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[flagged]

adamc 2y ago
True. I would expect a big reversal at some point, with confiscatory tax rises. The Democratic base is angrier than I've ever seen it.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  We have to fail to succeed again.
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    Yes, if history has taught us anything it's that the pendulum will swing back. Sometimes it takes a decade, sometimes it takes 500 years, but it always comes back. Hopefully we'll be alive to see it!
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      The problem we've consistently had is that when Democrats run they say they're going to do something about these megacorps and then when they get in years pass and the corporations have only swallowed even more of each other up. Then Republicans say they're going to lower taxes and streamline regulations and they get in and government revenue as a percent of GDP never really goes down and the number of pages of legislation keeps going up. It would be nice if either of them would actually do the thing they say they're going to do.
      - Henchman21 2y ago
        There are pretty big differences between the parties but one thing they both do incredibly well is bold-faced lying the to public. Its all a game to these clowns who have been in power for 40+ years. Chuck Schumer & Mitch McConnell are different sides of the same coin and that coin ain’t in our pockets. That coin belongs to the multinational billionaire class.
        onemoresoop 2y ago
        When things become really bad lying won’t help anymore. The more delayed the response the more violent it will become
        threecheese 2y ago
        The lies are indistinguishable from facts these days, which doesn’t change your assertion of violence IMO - just that it’s unlikely to be targeted at the actual problem
        onemoresoop 2y ago
        No, the lies are so bad, self contradictory and illogical that they stand out quite easily. They are very easy to expose as lies. The problem is that there are so many of them that it makes focusing harder on the problem at hand. But we don’t need to be stupid and start laboriously fact checking everything, we could be much smarter than that. We could localize the sources where these lies originate.
      - leptons 2y ago
        >It would be nice if either of them would actually do the thing they say they're going to do. It would be nice if voters voted. It would be nice if voters actually gave the Democrats enough power in Congress (and POTUS) to enact the legislation they want instead of being obstructed by Republicans at every single turn. Mitch McConnel famously obstructed Obama and prevented him from seating a SCOTUS judge because "it's too close to an election" that was a year away. So when you call out Democrats as doing nothing, please realize it isn't for lack of trying, it's for lack of power that the people didn't give them.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        The US has had antitrust laws on the books for more than a century. Obama was President for 8 years and Biden for 4. How many megacorps were broken up? Why are Visa and Mastercard still a thing? Obama had control over the House and Senate during his first term. Republicans filibuster things that Republican constituencies have strong objections to, but they're not going to put up a strong defense of Hollywood or Facebook etc., so why didn't they go after the villains in their own house? Why didn't either of them pardon Snowden? Why didn't they make deals to do things that are good? There are reasonable things Republicans want that it's the Democrats who strongly oppose, like school choice, or loser-pays for civil court cases against non-megacorps. If you're not willing to give any of that stuff up and you want them to give up things that their constituents oppose, of course they fight you tooth and nail. But if you could find a way to be objective for a moment, some of the things your side wants are bad or at least not great and you only want them because their interest groups are in your tent. Instead of finding a compromise where the public gets screwed to benefit the interest groups on both sides, you could find a compromise where the interest groups on both sides get screwed to benefit the public. Yet they don't.
        leptons 2y ago
        >Obama had control over the House and Senate during his first term. Not for the full term, only 2 years, where he got ACA enacted. So don't act like he had completely free reign for 8 years, or that he didn't get anything done. >Why didn't either of them pardon Snowden? Nobody would pardon Snowden, he ran. Obama let Manning off pretty easily because she came to justice, and he said if Snowden wanted to face justice, he'd likely be free in the U.S. right now. >Why didn't they make deals to do things that are good? ACA was good for millions of people. Republicans are set to erase that. No, both sides are not the same. >There are reasonable things Republicans want Like what? Ending birthright citizenship? Ending gay marriage? Ending a lot of things vulnerable people depend on? The damage Repulbicans are doing is a very long list. No, the Democrats do not have an equally long list. I'm going to go any further than this with you, it's pointless.
- righthand 2y ago
  The Democratic base is tired of reaching across the aisle only to have their hands slapped and be met with disapproval and silence. This will all be a huge blow back very soon but it also means the angry people will look to revenge. And revenge means a D Potus coming in and doing things like firing every Republican they can, attempting to redirect funds. A lot of flip floppers often quote “both sides” talking points but both-sides-arguments only really apply in the context of what has happened historically and lack of willingness to set new precedents (I need all the flaws to also win mentality). Those arguments aren’t helpful in the actual solution to the problem. Even though the arguer isn’t exactly incorrect. IMO, the only revenge that will work is by making laws forcing both sides to legislate. Idk what that looks like but not legislating has led to interpreting the law as acceptable behavior for the team to win, not interpreting the law as applied against the acting individual. However something like a legislation quota sounds messy and easily abused in a country of lobbyists. The only other solution is getting non-term limited people to agree to term limits.
  - righthand 2y ago
    A political comment is about to be the fuel that shoots me over 1k karma. Apply your down-votes here to help keep me grounded.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    The best solution would be a reform of the voting system. It has become clear over the last decades that a two-party system slowly radicalizes both sides. It is also very problematic in the face of single-issue voters. But the two-party system exists just because first-past-the-post voting makes it a strategically bad choice to vote for anyone but the two dominant parties, and makes party-internal reform hard by making it a nonstarter to split a party, no matter how severe the disagreement. Now first-past-the-post made some sense in the 1700s, but with the vastly improved communication of the 1900s and 2000s it's just a bad voting system. Basically anything else is better.
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      Someone has to do those reforms in the first place.
1propionyl 2y ago
You might be surprised to learn (it surprised me too!) that the new FTC leadership has affirmed Khan and Kantor's 2023 guidelines on anti-trust and stated they will carry forward with them. It's an odd situation where more aggressive anti-trust posture is actually rather popular with Trump's base. Anecdotally, I know several 2024 Trump voters who cite Khan's FTC as the thing they liked the most (or only) under Biden. I tend to agree with you otherwise, but this issue does have a bipartisan consensus forming and it's unwise to seek conflict where you share values. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-enforcers-affirm-lina-khans https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-enforcers-affirm-li...
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  For all the weight that carries in an environment where an un-elected billionaire can come in and ransack the place at a moments notice.
  - 1propionyl 2y ago
    On some level I hope he tries. There's already mounting hostility on the populist wing of the right towards Elon. Going after anti-trust might just be the bridge too far. And frankly, given his public comments about and noted vitriol towards Lina Khan and the FTC (and his own tendencies towards seeking monopolies) I assume at some point he'll try. Further, purely speculating: it may be he already has tried. It's indicative that we didn't immediately see him go for the FTC. He's too small of a man to not have wanted to for personal reasons, and too greedy to not have wanted to for long-term business reasons. I have to wonder if he was restrained from doing so on account of (correctly) predicted blowback from such an action. Seeming to come down on the side of John Deere and DuPont subsidiaries and spinoffs is not a smart move. These are hot issues for the populist wing of the party who want to purge what they label as the "Con(servative) Inc" wing and routinely make hobbyhorses of issues affecting farmers in flyover states.
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
      well then you will be surprised by the facts. trump just sided with khan on this issue
throwawaymaths 2y ago
what are you talking about? > the Trump administration ratified that the merger guidelines from the Biden administration are a fair reading of the law.
easterncalculus 2y ago
You clearly don't read Matt's newsletter if you're trying to paint that he's somehow a Trump fan. The point is that the administration has taken some surprising stances affirming some pro-labor results, but probably not in a way that's more than posturing.
dang 2y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, please don't post shallow dismissals of other people's work, please omit internet tropes, and please don't use HN for political battle. This is all in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. (I'm not arguing with you politically btw—just trying to avoid what predictably leads to repetitive and generic, and therefore bad, HN threads.)
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  People are, unfortunately but rightfully, angry. I don't envy you your job the next few years.
  - dang 2y ago
    For sure they are rightfully angry. From a moderation point of view, should we let that anger, however rightful, break this site for its intended purpose? I don't see what good that would do. (I realize you weren't arguing for that)
- milktoastdan 2y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Sometimes I wonder whether you were ordered to take a "neutral" editorial stance that was favorable to tech nazis or whether you did it by accident. In the end it doesn't matter all that much. Getting trump and musk in power was the most significant project you've ever contributed to, and you're going to be hearing about it for the rest of your life.
  - dang 2y ago
    No one ordered me to take any "editorial stance" about anything. In fact no one at YC has ever ordered me to do anything. That's one reason I'm grateful for the job. The only people "ordering" me are HN users with strong feelings. Some even say things that feel like threats. p.s. I'm not sure why, but your comment got me thinking about the lines "everything is political" and "neutrality is not possible"—lines I mostly agree with and (believe it or not) keep in mind while moderating HN—yet which somehow push people to a place where the only thing they feel they can do is destroy each other. It must be possible to recognize how (nearly) everything has a political valence and (nearly) nothing is neutral, while still finding some option other than banding with one tribe to destroy another. Yet that is the pressure we all seem to end up feeling. To that my answer is no—I don't believe it is the only choice, political though everything may be.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>The Trump administration is tearing down every regulatory part of government capable of limiting corporations Even Trump is against Big Tech. We're seeing right now how much of that brown nosing is making him look the other way. It's not a certainty Also, the government isn't in entire lock step with trump just yet. People are still trying to do some good while they can.
- daveguy 2y ago
  Trump is for whoever brown noses the most. He has no independent preferences. Big tech gave him millions, now he's for big tech, but only the ones who donated. Most of them figured out that Trump is for sale to every bidder and got in line. Don't be naive.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I agree. I also note that Trump also isn't credible in the slightest. He could take all that money and decide to "only" break up a few divisions instead of the biggest sectors. Very few people are coming out of this unscathed. Even among billionaires.

[flagged]

True. I would expect a big reversal at some point, with confiscatory tax rises. The Democratic base is angrier than I've ever seen it.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
We have to fail to succeed again.
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Yes, if history has taught us anything it's that the pendulum will swing back. Sometimes it takes a decade, sometimes it takes 500 years, but it always comes back. Hopefully we'll be alive to see it!
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    The problem we've consistently had is that when Democrats run they say they're going to do something about these megacorps and then when they get in years pass and the corporations have only swallowed even more of each other up. Then Republicans say they're going to lower taxes and streamline regulations and they get in and government revenue as a percent of GDP never really goes down and the number of pages of legislation keeps going up. It would be nice if either of them would actually do the thing they say they're going to do.
    - Henchman21 2y ago
      There are pretty big differences between the parties but one thing they both do incredibly well is bold-faced lying the to public. Its all a game to these clowns who have been in power for 40+ years. Chuck Schumer & Mitch McConnell are different sides of the same coin and that coin ain’t in our pockets. That coin belongs to the multinational billionaire class.
      - onemoresoop 2y ago
        When things become really bad lying won’t help anymore. The more delayed the response the more violent it will become
        threecheese 2y ago
        The lies are indistinguishable from facts these days, which doesn’t change your assertion of violence IMO - just that it’s unlikely to be targeted at the actual problem
        onemoresoop 2y ago
        No, the lies are so bad, self contradictory and illogical that they stand out quite easily. They are very easy to expose as lies. The problem is that there are so many of them that it makes focusing harder on the problem at hand. But we don’t need to be stupid and start laboriously fact checking everything, we could be much smarter than that. We could localize the sources where these lies originate.
    - leptons 2y ago
      >It would be nice if either of them would actually do the thing they say they're going to do. It would be nice if voters voted. It would be nice if voters actually gave the Democrats enough power in Congress (and POTUS) to enact the legislation they want instead of being obstructed by Republicans at every single turn. Mitch McConnel famously obstructed Obama and prevented him from seating a SCOTUS judge because "it's too close to an election" that was a year away. So when you call out Democrats as doing nothing, please realize it isn't for lack of trying, it's for lack of power that the people didn't give them.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        The US has had antitrust laws on the books for more than a century. Obama was President for 8 years and Biden for 4. How many megacorps were broken up? Why are Visa and Mastercard still a thing? Obama had control over the House and Senate during his first term. Republicans filibuster things that Republican constituencies have strong objections to, but they're not going to put up a strong defense of Hollywood or Facebook etc., so why didn't they go after the villains in their own house? Why didn't either of them pardon Snowden? Why didn't they make deals to do things that are good? There are reasonable things Republicans want that it's the Democrats who strongly oppose, like school choice, or loser-pays for civil court cases against non-megacorps. If you're not willing to give any of that stuff up and you want them to give up things that their constituents oppose, of course they fight you tooth and nail. But if you could find a way to be objective for a moment, some of the things your side wants are bad or at least not great and you only want them because their interest groups are in your tent. Instead of finding a compromise where the public gets screwed to benefit the interest groups on both sides, you could find a compromise where the interest groups on both sides get screwed to benefit the public. Yet they don't.
        leptons 2y ago
        >Obama had control over the House and Senate during his first term. Not for the full term, only 2 years, where he got ACA enacted. So don't act like he had completely free reign for 8 years, or that he didn't get anything done. >Why didn't either of them pardon Snowden? Nobody would pardon Snowden, he ran. Obama let Manning off pretty easily because she came to justice, and he said if Snowden wanted to face justice, he'd likely be free in the U.S. right now. >Why didn't they make deals to do things that are good? ACA was good for millions of people. Republicans are set to erase that. No, both sides are not the same. >There are reasonable things Republicans want Like what? Ending birthright citizenship? Ending gay marriage? Ending a lot of things vulnerable people depend on? The damage Repulbicans are doing is a very long list. No, the Democrats do not have an equally long list. I'm going to go any further than this with you, it's pointless.
righthand 2y ago
The Democratic base is tired of reaching across the aisle only to have their hands slapped and be met with disapproval and silence. This will all be a huge blow back very soon but it also means the angry people will look to revenge. And revenge means a D Potus coming in and doing things like firing every Republican they can, attempting to redirect funds. A lot of flip floppers often quote “both sides” talking points but both-sides-arguments only really apply in the context of what has happened historically and lack of willingness to set new precedents (I need all the flaws to also win mentality). Those arguments aren’t helpful in the actual solution to the problem. Even though the arguer isn’t exactly incorrect. IMO, the only revenge that will work is by making laws forcing both sides to legislate. Idk what that looks like but not legislating has led to interpreting the law as acceptable behavior for the team to win, not interpreting the law as applied against the acting individual. However something like a legislation quota sounds messy and easily abused in a country of lobbyists. The only other solution is getting non-term limited people to agree to term limits.
- righthand 2y ago
  A political comment is about to be the fuel that shoots me over 1k karma. Apply your down-votes here to help keep me grounded.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  The best solution would be a reform of the voting system. It has become clear over the last decades that a two-party system slowly radicalizes both sides. It is also very problematic in the face of single-issue voters. But the two-party system exists just because first-past-the-post voting makes it a strategically bad choice to vote for anyone but the two dominant parties, and makes party-internal reform hard by making it a nonstarter to split a party, no matter how severe the disagreement. Now first-past-the-post made some sense in the 1700s, but with the vastly improved communication of the 1900s and 2000s it's just a bad voting system. Basically anything else is better.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    Someone has to do those reforms in the first place.

1propionyl 2y ago

You might be surprised to learn (it surprised me too!) that the new FTC leadership has affirmed Khan and Kantor's 2023 guidelines on anti-trust and stated they will carry forward with them. It's an odd situation where more aggressive anti-trust posture is actually rather popular with Trump's base. Anecdotally, I know several 2024 Trump voters who cite Khan's FTC as the thing they liked the most (or only) under Biden. I tend to agree with you otherwise, but this issue does have a bipartisan consensus forming and it's unwise to seek conflict where you share values. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-enforcers-affirm-lina-khans https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-enforcers-affirm-li...

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
For all the weight that carries in an environment where an un-elected billionaire can come in and ransack the place at a moments notice.
- 1propionyl 2y ago
  On some level I hope he tries. There's already mounting hostility on the populist wing of the right towards Elon. Going after anti-trust might just be the bridge too far. And frankly, given his public comments about and noted vitriol towards Lina Khan and the FTC (and his own tendencies towards seeking monopolies) I assume at some point he'll try. Further, purely speculating: it may be he already has tried. It's indicative that we didn't immediately see him go for the FTC. He's too small of a man to not have wanted to for personal reasons, and too greedy to not have wanted to for long-term business reasons. I have to wonder if he was restrained from doing so on account of (correctly) predicted blowback from such an action. Seeming to come down on the side of John Deere and DuPont subsidiaries and spinoffs is not a smart move. These are hot issues for the populist wing of the party who want to purge what they label as the "Con(servative) Inc" wing and routinely make hobbyhorses of issues affecting farmers in flyover states.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    well then you will be surprised by the facts. trump just sided with khan on this issue

throwawaymaths 2y ago

what are you talking about? > the Trump administration ratified that the merger guidelines from the Biden administration are a fair reading of the law.

easterncalculus 2y ago

You clearly don't read Matt's newsletter if you're trying to paint that he's somehow a Trump fan. The point is that the administration has taken some surprising stances affirming some pro-labor results, but probably not in a way that's more than posturing.

dang 2y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, please don't post shallow dismissals of other people's work, please omit internet tropes, and please don't use HN for political battle. This is all in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. (I'm not arguing with you politically btw—just trying to avoid what predictably leads to repetitive and generic, and therefore bad, HN threads.)

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
People are, unfortunately but rightfully, angry. I don't envy you your job the next few years.
- dang 2y ago
  For sure they are rightfully angry. From a moderation point of view, should we let that anger, however rightful, break this site for its intended purpose? I don't see what good that would do. (I realize you weren't arguing for that)
milktoastdan 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
giraffe_lady 2y ago
Sometimes I wonder whether you were ordered to take a "neutral" editorial stance that was favorable to tech nazis or whether you did it by accident. In the end it doesn't matter all that much. Getting trump and musk in power was the most significant project you've ever contributed to, and you're going to be hearing about it for the rest of your life.
- dang 2y ago
  No one ordered me to take any "editorial stance" about anything. In fact no one at YC has ever ordered me to do anything. That's one reason I'm grateful for the job. The only people "ordering" me are HN users with strong feelings. Some even say things that feel like threats. p.s. I'm not sure why, but your comment got me thinking about the lines "everything is political" and "neutrality is not possible"—lines I mostly agree with and (believe it or not) keep in mind while moderating HN—yet which somehow push people to a place where the only thing they feel they can do is destroy each other. It must be possible to recognize how (nearly) everything has a political valence and (nearly) nothing is neutral, while still finding some option other than banding with one tribe to destroy another. Yet that is the pressure we all seem to end up feeling. To that my answer is no—I don't believe it is the only choice, political though everything may be.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>The Trump administration is tearing down every regulatory part of government capable of limiting corporations Even Trump is against Big Tech. We're seeing right now how much of that brown nosing is making him look the other way. It's not a certainty Also, the government isn't in entire lock step with trump just yet. People are still trying to do some good while they can.

daveguy 2y ago
Trump is for whoever brown noses the most. He has no independent preferences. Big tech gave him millions, now he's for big tech, but only the ones who donated. Most of them figured out that Trump is for sale to every bidder and got in line. Don't be naive.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I agree. I also note that Trump also isn't credible in the slightest. He could take all that money and decide to "only" break up a few divisions instead of the biggest sectors. Very few people are coming out of this unscathed. Even among billionaires.