I would love to hear from HN republicans why they think this amount of self enrichment and corruption is okay.
Add to this all the paid-for pardons, the shady stock trades, the never ending vacations at his own properties, the plane deal and much, much more.
No whataboutisms or anonymous downvotes, I’m genuinely curious why people continue to support him.
Ultimately, in a democracy, legitimacy really boils down to how much people are willing to tolerate, and that’s a very malleable metric, adjusted through fear, greed, hope, and all of the deceptions as well as legitimate plans that contribute to those motivations.
The people that I know that support him tend to have simplistic worldviews, and largely see him as a wrecking ball destroying what they were previously dissatisfied with. I suppose that’s not too far off, actually. It’s kind of like “giant meteorite for 2028” vibes, except they mean it.
Notably, the only people who wish for a political devolution are ones who haven’t lived through one. This doesn’t end well.
They don't think its okay, as evidenced by this submission predictably being flagged. Also predictably, they will not be here to defend or explain, either.
They'd also flag it if they thought it was okay but "a bad look". Most of the Trump voter cope I read starts with, "I agree with him on a lot of things but..."
I living in a Republican part of the country, I think they believe power is its own morality.
A God that murders people because his feelings got hurt while demanding no one murder, a husband beats his wife and kids because he wasn't respected - these are valid in their moral framework, cruel asymmetrical power structures.
There is a dominant race, a dominant gender, and a dominant country in their view. Laws exist only to control the weak.
These people love Trump because he represents the slave owning, male-dominated, terrorist rebels that form the myth of who we are as a nation. His corruption and enrichment is why they love him.
Trump is almost amoral. It’s why he can’t understand at a basic level why his corruption would even be considered a scandal at all. In his mind, of course I’m using the presidency to enrich myself, my family, and my friends; that’s the whole point of gaining power. Of course I’m selling presidential pardons for cash, what’s the point of getting access to that power if I don’t sell my access to it.
I noticed the same patterns in my religious family. I live in a largely secular country, and the only people I know who talk down on “other people” all claim to be religious.
People are really bad at acknowledging a mistake so they rather double down. It's way past anything rational, it's a cult. Doesn't matter what the leader/party does, it's always okay.
Ape-brained tribalism. Apparently many humans just operate without standards & principles, whether from incompetence or personal benefit. Good luck fixing that.
Integrity not to burn down the system and/or enrich themselves? All of them: Biden, Obama, Bush43, Clinton, Bush41, etc (maybe Nixon the least). If Hillary Clinton or Harris would were elected they would have been as well.
You may be disagree with their policies, and think perhaps they're helping certain special interest groups, but has anyone tried to enrich themselves while in office (versus book deals and speaking fees once they're out)?
> Let's say we got rid of Trump, but then who is going to be the alternative in your opinion?
You seem to be using the "they're all as bad as eachother" argument. But previous US presidents haven't used their office for enrichment on this scale - and so it seems likely that there are alternative potential presidents who would behave with integrity and dignity.
But isn't that the case? They are all as bad and corrupt in their own merit. Coming back to the original question, do you have anyone concrete in mind that can be the alternative to Trump?
Has any other president fired the the FBI directory because he wouldn't swear personal loyalty to him (like Trump did Comey)? Did any other president try to do a (self) coup?
You may disagree with their policies (and even values), but would have anyone else tried to do an end-run around the Constitution? Pence went through with the 2020 election certification even when people were literally calling him for to be lynched.
The Boeing wag given to the US government. Not to Trump personally. It's stated explicitly in the wikipedia link you provided.
> Any Democratic candidate, including Harris and Clinton. With GOPers: Pence, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, DeSantis, etc.
So you're fine with any other crook, but not Trump. Got it.
Further, wikipedia is not a credible source link in-case you didn't know. Anyone can edit the pages there and somethings are verified and sometime once could even make up facts and link to fake articles.
> Examples where former presidents firing people for lack of loyalty, here is a list of them
* Nixon is not an example that helps your case
* Truman fired MacArther for insubordination (and nearing starting WW3): generals do not get to set policy
* essential workers are not allowed to strike: police and firefighters would be fired too
* Ford (Nixon's VP in case you didn't know) isn't helping your case either
* firing a personal chief of staff different compared to a Senate-appointed position, especially one that's supposed to be work independent (like the AG is also supposed to be)
* again, a general that does not get to set policy over a President
Comey was fired for no other reason that he would not cow-tow to Trump. Compare-contrast with another FBI Director's firing:
> However, Sessions’ ethics came into question just before then-President-elect Bill Clinton was inaugurated. Sessions was accused of improperly using an FBI plane to visit his family as well as reportedly installing a security fence around his home on the government’s dime. A Justice Department report found that Sessions had avoided paying taxes on the use of his FBI limousine for his daily commute.
> So you're fine with any other crook, but not Trump. Got it.
Yes, all those are crooks…
> Further, wikipedia is not a credible source link in-case you didn't know. Anyone can edit the pages there and somethings are verified and sometime once could even make up facts and link to fake articles.
Feel free to click "edit" yourself to remove the made "up facts and link to fake articles."
Had you ever been to a college and used wikipedia link as a source reference when writing a paper you would've known. But I guess for you it's just asking from some probabilistic token generator I guess.
The Boeing wag given to the US government. Not to Trump personally. It's stated explicitly in the wikipedia link you provided.
Also stated in a news report[1] linked by Wikipedia,
In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar -- a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News.
The vast majority of examples in the link are either presidents firing members of their own staff, or firing people for not doing their job well. A large number of Trump firings were because people were doing their job.
>> Any Democratic candidate, including Harris and Clinton. With GOPers: Pence, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, DeSantis, etc.
> So you're fine with any other crook, but not Trump. Got it.
What have those people done, particularly Harris, Clinton, Kasich, and Pence that would qualify them for the "crook" title? And have any of them done such things within an order of magnitude or two of the rate and intensity that Trump has done them?
>The Boeing wag given to the US government. Not to Trump personally. It's stated explicitly in the wikipedia link you provided.
>The aircraft is slated to be transferred to Trump's presidential library foundation shortly before the end of his second term, though critics argue that such a transfer may be unconstitutional.
So it will go to Trump, but only after getting the government to pay billions to upgrade it.
I read you argue in favour of far-right German anti-immigration politics a few days ago, in which you admitted living in .de, now you're saying that there is no one better than Trump for US citizens?
How would you know and why would you have such a strong opinion?
Do you also happen to astroturf rightoid politics on Twitter by any chance? I heard it's a common pastime.
Antifa is an American political construct to rally the neofascists behind. In Europe it just means ‘antifascist’, and is still something to be proud of.
> But anyone with a decent amount of dignity, humility, empathy and confidence will do.
Is that enough though? That's more like saying running a country based on vibes. One could argue that a person needs strong leadership, someone putting national interest above else and work for the interest of the people that elected the person.
If you think about it the president or any other elected person, their whole job is to serve people. Do what the people voted that person to do by putting aside all personal preferences, belief and ideologies. In that regards, I wonder dignity, humility, empathy would have anything to do with governing
> […] the president or any other elected person, their whole job is to serve people. Do what the people voted that person to do by putting aside all personal preferences, belief and ideologies.
I don’t see how you can say that, and then:
> In that regards, I wonder dignity, humility, empathy would have anything to do with governing
Like, those are the traits required to unselfishly serve others. See literally any religion or framework of ethics.
What bad things has she done? Why is she laughable? Does she show up hundreds of thousands of times in the Epstein files? Does she demonstrate daily corruption and self enrichment openly?
Its really interesting how he was able NOT to stumble upon these! My high-stake bet still is: All of the "major people around a distinct circle" are highly involved, meaning: Lot of politicians/gov people etc.
They will try to resist until last breath to not disclose them.
Why more Gov people and not Billionaires: While a few Bilns maybe amongst there, the thing is as Billionaire you can already affort anything everybody wants, but a Gov person cant do that, even if the person is rich/wealthy
People like to forget that Elon Musk also wanted to party on the island. And that he lied about that before the email came out.
These people have enablers everywhere. It’s exactly like the abuse in the catholic church. The people in power can’t do without the enablers that make excuses for them.
I think any HN'er who previously voted republican has experienced enough disappointment; I doubt there would be anyone left.
The most important point for every political faction however is to realize that the problems aren't solved when the current president steps down. The real power that pushes the agenda rest in the hands of a loosely connected network of 'think tanks', religious organizations, tech billionaires and media moguls. They are hidden from the public discourse, simply because they are able to manage it, and as such are a formidable opponent.
There's this weird thing where HN users seem to think for some reason they are better than other people and users of this site wouldn't do X. It all seems incredibly silly with zero foundation in reality. This site has tons of morons. Just like every other publicly accessible website with free sign ups. You can see examples of this spread all throughout the comments on this post as an easy example.
I don't think it's OK, but it's semi-understandable given the lawfare undertaken by Democrats after his first term.
I would say that despite whatever pardons (which I believe can only be federal, not state?), he pro-actively gives himself and colleagues, family etc when he leaves office he will be spending the rest of his life fighting spurious court case after court case, none of which will be cheap.
In that regard, having massive personal wealth makes some kind of sense.
> I don't think it's OK, but it's semi-understandable given the lawfare undertaken by Democrats after his first term
Examples?
> when he leaves office he will be spending the rest of his life fighting spurious court case after court case, none of which will be cheap.
Uhm...have you mixed Trump up with someone else. It is Trump who loves to bring spurious lawsuits. When Trump is on the receiving end it is almost always not a spurious lawsuit.
You're going to have a very uphill battle making a case that he's making America stronger in any commonly held definition of the word. Partisanship is a hell of a drug, man...
Would be nice, but we (in France) have plenty of cameras already. They may not be branded Flock, but they're there nonetheless. And as far as I'm aware, none of them are ablaze.
Absolutely horrible. They show up on Saturday's yelling at empty buildings. Very rarely does an American protest against a government body change policy. If you want to really do something, show up on a Tuesday morning, stop traffic, flood the phone lines, and the email systems, relentlessly day after day. Americans are far too comfortable to truly protest.
It's true that the order only impacts state highways. It removes approximately 700 license plate readers and then also leaves thousands still up locally. However, in my county, the Sheriffs dept is actually taking them down voluntarily, because of the positive political reception of the state-road ban. And its happening in other jurisdictions near me.
A lot of people instinctively believe Florida only does dumb stuff, but we really do have quite responsive people in charge here. From where I sit, I see good movement on the whole Flock issue in my state and county.
Yes, it really is. Florida is a cultural punching bag, and we take that in stride too. We have a balanced budget, no state income tax, and no flock cameras. We are close to abolishing property taxes as well. Our natural disaster response is some of the most robust anywhere in the world as well.
This is misleading. I'm not sure replacing income tax with sales tax is a positive change. The state is still collecting taxes, but the tools are pretty regressive.
Sales taxes are fundamentally a tax on the poor. Someone making 20x the median income is not spending 20x more on groceries and other goods. It doesn't scale well at all, especially when a lot of net worth goes into housing. And the GP was arguing about ending property tax...
I don't think we're in a good enough economic situation as of now to eliminate sales tax. But an ideal model is a strong progressive income tax model (I'm talking "0% tax under 40k" levels of progressive) with sales tax only employed in bad economic states. In general, taxes should be heavier in good economic times to allow bad economic situations to relax them.
I’m glad that that my state isn’t run that way. Your assumptions about consumption taxes across income brackets not scaling is factually inaccurate. If sales tax is fundamentally a tax on the poor, then so is an income tax.
Florida is one of the lowest taxed states across all income brackets, and even provides good social programs.
I’m glad that people who want to tax the rich to death for the sake of a crusade that isn’t even needed don’t have much of a voice in my state.
>consumption taxes across income brackets not scaling is factually inaccurate
I'd love to hear a proper counter-argument. Maybe Florida works different, but sales taxes tend to be constant (i.e. scaling linearly with consumption), and individual consumption does not scale linearly with income. Someone making 200k may buy more luxury food, but not necessarily 10x as much as someone making 20k. And someone making 2 million a year does not consume 10x as much as the 200k person.
>If sales tax is fundamentally a tax on the poor, then so is an income tax.
If income tax wasn't progressive it would be. But it is. Not progressive enough, but the idea is there. Higher brackets get taxed more percentage wise, not in a simple linear fashion.
>and even provides good social programs.
Sure. Give your money to insurance premiums that run away when it's time to do their job instead of government program. Sounds much better.
>I’m glad that people who want to tax the rich to death for the sake of a crusade
Always nice to have people be honest with themselves. I'm just being honest with math. We call a 10 millionaire being taxed 90% a millionaire. We call someone making 30k being taxed 10% on the verge of homelessness (likely on government assistance despite working). As long as such inequality exists, we can and should be aggressively taxing the most privileged to build a society that prevents that reality.
>don’t have much of a voice in my state.
We are both under the same federal government. Most of these large scale issues are federal anyway. The winds are changing slowly and I won't pity those who baron robbed the country one bit (many of whom tried to flee to your state) when it's time to pay the piper.
A counter-argument to what? That if you take 90% of someone’s wealth that has $10,000,000 they’re still a millionaire?
Yeah, they’d still be a millionaire.
I didn’t bring up federal tax policy but since you did, I’ll point out that what you think is happening is not happening. The winds aren’t going quite where you think they’re going. The “steal other people’s money” coalition has virtually no power or relevance federally. They have no power or relevance in Florida.
No one is going to be fleeing. There isn’t even going to be a fight, because that fight already happened. Tariffs are in full swing. The left tried to stop it. Consumption taxes are the future. The good guys won.
Nope. Florida simply led the way and calmly banned Flock cameras from the entire state. Every other state that cares about individual liberty should follow suit.
They revoked permits for all license plate readers currently placed along the state highway rights of way. They did not ban privately owned Flock Safety cameras (e.g. at a housing development or whatever), nor did they ban police from mounting ALPRs on their patrol cars. It sounds like this applies only to the "State Highway System", not to local roads - but maybe I'm misunderstanding the scope of that.
>Monday’s order did not affect cameras on private property or on local rights-of-way — which together is 98% of surveillance cameras, DeSantis said — but some localities in Florida said they were following suit.
Ironically it is the Republican governors of Texas and Florida who are leading this anti-surveillance push, even as the government of Texas has used Flock cameras in other jurisdictions to harass and intimidate pregnant women seeking out of state abortions.
I mean, let's not get carried away. Florida still has very oppressive anti-second-amendment legislation and laws on the books, and until they get rid of that, I wouldn't call them anywhere close to having individual liberty.
When I lived in FLA and it was super easy to get a concealed weapon permit. I carried a gun not infrequently just to exercise that right. I was serious about training with it as well.
The other states I’ve lived in haven’t been so straight forward.
Florida is also ironically how we may get cookie banners in line and to actually opt users out as they prosecute websites there as illegal wire taps if you still put cookies on the page after or before the opt out happens.
Expected move and good to hear. Gives Tailwind some extra maintenance years. But like with all these sugardaddy takeovers, the next expected move is “Tailwind is now independent again“.
There's an image in the article and a full website with more media is just 1 click away. Instead you resorted to typing 272 characters not including ENTER, and I doubt that was easier than clicking the logo to visit the homepage.
Typing this comment also did not solve your problem, because that would require the author to read your comment, add more screenshots and it would require that you revisit it.
When the blog title is "world's first model for Generative UI", you are supposed to show something that GPT/Claude couldn't do. Instead it's all benchmark.
I don't know what media you are talking about. It's all slop worse than current slop.
WP plugins are why I banned it everywhere. Last time I used it was many years ago, so not sure it still applies, but back then even caching was done in a plugin, without which it was unusably slow… just no.
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