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I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? He even does this bizarre maffia like deals out in the open for his own interest, t

I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? He even does this bizarre maffia like deals out in the open for his own interest, that's how confident he is no one will say anything The message is clear from his circus administration, you can do anything as long as you bribe them

bityard 1y ago
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- daveguy 1y ago
  Well, to be fair, 7 million showed up in the streets on Saturday. Up from 5 million before and up from 3 million before that. The last election was decided by 2.3 million votes. Edit1: That's not to say don't worry about it. That's to say everyone can show their displeasure with peaceful protest and involvement/activism that will make it clear the people of the US disagree with this corruption. No matter how much any internet groups scream "stolen". Edit2: people vastly underestimate, in their media bubbles, how many showed up from "red" states.
  - coliveira 1y ago
    From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
    - nobody9999 1y ago
      >From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US. That's not really true. Check the margins of victory in so-called "swing" states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina) for Trump and compare that with each state's turnout at last weekend's protests. So no. Many more than "close to zero" of those folks will be deciding the next presidential election. Edit: Corrected prose.
    - daveguy 1y ago
      I think you underestimate how many showed up in and from red states. And how many don't get their news from Fox/NewsMax/Trump/Social. At least that's one good thing about all the AI polluting social media with obnoxious slop.
      - coliveira 1y ago
        Ok, so the ones that showed up in red states basically don't count. That's the very definition of a red state. The ones that showed up on blue states as well. The ones in swing states may make some difference, the problem is that they almost certainly already voted blue in the last election. That's why i'm pretty confident that, unfortunately, these numbers won't make much difference.
        daveguy 1y ago
        I also believe you are making a category error expecting the next election to be like the last. His shift in approval has already been ~20% for the worse. And people aren't going to forget the demolition of the Whitehouse for a golden ballroom while Republicans twiddle their thumbs.
- jrockway 1y ago
  I mean, we shut down the government and so now we're just waiting (a year) for the midterms. What else do you expect people to do? Among other things, people are constantly challenging Trump in court and have reversed many of his policies. For example, my passport needed to be renewed this year and he signed an executive order saying I couldn't get an accurate one. The ACLU sued him and now I have an accurate passport. Living your best life in spite of his attempts to ruin it is a valid form of resistance. He wants to erase trans people. I'm out there not being erased. That's something.
  - dboreham 1y ago
    > we shut down the government The government clearly isn't shut down. I'm still paying taxes through the eftps web site. Only the parts that the executive wants shut down are actually shut down. Perhaps "degraded" is a better word.
  - oniony 1y ago
    I'm from the UK and don't understand what you mean by accurate passport? Would you mind explaining?
    - jrockway 1y ago
      https://www.aclu.org/cases/orr-v-trump https://www.aclu.org/cases/orr-v-trump
      - oniony 1y ago
        Thank you
    - collingreen 1y ago
      It's about a question of if you get to decide the "sex" or "gender" field on your own documents or does the government get to decide and give you no input and no recourse.
      - oniony 1y ago
- n3storm 1y ago
  In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle.
  - smt88 1y ago
    We inspired the French revolution and had a 7-million-person protest this past weekend.
  - viciousvoxel 1y ago
    There was a No Kings protest just a few days ago, millions of people across nearly every state demonstrated against the administration.
  - nobody9999 1y ago
    >In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle. Americans are not numb. And we have both of those things, or at least most of us do. What we don't have are strong unions. Less than 10% of American workers are union members. What's more, for as long as there have been unionization efforts in the US (150+ years), the forces of corporations, aided by the government -- to this day -- have suppressed those efforts -- for a long time, brutally and fatally -- and such suppression (although generally not with clubs and guns these days) continues, often with government support. As such, even a "general strike" would have minimal effect, as many union members are forbidden by law to strike (in various jurisdictions, police, fire departments and others). The vast majority of US workers are "at will" workers whose employment can be terminated at any time, for any (or no) reason. Workers can do so just the same as employers, so it's definitely fair! More than half of Americans can't afford an unexpected $USD600 expense. As such, how many do you expect to essentially quit their jobs (possibly multiple jobs) to join a "general strike"? Labor and unions don't work in the US the same way they do in say, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries with high levels of unionization[0] As much as I'd love to see repeated "general strikes" in the US, protesting the anti-democratic (small 'd') assaults on the rule of law, freedom of expression and due process, given the state of organized labor in the US, that's just not going to happen. As such, we organize where we can and mobilize widely. As the pain comes, more and more of folks will begin to see the problem. I hope it won't come too late. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_trade_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_t...
mbfg 1y ago
"I Could ... Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters" - Trump
AISnakeOil 1y ago
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themafia 1y ago
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- i34ubt4q2 1y ago
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j2kun 1y ago
They wouldn't be fine with it if they understood it. Instead they are not paying attention and only consuming propaganda media (Fox News) that refuses to report on Trump negatively in any way.
- yanslookup 1y ago
  Not sure we can blame fox news, it has like 5MM peak daily viewership... FB, Twitter, Tiktok on the other hand...
  - mmooss 1y ago
    Note that they all are, or will soon be controlled by one political grouping.
- coliveira 1y ago
  We're long past the time when FoxNews was the main vector. Now the propaganda is coming from social networks and mainstream media that is afraid of consequences if they tell the truth. It's all just a big mafia system.
froggertoaster 1y ago
Hi, Trump voter here. I'm NOT fine with this.
- mcmcmc 1y ago
  If you’re not fine with criminals who get away with fraud, why vote for a well known fraudster? He’s been conning people since the 80s
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- deleted 1y ago
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- vel0city 1y ago
  Honestly, why did you vote for this then?
- deleted 1y ago
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- greenpizza13 1y ago
  Well, you voted for it. Were you not capable of critical thought when you entered the voting booth?
  - 0xedd 1y ago
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- leptons 1y ago
  You knew who he is, and you voted for him anyway. You really didn't see this kind of rampant corruption coming from his 2nd term?
- i34ubt4q2 1y ago
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coliveira 1y ago
Americans cannot accept they have a corrupt government lead by a corrupt politician who is now corrupting the justice system. They prefer to continue propagating the myth of a "healthy democracy" and "open market".
- leptons 1y ago
  I personally do not know any Americans that are as you described. 1/3 of Americans are as you describe, 1/3 are definitely not at all as you described, and another 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything. The recent "No Kings" protests were the largest in US history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstrations_in_the_United_States_by_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstra...
  - RandallBrown 1y ago
    > 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything I think at least some of that 1/3 has their own problems that prevent them from being able to devote energy to politics
    - taurath 1y ago
      I mean, their problems are politics, they just can’t do anything about them
      - econ 1y ago
        There are many things anyone can do. You are not giving enough credit to the people shutting them down one by one. You won't hear them say they can't do anything.
    - leptons 1y ago
      I know of way too many people that "aren't political" or just don't want to think about it. That's not the same as "having their own problems", that's juvenile behavior.
dylan604 1y ago
Most polls that I've seen show it closer to 40% than half
- lateforwork 1y ago
  Yes, and that's depressing. Why are so many people not understanding what is going on? Reminds me of this Bill Gates quote: "We were a bit naive: we thought the internet, with the availability of information, would make us all a lot more factual. The fact that people would seek out—kind of a niche of misinformation—we were a bit naive."
ilikecakeandpie 1y ago
It's not half. I think close to 32% were fully supportive (voted for him) and around 36% sat at home or abstained, but in practicality they basically said they were fine with whoever won. I don't know which is worse, that 32% were in support of the corrupt leader or that 68% in total are either supported him or didn't care enough to support anyone else
- thunky 1y ago
  > around 36% sat at home or abstained, but in practicality they basically said they were fine with whoever won. Or, they were not fine with whoever won. We've got two abismal parties to choose from. Yes, there's an agument for voting for the lesser of two evils, but it's not a great one. I'd like to believe at least some of those 36% would vote for a decent candidate/party. But once you lose faith in the system, and realize that it doesn't represent you, you might just stop participating in it.
  - hirsin 1y ago
    Those are the same thing in our system.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    By not voting, you are clearly saying you are fine with whoever wins. If you were not fine with whoever wins, you would have voted for someone, anyone else.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      Participation adds a moral dimension. It becomes a trolly problem — do you throw the switch and take culpability for the outcome?
      - groby_b 1y ago
        Not participating in the trolley problem does not remove questions of moral responsibility. You had the choice to throw the lever, you said "either outcome is fine". That's your choice. "I don't participate at all" doesn't work unless it makes the whole trolley go poof.
Workaccount2 1y ago
He pardoned the guy from Nikola, Trevor Milton, that staged a product demo to trick investors. Why? Milton hired Pam Bondi's (the US attorney general's) brother to represent him.
- jimmydoe 1y ago
  King has to show his power by doing bad things constantly. If he only does good, he's just a people pleaser.
gchamonlive 1y ago
> I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader It's because you are still thinking of the USA as a democracy. Musk helped buy the election for Trump. It's an open oligarchy since companies were allowed an opinion as if they were citizens. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citi...
Havoc 1y ago
>I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? Don't think fox news is going to report that he enriched the prez...
- madmountaingoat 1y ago
  I think most actually know and don't think it's all that much different from what other have done for decades. I'm not saying they are correct to think it, just that they do think it. They think it's refreshing that the corruption is in the open. It's a societal boy-cried-wolf numbness. People are tired of the of finger pointing and screaming about every thing and now don't listen when the real stuff goes down.
  - Havoc 1y ago
    Yeah that seems possible too. Sad but plausible
mightyham 1y ago
Is the irony not lost you that Joe Biden pardoned his own son for crimes he was absolutely guilty of. I don't see how that is any less corrupt. This isn't whatboutism either because I'm not trying to say that what Trump is doing is okay, I'm pointing out that this behavior is not particular to Trump and his supporters. The large majority of Americans are fine with corruption as long as it's their team.
- darkarmani 1y ago
  One can not be happy with that and understand that Trump would have found ways to lock up his son for 20 years. No one thinks this dude was going to be punished for political reasons.
- cthalupa 1y ago
  Biden pardoning his son was widely condemned by Democrats. This is despite the fact that Hunter was gone after on a charge that is basically never enforced alongside a media and political campaign ramping up all sorts of lies and half-truths and trying to draw connections to things he was never on trial for, much less convicted of, with an incoming president that had spoken extensively about his desire to weaponize the government to enact revenge on his political rivals, which we have seen him do extensively already. I don't like that Biden pardoned his son, but I also think the idea that it is at all comparable to the pardons Trump has issued that are blatantly corrupt is absurd. Meanwhile, Jan6 pardonees have a whole Wikipedia section detailing all of the crimes they have gone on to commit since being pardoned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack_defendants#January_6_defendants_involved_in_further_crimes_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_Sta...
  - selfmodruntime 1y ago
    No. You are making it seem like Biden pardoned his family for petty crimes. He pardoned them in advance for any crime they have committed that is yet unknown. That‘s an unprecedented move and you claiming the other side will „come after your family“ basically confirms that the legal system is corrupt and that there is reasonable ground to do so.
adastra22 1y ago
Only had of Americans vote, only half of them voted for Trump, and his approval rating is down significantly since inauguration. It is not accurate to say that half of Americans are ok with this. It’s just our system doesn’t allow for doing anything about it except wait.
- vkou 1y ago
  Arguing over whether half or a third are okay with this is splitting hairs anytime that isn't an election (where these margins matter). That even a third is okay with this is a clear enough signal. He represents their values.
- krior 1y ago
  > It’s just our system doesn’t allow for doing anything about it except wait. "Healthy democracy"
mulmen 1y ago
Half of America isn’t fine with Trump. Only 22.3% of Americans voted for him and his approval rating has gone down significantly since then.
- groby_b 1y ago
  Another 36% could've voted against him and chose not to. Even accounting for some amount literally unable to reach the poll booth, yeah, half of America.
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VoodooJuJu 1y ago
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rhetocj23 1y ago
Its difficult to digest lol. Im from Europe but damn I feel the Americans - its legit embarrassing to watch.
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meowface 1y ago
Everything about him since 2015 has been absolutely egregious. Anyone who hadn't realized it by 2016 will never change their tune. Even if he declares martial law for no good reason they're all still going to justify it somehow. Anyone who's hung on this long will be along for the ride forever.
holmesworcester 1y ago
I know HN viscerally hates crypto, and yes Trump is embarrassingly corrupt, but the charges against CZ were a greater wrong than whatever quid pro quo happened in the pardon. This is the most embarrassing part of all of it. The US is ping ponging between two very different ways of misusing state power. CZ was charged with violating a highly technical US securities law that is not common to most countries despite not being a US citizen or ever setting foot in the US. His crime was letting his employees (also non-US and under no affirmative obligation to learn the laws of every country in the world just because they run a website) tell crypto whales they could use VPNs to get the non-US, non-nerfed version of Binance. The public's interest in protecting crypto whales from Binance is extremely tenuous. Unsophisticated users would hit the geofence. These were whales using Binance because they wanted to, not because they were tricked. The US's right to enforce arcane securities law outside its own borders is also very tenuous. If every country pulls this level of aggressive enforcement of atypical law on every website (even geofenced ones!) we will have total chaos. Should China, Russia, or India be able to hunt you down for violating some arcane law? No? Then why should the US? This is also happening in the context of an active public debate over the application of this law within the US, one cryptocurrency supporters won fairly definitively in the last election. Whatever discretion the law provides US enforcers, they should have recognized that it was wrong to use that discretion and left CZ alone once Binance made reasonable gestures at compliance. Instead, once their political coalition signaled that they should put symbolic heads on platters, they went about scoring career points. This is the kind of misbehavior that drove Aaron Swartz (a friend of mine) to suicide. We should be clear that it's wrong. And here we are. A choice between venal corruption and cruel punching down at immigrants on one side, and a blind, symbolic use of power for power and ideology's sake on the other.
- yunohn 1y ago
  I don’t think the problem is HN’s hate of crypto - it’s the horrendously ignorant takes like these that people dislike. Surely you don’t believe that CZ was charged for shits and giggles, just because he happened to make a website that Americans use?
- dylanfw 1y ago
  > his employees (also non-US and under no affirmative obligation to learn the laws of every country in the world just because they run a website) Employees of financial businesses are absolutely obligated to learn the laws of every country where they provide services.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? They've normalized corruption irrespective of magnitude. That's partly a problem of the little corruption existing in the first place. But it's also a problem of education and tribal populism being given this much power.
charles_f 1y ago
It is disconcerting. Having discussed openly with people who were supportive of similar politicians, their logic is often in the line of "all of them are corrupt, but at least his politics are different". Now when you point that certainly corruption exists, but this is another level, they're getting into non-logical territory. People perceive times as grim and will take whomever offers something else than the status-quo baseline politician I guess. Even if they grift throughout and everyone's worse off in the end. On a baser level, if you go on twitter, there's a whole slew of delusional people who either don't believe this because of "fake news", another portion that's in the same "Clinton/Obama/Biden were even worse", and the rest just doesn't even care so long as "the libs are owned".
SmirkingRevenge 1y ago
The thing is, most won't hear about this at all. It's always amazing to talk to a Trump voter and realize they don't actually hear about most of this stuff And if it does break through the right info bubbles, right-wing media pundits and influencers will be on-the-ready to quickly rationalize or what-about it away and coax their audiences back to their "happy" places, where they can nurse their favorite grievances about the left, the media, the trans people, etc
godelski 1y ago
Because it isn't about actions, it is about sides. Tribalism. It is the loss of complexity. Many cannot understand that by choosing the lesser of two evils does not mean you support evil. It means your choices are limited. We have turned the political issues into good and evil, rather than disagreements in how to achieve our mostly shared goals. We can no longer see the other side as friends and family, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyone countering this can just proclaim "both sides" and in some sense they will be right, they have evidence and people do abuse that framework. But at the same time that destroys the bridge between us. The abuse of calling both sides evil along with the accusation that all use cases are instances of abuse. It binarizes the environment, creating a simple world where there are only two choices. Which is easy to do when everything is so complex, as we're so tired and don't want to think. It's also why this administration's strategy is so effective: overload the opposition. After all, Brandolini's Law states: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it." They've weaponized it. It's an effective strategy, and hard to defend against. I'm sure someone will offer a solution, "it's so simple, you just..." and we perpetuate the game.
russellbeattie 1y ago
It's easy to explain: They have no idea what's happening. Most people can't keep up with the firehose of news and don't really want to. This particular bit of unethical behavior is just one more bit of inconsequential news which will have completely disappeared from the headlines by tomorrow. It basically never happened to 95% of the country, regardless of political leaning. Secondly, conservatives live in their own highly filtered and mutated information bubble. Good news is amplified, bad news is either downplayed, justified (pure fiction is acceptable) or simply ignored. So even if they do hear about this, it won't be a big deal. In short, most people won't care, and conservative media will actively work to overlook or more often, rationalize this sort of unethical behavior to the point where it somehow is totally fine. (Simply read this thread to watch it happen in real time.)
cols 1y ago
Watching the Great Brainwash happen in real time has given me (I hope) a lot of insight into how anti-fascist Germans must have felt before WWII. It's a hell of a thing to watch half the people you know fall victim to the deluge of simplistic, feral propaganda that's been pouring out of our media sources for quite some time now. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other socials being the primary driving force. All platforms that are incentivized to spread rage and misinformation, and yet we can't seem to quit them as a culture. We rationalized their existence and non-regulation because BUSINESS and FREE MARKET. It's a real sad time for America. We should have known better. It's all of our faults, collectively. For not being big enough to shun the pressure and money. For not doing what was right all along. Now, we'll reap the whirlwind.
_jsmh 1y ago
I want to understand what you said. You assumed the leader is corrupt, possibly assumed the leader has bad intentions, and that the world can't possibly be more complex than these assumptions. Assumed the leader made this choice instead of a team behind him. Then presented a generality. Possibly assumed he doesn't know more than you and "everyone who won't say anything". Called an entire administration a circus. Another generality. Suggested bribery without evidence. How does one respond constructively to a comment like this?
- ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
  >How does one respond constructively to a comment like this? How indeed? You certainly didn't.

bityard 1y ago

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daveguy 1y ago
Well, to be fair, 7 million showed up in the streets on Saturday. Up from 5 million before and up from 3 million before that. The last election was decided by 2.3 million votes. Edit1: That's not to say don't worry about it. That's to say everyone can show their displeasure with peaceful protest and involvement/activism that will make it clear the people of the US disagree with this corruption. No matter how much any internet groups scream "stolen". Edit2: people vastly underestimate, in their media bubbles, how many showed up from "red" states.
- coliveira 1y ago
  From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US.
  - nobody9999 1y ago
    >From the 7 millions that did show up, very close to zero of them will be deciding the next election due to the way the election system works in the US. That's not really true. Check the margins of victory in so-called "swing" states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina) for Trump and compare that with each state's turnout at last weekend's protests. So no. Many more than "close to zero" of those folks will be deciding the next presidential election. Edit: Corrected prose.
  - daveguy 1y ago
    I think you underestimate how many showed up in and from red states. And how many don't get their news from Fox/NewsMax/Trump/Social. At least that's one good thing about all the AI polluting social media with obnoxious slop.
    - coliveira 1y ago
      Ok, so the ones that showed up in red states basically don't count. That's the very definition of a red state. The ones that showed up on blue states as well. The ones in swing states may make some difference, the problem is that they almost certainly already voted blue in the last election. That's why i'm pretty confident that, unfortunately, these numbers won't make much difference.
      - daveguy 1y ago
        I also believe you are making a category error expecting the next election to be like the last. His shift in approval has already been ~20% for the worse. And people aren't going to forget the demolition of the Whitehouse for a golden ballroom while Republicans twiddle their thumbs.
jrockway 1y ago
I mean, we shut down the government and so now we're just waiting (a year) for the midterms. What else do you expect people to do? Among other things, people are constantly challenging Trump in court and have reversed many of his policies. For example, my passport needed to be renewed this year and he signed an executive order saying I couldn't get an accurate one. The ACLU sued him and now I have an accurate passport. Living your best life in spite of his attempts to ruin it is a valid form of resistance. He wants to erase trans people. I'm out there not being erased. That's something.
- dboreham 1y ago
  > we shut down the government The government clearly isn't shut down. I'm still paying taxes through the eftps web site. Only the parts that the executive wants shut down are actually shut down. Perhaps "degraded" is a better word.
- oniony 1y ago
  I'm from the UK and don't understand what you mean by accurate passport? Would you mind explaining?
  - jrockway 1y ago
    https://www.aclu.org/cases/orr-v-trump https://www.aclu.org/cases/orr-v-trump
    - oniony 1y ago
      Thank you
  - collingreen 1y ago
    It's about a question of if you get to decide the "sex" or "gender" field on your own documents or does the government get to decide and give you no input and no recourse.
    - oniony 1y ago
n3storm 1y ago
In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle.
- smt88 1y ago
  We inspired the French revolution and had a 7-million-person protest this past weekend.
- viciousvoxel 1y ago
  There was a No Kings protest just a few days ago, millions of people across nearly every state demonstrated against the administration.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >In many parts of Europe a couple of strikes would have taken place. Usans are numb or has no social conscience and muscle. Americans are not numb. And we have both of those things, or at least most of us do. What we don't have are strong unions. Less than 10% of American workers are union members. What's more, for as long as there have been unionization efforts in the US (150+ years), the forces of corporations, aided by the government -- to this day -- have suppressed those efforts -- for a long time, brutally and fatally -- and such suppression (although generally not with clubs and guns these days) continues, often with government support. As such, even a "general strike" would have minimal effect, as many union members are forbidden by law to strike (in various jurisdictions, police, fire departments and others). The vast majority of US workers are "at will" workers whose employment can be terminated at any time, for any (or no) reason. Workers can do so just the same as employers, so it's definitely fair! More than half of Americans can't afford an unexpected $USD600 expense. As such, how many do you expect to essentially quit their jobs (possibly multiple jobs) to join a "general strike"? Labor and unions don't work in the US the same way they do in say, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and other countries with high levels of unionization[0] As much as I'd love to see repeated "general strikes" in the US, protesting the anti-democratic (small 'd') assaults on the rule of law, freedom of expression and due process, given the state of organized labor in the US, that's just not going to happen. As such, we organize where we can and mobilize widely. As the pain comes, more and more of folks will begin to see the problem. I hope it won't come too late. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_trade_unions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_t...

mbfg 1y ago

"I Could ... Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters" - Trump

AISnakeOil 1y ago

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themafia 1y ago

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i34ubt4q2 1y ago
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j2kun 1y ago

They wouldn't be fine with it if they understood it. Instead they are not paying attention and only consuming propaganda media (Fox News) that refuses to report on Trump negatively in any way.

yanslookup 1y ago
Not sure we can blame fox news, it has like 5MM peak daily viewership... FB, Twitter, Tiktok on the other hand...
- mmooss 1y ago
  Note that they all are, or will soon be controlled by one political grouping.
coliveira 1y ago
We're long past the time when FoxNews was the main vector. Now the propaganda is coming from social networks and mainstream media that is afraid of consequences if they tell the truth. It's all just a big mafia system.

froggertoaster 1y ago

Hi, Trump voter here. I'm NOT fine with this.

mcmcmc 1y ago
If you’re not fine with criminals who get away with fraud, why vote for a well known fraudster? He’s been conning people since the 80s
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vel0city 1y ago
Honestly, why did you vote for this then?
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greenpizza13 1y ago
Well, you voted for it. Were you not capable of critical thought when you entered the voting booth?
- 0xedd 1y ago
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leptons 1y ago
You knew who he is, and you voted for him anyway. You really didn't see this kind of rampant corruption coming from his 2nd term?
i34ubt4q2 1y ago
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coliveira 1y ago

Americans cannot accept they have a corrupt government lead by a corrupt politician who is now corrupting the justice system. They prefer to continue propagating the myth of a "healthy democracy" and "open market".

leptons 1y ago
I personally do not know any Americans that are as you described. 1/3 of Americans are as you describe, 1/3 are definitely not at all as you described, and another 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything. The recent "No Kings" protests were the largest in US history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstrations_in_the_United_States_by_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_and_demonstra...
- RandallBrown 1y ago
  > 1/3 is too apathetic to care about anything I think at least some of that 1/3 has their own problems that prevent them from being able to devote energy to politics
  - taurath 1y ago
    I mean, their problems are politics, they just can’t do anything about them
    - econ 1y ago
      There are many things anyone can do. You are not giving enough credit to the people shutting them down one by one. You won't hear them say they can't do anything.
  - leptons 1y ago
    I know of way too many people that "aren't political" or just don't want to think about it. That's not the same as "having their own problems", that's juvenile behavior.

dylan604 1y ago

Most polls that I've seen show it closer to 40% than half

lateforwork 1y ago
Yes, and that's depressing. Why are so many people not understanding what is going on? Reminds me of this Bill Gates quote: "We were a bit naive: we thought the internet, with the availability of information, would make us all a lot more factual. The fact that people would seek out—kind of a niche of misinformation—we were a bit naive."

ilikecakeandpie 1y ago

It's not half. I think close to 32% were fully supportive (voted for him) and around 36% sat at home or abstained, but in practicality they basically said they were fine with whoever won. I don't know which is worse, that 32% were in support of the corrupt leader or that 68% in total are either supported him or didn't care enough to support anyone else

thunky 1y ago
> around 36% sat at home or abstained, but in practicality they basically said they were fine with whoever won. Or, they were not fine with whoever won. We've got two abismal parties to choose from. Yes, there's an agument for voting for the lesser of two evils, but it's not a great one. I'd like to believe at least some of those 36% would vote for a decent candidate/party. But once you lose faith in the system, and realize that it doesn't represent you, you might just stop participating in it.
- hirsin 1y ago
  Those are the same thing in our system.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  By not voting, you are clearly saying you are fine with whoever wins. If you were not fine with whoever wins, you would have voted for someone, anyone else.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    Participation adds a moral dimension. It becomes a trolly problem — do you throw the switch and take culpability for the outcome?
    - groby_b 1y ago
      Not participating in the trolley problem does not remove questions of moral responsibility. You had the choice to throw the lever, you said "either outcome is fine". That's your choice. "I don't participate at all" doesn't work unless it makes the whole trolley go poof.

Workaccount2 1y ago

He pardoned the guy from Nikola, Trevor Milton, that staged a product demo to trick investors. Why? Milton hired Pam Bondi's (the US attorney general's) brother to represent him.

jimmydoe 1y ago
King has to show his power by doing bad things constantly. If he only does good, he's just a people pleaser.

gchamonlive 1y ago

> I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader It's because you are still thinking of the USA as a democracy. Musk helped buy the election for Trump. It's an open oligarchy since companies were allowed an opinion as if they were citizens. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citi...

Havoc 1y ago

>I cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? Don't think fox news is going to report that he enriched the prez...

madmountaingoat 1y ago
I think most actually know and don't think it's all that much different from what other have done for decades. I'm not saying they are correct to think it, just that they do think it. They think it's refreshing that the corruption is in the open. It's a societal boy-cried-wolf numbness. People are tired of the of finger pointing and screaming about every thing and now don't listen when the real stuff goes down.
- Havoc 1y ago
  Yeah that seems possible too. Sad but plausible

mightyham 1y ago

Is the irony not lost you that Joe Biden pardoned his own son for crimes he was absolutely guilty of. I don't see how that is any less corrupt. This isn't whatboutism either because I'm not trying to say that what Trump is doing is okay, I'm pointing out that this behavior is not particular to Trump and his supporters. The large majority of Americans are fine with corruption as long as it's their team.

darkarmani 1y ago
One can not be happy with that and understand that Trump would have found ways to lock up his son for 20 years. No one thinks this dude was going to be punished for political reasons.
cthalupa 1y ago
Biden pardoning his son was widely condemned by Democrats. This is despite the fact that Hunter was gone after on a charge that is basically never enforced alongside a media and political campaign ramping up all sorts of lies and half-truths and trying to draw connections to things he was never on trial for, much less convicted of, with an incoming president that had spoken extensively about his desire to weaponize the government to enact revenge on his political rivals, which we have seen him do extensively already. I don't like that Biden pardoned his son, but I also think the idea that it is at all comparable to the pardons Trump has issued that are blatantly corrupt is absurd. Meanwhile, Jan6 pardonees have a whole Wikipedia section detailing all of the crimes they have gone on to commit since being pardoned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack_defendants#January_6_defendants_involved_in_further_crimes_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_Sta...
- selfmodruntime 1y ago
  No. You are making it seem like Biden pardoned his family for petty crimes. He pardoned them in advance for any crime they have committed that is yet unknown. That‘s an unprecedented move and you claiming the other side will „come after your family“ basically confirms that the legal system is corrupt and that there is reasonable ground to do so.

adastra22 1y ago

Only had of Americans vote, only half of them voted for Trump, and his approval rating is down significantly since inauguration. It is not accurate to say that half of Americans are ok with this. It’s just our system doesn’t allow for doing anything about it except wait.

vkou 1y ago
Arguing over whether half or a third are okay with this is splitting hairs anytime that isn't an election (where these margins matter). That even a third is okay with this is a clear enough signal. He represents their values.
krior 1y ago
> It’s just our system doesn’t allow for doing anything about it except wait. "Healthy democracy"

mulmen 1y ago

Half of America isn’t fine with Trump. Only 22.3% of Americans voted for him and his approval rating has gone down significantly since then.

groby_b 1y ago
Another 36% could've voted against him and chose not to. Even accounting for some amount literally unable to reach the poll booth, yeah, half of America.
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VoodooJuJu 1y ago

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rhetocj23 1y ago

Its difficult to digest lol. Im from Europe but damn I feel the Americans - its legit embarrassing to watch.

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meowface 1y ago

Everything about him since 2015 has been absolutely egregious. Anyone who hadn't realized it by 2016 will never change their tune. Even if he declares martial law for no good reason they're all still going to justify it somehow. Anyone who's hung on this long will be along for the ride forever.

holmesworcester 1y ago

I know HN viscerally hates crypto, and yes Trump is embarrassingly corrupt, but the charges against CZ were a greater wrong than whatever quid pro quo happened in the pardon. This is the most embarrassing part of all of it. The US is ping ponging between two very different ways of misusing state power. CZ was charged with violating a highly technical US securities law that is not common to most countries despite not being a US citizen or ever setting foot in the US. His crime was letting his employees (also non-US and under no affirmative obligation to learn the laws of every country in the world just because they run a website) tell crypto whales they could use VPNs to get the non-US, non-nerfed version of Binance. The public's interest in protecting crypto whales from Binance is extremely tenuous. Unsophisticated users would hit the geofence. These were whales using Binance because they wanted to, not because they were tricked. The US's right to enforce arcane securities law outside its own borders is also very tenuous. If every country pulls this level of aggressive enforcement of atypical law on every website (even geofenced ones!) we will have total chaos. Should China, Russia, or India be able to hunt you down for violating some arcane law? No? Then why should the US? This is also happening in the context of an active public debate over the application of this law within the US, one cryptocurrency supporters won fairly definitively in the last election. Whatever discretion the law provides US enforcers, they should have recognized that it was wrong to use that discretion and left CZ alone once Binance made reasonable gestures at compliance. Instead, once their political coalition signaled that they should put symbolic heads on platters, they went about scoring career points. This is the kind of misbehavior that drove Aaron Swartz (a friend of mine) to suicide. We should be clear that it's wrong. And here we are. A choice between venal corruption and cruel punching down at immigrants on one side, and a blind, symbolic use of power for power and ideology's sake on the other.

yunohn 1y ago
I don’t think the problem is HN’s hate of crypto - it’s the horrendously ignorant takes like these that people dislike. Surely you don’t believe that CZ was charged for shits and giggles, just because he happened to make a website that Americans use?
dylanfw 1y ago
> his employees (also non-US and under no affirmative obligation to learn the laws of every country in the world just because they run a website) Employees of financial businesses are absolutely obligated to learn the laws of every country where they provide services.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> cannot comprehend how half of Americans are fine with this corrupt leader? They've normalized corruption irrespective of magnitude. That's partly a problem of the little corruption existing in the first place. But it's also a problem of education and tribal populism being given this much power.

charles_f 1y ago

It is disconcerting. Having discussed openly with people who were supportive of similar politicians, their logic is often in the line of "all of them are corrupt, but at least his politics are different". Now when you point that certainly corruption exists, but this is another level, they're getting into non-logical territory. People perceive times as grim and will take whomever offers something else than the status-quo baseline politician I guess. Even if they grift throughout and everyone's worse off in the end. On a baser level, if you go on twitter, there's a whole slew of delusional people who either don't believe this because of "fake news", another portion that's in the same "Clinton/Obama/Biden were even worse", and the rest just doesn't even care so long as "the libs are owned".

SmirkingRevenge 1y ago

The thing is, most won't hear about this at all. It's always amazing to talk to a Trump voter and realize they don't actually hear about most of this stuff And if it does break through the right info bubbles, right-wing media pundits and influencers will be on-the-ready to quickly rationalize or what-about it away and coax their audiences back to their "happy" places, where they can nurse their favorite grievances about the left, the media, the trans people, etc

godelski 1y ago

Because it isn't about actions, it is about sides. Tribalism. It is the loss of complexity. Many cannot understand that by choosing the lesser of two evils does not mean you support evil. It means your choices are limited. We have turned the political issues into good and evil, rather than disagreements in how to achieve our mostly shared goals. We can no longer see the other side as friends and family, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyone countering this can just proclaim "both sides" and in some sense they will be right, they have evidence and people do abuse that framework. But at the same time that destroys the bridge between us. The abuse of calling both sides evil along with the accusation that all use cases are instances of abuse. It binarizes the environment, creating a simple world where there are only two choices. Which is easy to do when everything is so complex, as we're so tired and don't want to think. It's also why this administration's strategy is so effective: overload the opposition. After all, Brandolini's Law states: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it." They've weaponized it. It's an effective strategy, and hard to defend against. I'm sure someone will offer a solution, "it's so simple, you just..." and we perpetuate the game.

russellbeattie 1y ago

It's easy to explain: They have no idea what's happening. Most people can't keep up with the firehose of news and don't really want to. This particular bit of unethical behavior is just one more bit of inconsequential news which will have completely disappeared from the headlines by tomorrow. It basically never happened to 95% of the country, regardless of political leaning. Secondly, conservatives live in their own highly filtered and mutated information bubble. Good news is amplified, bad news is either downplayed, justified (pure fiction is acceptable) or simply ignored. So even if they do hear about this, it won't be a big deal. In short, most people won't care, and conservative media will actively work to overlook or more often, rationalize this sort of unethical behavior to the point where it somehow is totally fine. (Simply read this thread to watch it happen in real time.)

cols 1y ago

Watching the Great Brainwash happen in real time has given me (I hope) a lot of insight into how anti-fascist Germans must have felt before WWII. It's a hell of a thing to watch half the people you know fall victim to the deluge of simplistic, feral propaganda that's been pouring out of our media sources for quite some time now. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other socials being the primary driving force. All platforms that are incentivized to spread rage and misinformation, and yet we can't seem to quit them as a culture. We rationalized their existence and non-regulation because BUSINESS and FREE MARKET. It's a real sad time for America. We should have known better. It's all of our faults, collectively. For not being big enough to shun the pressure and money. For not doing what was right all along. Now, we'll reap the whirlwind.

_jsmh 1y ago

I want to understand what you said. You assumed the leader is corrupt, possibly assumed the leader has bad intentions, and that the world can't possibly be more complex than these assumptions. Assumed the leader made this choice instead of a team behind him. Then presented a generality. Possibly assumed he doesn't know more than you and "everyone who won't say anything". Called an entire administration a circus. Another generality. Suggested bribery without evidence. How does one respond constructively to a comment like this?

ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
>How does one respond constructively to a comment like this? How indeed? You certainly didn't.