4 ms·

I'm not sure policies matter much in the end. If I went into a coma before election night 2016 and woke up today, how would I tell we just had four years of a h

I'm not sure policies matter much in the end. If I went into a coma before election night 2016 and woke up today, how would I tell we just had four years of a hard-right authoritarian government and we are now about a year and three months into a moderate center-left government? I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference.

mbg721 4y ago
Nobody could tell; that's why we have cloth masks to differentiate ourselves.
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
About a year after Trump's election, I found myself thinking along similar lines. I mean, his administration made very little difference in my life, or the lives of anyone I know. Yes, I could be empathetic towards people whose lives I mostly just read about. But realistically, I had no actual evidence of any impact. Then I met up with a very old friend of mine. Successful SV VC guy. Incredibly smart. Incredibly human. Probably reads Hacker News (actually, scratch that). Happens to be of Indian ancestry, though he grew up in Davis, CA. Very wealthy thanks to a few good choices made after he dropped out of his PhD program. So yeah, maybe he didn't have my middle class white anglo privilege going on, but if there's a ladder, I had always assumed he was only 1 or 2 rungs below me, at worst. As it turns out, no. Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas. Was it paranoid? I don't feel equipped to comment. But that was the verdict of a guy that I respect enormously for his intelligence and his decision making processes. He felt too unsafe in Trump's America to visit mid-size towns in Iowa. So, when you say: > I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference. I'd advise checking in with some brown people you know (or don't know). Some immigrants not yet moved into citizenship. Someone in any group that Trump verbally attacked. Because I felt the same way until my friend gently but forcefully told me that I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about if I was trying to generalize from my own experience.
- twofornone 4y ago
  >Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas So not because of any negative experience with these areas, just because of some bigoted stereotype? Sounds like the parent post was right, nothing in daily life really changed, except perhaps the perception of some increased danger. Perhaps brought on by the way that Trump was reported on in the media? The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists. Humans are notoriously unreliable witnesses.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    > The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists. I absolutely agree. Nevertheless, to hear that an intelligent, savvy, world-travelling person could now feel unsafe in many parts of the USA was, to me, indicative of a type of change that is as real as them actually being unsafe. Which is to say: I don't know if they were actually in any more danger than they would have been before, but they now perceived American society as if they were. That didn't happen because they ate the wrong thing for breakfast. The fact that the "overton window" of the visible culture seemed to have move enough after Trump's election that this person now felt unsafe, regardless of whether there was an actual change in their safety, seems really notable to me, and no doubt even more notable to the people who live with this shift in perception.
- PolygonSheep 4y ago
  What actually made midsize towns in Iowa unsafe to visit for persons of Indian descent in Trump's America? Did the Iowans suddenly get more racist? Was Dubuque declared a "sundown town"? Have the Iowans calmed down now that we live in Biden's America?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    I think my friend's explanation was that he felt that people who might potentially feel inclined to verbally or physically harass him now felt less inhibited after Trump's election. That is to say, there was no actual shift in attitude but a shift in the likelihood of public behavior based on those attitudes. I have not checked in with him since the last election, but based on conversations we've had in the past, I would guess he does not imagine that Biden's election has changed things much. The genie escaped from the bottle; putting it back is much harder.

mbg721 4y ago

Nobody could tell; that's why we have cloth masks to differentiate ourselves.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

About a year after Trump's election, I found myself thinking along similar lines. I mean, his administration made very little difference in my life, or the lives of anyone I know. Yes, I could be empathetic towards people whose lives I mostly just read about. But realistically, I had no actual evidence of any impact. Then I met up with a very old friend of mine. Successful SV VC guy. Incredibly smart. Incredibly human. Probably reads Hacker News (actually, scratch that). Happens to be of Indian ancestry, though he grew up in Davis, CA. Very wealthy thanks to a few good choices made after he dropped out of his PhD program. So yeah, maybe he didn't have my middle class white anglo privilege going on, but if there's a ladder, I had always assumed he was only 1 or 2 rungs below me, at worst. As it turns out, no. Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas. Was it paranoid? I don't feel equipped to comment. But that was the verdict of a guy that I respect enormously for his intelligence and his decision making processes. He felt too unsafe in Trump's America to visit mid-size towns in Iowa. So, when you say: > I have to be honest it's not a night-and-day difference. I'd advise checking in with some brown people you know (or don't know). Some immigrants not yet moved into citizenship. Someone in any group that Trump verbally attacked. Because I felt the same way until my friend gently but forcefully told me that I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about if I was trying to generalize from my own experience.

twofornone 4y ago
>Trump's election had made him adopt a policy of no longer engaging in any business travel to anywhere in the USA except major metropolitan areas So not because of any negative experience with these areas, just because of some bigoted stereotype? Sounds like the parent post was right, nothing in daily life really changed, except perhaps the perception of some increased danger. Perhaps brought on by the way that Trump was reported on in the media? The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists. Humans are notoriously unreliable witnesses.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  > The fact that people feel something does not imply that it exists. I absolutely agree. Nevertheless, to hear that an intelligent, savvy, world-travelling person could now feel unsafe in many parts of the USA was, to me, indicative of a type of change that is as real as them actually being unsafe. Which is to say: I don't know if they were actually in any more danger than they would have been before, but they now perceived American society as if they were. That didn't happen because they ate the wrong thing for breakfast. The fact that the "overton window" of the visible culture seemed to have move enough after Trump's election that this person now felt unsafe, regardless of whether there was an actual change in their safety, seems really notable to me, and no doubt even more notable to the people who live with this shift in perception.
PolygonSheep 4y ago
What actually made midsize towns in Iowa unsafe to visit for persons of Indian descent in Trump's America? Did the Iowans suddenly get more racist? Was Dubuque declared a "sundown town"? Have the Iowans calmed down now that we live in Biden's America?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  I think my friend's explanation was that he felt that people who might potentially feel inclined to verbally or physically harass him now felt less inhibited after Trump's election. That is to say, there was no actual shift in attitude but a shift in the likelihood of public behavior based on those attitudes. I have not checked in with him since the last election, but based on conversations we've had in the past, I would guess he does not imagine that Biden's election has changed things much. The genie escaped from the bottle; putting it back is much harder.