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370 points sillypuddy | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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makewavesnotwar ◴[] No.16407409[source]
Likening people to Thiel is ridiculous. He is personally facing the backlash from openly supporting Trump and being a speaker at his rallies. Nobody else in the valley did anything as absurd or unnecessary. And if he thinks he'll fair better in LA, I think he's sorely mistaken once people start recognizing him en masse. But to my point, this article seems to be generalizing an outlier to make its point. Everyone is being alienated everywhere because the country has a leader who is actively polarizing the populous by demonizing every side that he's not on as an enemy to his agenda, even going so far now as to suggest people who disagree should be labeled as traitors - which coming from the President, is technically a death threat as that is the punishment for treason. Peter Thiel seems to be actively trying to paint a more dystopian portrait of the situation to make himself out to be a victim when in reality people on both sides have been alienated by the dissolution of the "moderate" common ground where we all worked together in favor of a Monday Night Football-esque team based society (or crime drama - good v. bad). More generalizations like this that skew reality aren't going to help anything.
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superquest ◴[] No.16407487[source]
"openly supporting" the winning presidential candidate isn't "absurd".
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breakyerself ◴[] No.16407542[source]
Normally I'd agree with you, but Trump is a special case.
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1. catdograbbit ◴[] No.16407896[source]
No, he isn't. Democrats said the same thing about Bush, and they're saying the same thing about Pence. Anybody with an R next to their name would get the same backlash if they were president.
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2. ryanwaggoner ◴[] No.16408148[source]
I can’t speak for everyone, but this isn’t true at all for me. I have disagreed with large chunks of the policies of every president in my lifetime, and voted for presidents of both parties. I’ve never doubted that any of them loved this country and took their oath of office seriously.

I have zero faith that our current president cares about anything beyond himself and his image. Zero.

And I’m not alone. A shocking number of conservative writers and thinkers believe Trump represents a fundamental threat to democracy. Behind closed doors, even many of his ardent public supporters have no respect or faith in him.

3. breakyerself ◴[] No.16415993[source]
I didn't agree with Bush's economic policy, but I didn't think he was a particularly dangerous politician and I generally supported him in the years after 9/11. Then we invaded Iraq based on false pretenses and with no plan for what to do in the days following the fall of the government. It was deceitful, disgusting and incompetent and a waste of lives and resources. So I decided Bush is a POS. It wasn't a predetermined partisan opinion. It was based on how things actually unfolded.

I still think that in terms of damage done Nixon was the worst we've had and Bush comes in second. Trump is dangerous in my opinion, but nothing so far comes close to what Bush did. It's strange that you make dislike of Bush sound unreasonable. It's perfectly reasonable.