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First of all, I'll repeat that I'm not an American and neither an expert on (presumably) your country's politics, so this is just my armchair observation. Thie

First of all, I'll repeat that I'm not an American and neither an expert on (presumably) your country's politics, so this is just my armchair observation. Thiel is funding a new breed of politicians with "hard-right" ideals. The first is Donald Trump [1], which I don't think I need to expatiate following those riots (that was widely used to mock the USA) globally. His, protégé, Blake Masters, is running for the Arizona Senate position (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's donations [2]). Masters has some unique ideas, such as opposing Roe vs Wade (abortion rights) and expanding gun rights (in his words, "Eliminating or restructuring the ATF, Repealing the National Firearms Act, and Opposing every kind of federal firearms database or gun registry"). You can see them right on his website - https://www.blakemasters.com/ https://www.blakemasters.com/. Also, JD Vance (backed by $10 million+ of Thiel's money [2]). Vance also has some unique ideas, such as promoting claims that Trump lost the election because of voter fraud [3] or suggesting that Biden was intentionally allowing fentanyl to flood the US because it mainly affected the Republican base [4]. You can check his website and see policy ideals similar to Masters' - https://jdvance.com/issues/ https://jdvance.com/issues/. Now, I'm not saying that everything about them is bad (everyone has flaws). I tried my best to use non-biased political resources (Reuters and Politico have a great rep on my end). I don't understand much about American politics, but from the little I know, if I was there, I'd be nothing close to a "leftist", but more like a pro-capitalist "conservative", so I'm not really looking at this stuff from a biased lens. So, from my foreign armchair, I just look at some stuff US politicians say and do (mostly Republicans for unclear reasons) and I'm like, nah dude, that's too extreme... 1- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-thiel-idUSKBN12G0ZH https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-thiel-... 2- https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/17/peter-thiel-senate-megadonor-488799 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/17/peter-thiel-senate-... 3- https://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2021/10/vance-spouts-trump-talking-points-on-2020-election-loss/ https://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2021/10/vance-spou... 4- https://sports.yahoo.com/j-d-vance-wildly-suggests-021349250.html https://sports.yahoo.com/j-d-vance-wildly-suggests-021349250...

FFRefresh 4y ago
Thanks for sharing some personal context. I'll admit, when people use the terms "hard", "extreme", "alt" before a political direction, I don't really know what they're actually signifying in terms of substantive views. I'm still having trouble squaring what his views are from the description (not a demand for more rigor here, just an honest appraisal) here. Sure, Trump was looney/incompetent/corrupt, and JD Vance/Blake Masters have said a few things that we can criticize, but I don't know if those pieces of evidence shed a light on Thiel's actual views. As an example, I voted for Biden/Democrats, but if you were looking at what they say/do (particularly the most controversial things in the media) as the only evidence for my views, you wouldn't understand my positions very well. To share my version of a steelman for Thiel (I'll admit a lot of ignorance here, so anybody please correct me), it seems like there is a major throughline in a lot of what he does around Centralization vs Decentralization. I get the impression he is for Decentralization of governments/power at large. This can show up in national politics as showing support for local nation ideals (as opposed to a more globalist perspective), limiting the scope/size of government, support for federalism, support for cryptocurrencies, support for individual rights/freedoms, support for testing new government models (i.e. Seasteading Institute), pushing back on the entrenched establishment, etc. Is every politician he supports going to follow that playbook directly? I wouldn't expect them to. But the Centralization vs Decentralization dimension seems like something he may be thinking about if I'm reading the tea leaves. About how the individual relates to powerful entities, and what is the best relationship between the individual and the state/power for the future of humanity. If that is in fact what his views are, I don't think they are insane myself. Yes, individual politicians can be wacky/insane, but I think there are a lot of reasonable positions/considerations on both sides that come out of thinking about that broader topic, whether any one politician is truly representing it.

FFRefresh 4y ago

Thanks for sharing some personal context. I'll admit, when people use the terms "hard", "extreme", "alt" before a political direction, I don't really know what they're actually signifying in terms of substantive views. I'm still having trouble squaring what his views are from the description (not a demand for more rigor here, just an honest appraisal) here. Sure, Trump was looney/incompetent/corrupt, and JD Vance/Blake Masters have said a few things that we can criticize, but I don't know if those pieces of evidence shed a light on Thiel's actual views. As an example, I voted for Biden/Democrats, but if you were looking at what they say/do (particularly the most controversial things in the media) as the only evidence for my views, you wouldn't understand my positions very well. To share my version of a steelman for Thiel (I'll admit a lot of ignorance here, so anybody please correct me), it seems like there is a major throughline in a lot of what he does around Centralization vs Decentralization. I get the impression he is for Decentralization of governments/power at large. This can show up in national politics as showing support for local nation ideals (as opposed to a more globalist perspective), limiting the scope/size of government, support for federalism, support for cryptocurrencies, support for individual rights/freedoms, support for testing new government models (i.e. Seasteading Institute), pushing back on the entrenched establishment, etc. Is every politician he supports going to follow that playbook directly? I wouldn't expect them to. But the Centralization vs Decentralization dimension seems like something he may be thinking about if I'm reading the tea leaves. About how the individual relates to powerful entities, and what is the best relationship between the individual and the state/power for the future of humanity. If that is in fact what his views are, I don't think they are insane myself. Yes, individual politicians can be wacky/insane, but I think there are a lot of reasonable positions/considerations on both sides that come out of thinking about that broader topic, whether any one politician is truly representing it.