has called for him to be challenged in a primary (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/11/16/trump-pushes-primary-challenge-against-dewine-showing-risk-to-republicans-who-break-with-him/?sh=b0e31e97ed9c https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/11/16/trump...). His great crime was that he listened to a medical doctor, implemented pretty reasonable common-sense strategies, and for a while did a pretty good job keeping Ohio's pandemic rates low.

hirundo 5y ago

You're expecting Republicans to be consistent libertarians? It seems to me that as practiced, the intersections between the two philosophies are rare and ephemeral and much more common in word than deed.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

kyrra 5y ago

Republicans are a coalition party, just like the democrats are. It's really important to remember just how broad of a group those 2 parties cover. AOC said it correctly in Jan 2020[0]: "In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are." So while there are free-enterprise republicans, there are also those that worry about how companies behave. At this point, there are D's and R's in Washington that agree on how big-tech should be treated (Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren for example[1]). [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/06/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-biden-not-same-party-094642 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/06/alexandria-ocasio-c... [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/29/20932064/senator-josh-hawley-tech-facebook-google-mark-zuckerberg-missouri https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/29/20932064/senator-josh-...

api 5y ago
Not sure why the downvotes. A consequence of our two-party system is that both parties end up being uneasy coalitions of many different "parties." The Republicans have long been an uneasy coalition of the religious right, paleoconservatives, fascists, economic libertarians, right leaning neocons and neoliberals, and mid-century centrist "Eisenhower conservatives." Major fault lines have been between the libertarians and the religious right and between the neocons and the paleocons and nativists. The Democrats have long been an uneasy coalition of left leaning neocons and neoliberals, social libertarians, anti-war activists, minorities who feel threatened by Republican tolerance of racism and nativism in their "big tent," atheists and minority religions who feel threatened by the religious right, and socialists. Major fault lines have been between the socialists and the various economic centrist or libertarian factions, between socially conservative minorities and the social liberals, and between the neocons / neoliberals and the anti-war / anti-empire factions. Each party contains at least three or four other parties within. A shuffle seems to be happening right now where the nativist, paleocon, and fascist parts of the Republican Party have gained power at the expense of the neocons and neoliberals after the latter discredited themselves with the Iraq war disaster and the 2008 financial bailout shitshow (which can technically be blamed on both parties since Obama presided over some of it). Another shuffle occurring is that libertarianism has really taken a hit as a result of anxiety over wealth distribution and issues with globalism and neoliberalism. Many libertarians on the right have been converted to the alt-right/fascist side, and on the left quite a few have gone further left economically and joined the AOC wing of the party.

RobRivera 5y ago

stale2002 5y ago

Even republicans are opposed to anti-competitive behavior done by firms with large amounts of market power. You would be hard pressed to find a modern day Republican who thinks that all water, electricity, and telephone services should have their common carrier status changed. Common carrier laws are uncontroversial, on both sides of the political spectrum. Few people would argue in favor of cutting off power and water, to their political opponents.

Hamuko 5y ago
Wasn't GOP behind the net neutrality protections repeal?
- stale2002 5y ago
  Maybe on net neutrality, but the point still stands. You are not going to be able to find many modern day republicans who think that it would be OK for electric companies, or water companies, to cut off power from their political opponents. There are lots of common carrier laws, and anti-monopoly laws that are uncontroversial. Few people would come out in favor of the standard oil monopoly, for example.

api 5y ago

Only when it comes to private company actions that could harm the Republican Party. Also: RTFA and this is not really about political stuff. It's about prioritization of businesses in search results in ways that are anti-competitive.

Covzire 5y ago

Regulating monopolies is a bipartisan issue isn't it? The fact is that three companies in the same or adjacent zip codes have a monopoly over the online square, which means that especially during times of a pandemic, if they take away someone's voice their free speech is effectively null and void.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]