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Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

I just want to send a wrecking ball to Washington DC - I'm not really picky which wrecking ball it is (Trump or Sanders).

So while I'd prefer Sanders, its clear to me that there are some fundamental problems with our economy - both of the two wrecking ball candidates have touched on something in common, which is average americans have lost in the balance of free trade - and that government is far more accessible to the rich and powerful than it is to the common man.

In the end, we lived thru 8 years of GWB - and very frankly, I have enough faith in our system of government to feel that its self regulating that we could put pretty much anyone in the office of president and they'd not be able to fuck it up too much.

Yes, I expect to get downvoted for tacit support of Trump.

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It's not your tacit support of Trump that earned my downvote, it's that your self-described motivation ("send a wrecking ball") will make the problem you identified ("fundamental problems with our economy") worse, not better.

This sort revolutionary fervor is generally counterproductive, and is a large part of why our national politics has become to toxic.

> This sort revolutionary fervor is generally counterproductive

Do you have evidence for this claim? because to my mind, the exact opposite is true.

I completely agree with OP. I'd prefer Bernie but would take Trump. Some other users were quite rude saying you have to be an idiot to think a rich person would help poor people. I think that's a pretty silly statement, take Bill Gates for instance.

IMHO, members of HN are the vocal minority in their outright hatred for Trump. He will most certainly win the nomination if he goes against Hillary.

"IMHO, members of HN are the vocal minority in their outright hatred for Trump"

Trump (followed by Clinton) is the most disliked candidates in (at least modern) US history.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-b...

That's fascinating when coupled with the black swan of Trump and the near black swan of Sanders. Note the fact that dislike for elected candidates has been rising for quite some time. The general theme is that Americans are done with the status quo.

>The general theme is that Americans are done with the status quo.

And yet it's impossible to win a general election without appealing to moderates and independents.

Independent voters are a very different thing than moderates, though; and, various studies have shown that they are as consistent in their major party voting behavior as major party voters. Often, rather than moderates, they are either people that, in addition to their preferences on the axis dividing the major parties, have strong preferences that don't fall on that axis and thus feel insufficiently represented by the nearest major party, or people who have positions that fall on roughly the same axis that divides the major parties, but are at a more extreme position on that axis than the nearer major party.

Elections are one more turnout among the people usually inclined to vote for your party (whether members of independents) than by "swinging" votes that might go either way.

Trump is like Berlusconi in a lot of ways. His time in power or looming in opposition was mostly a couple of lost decades for Italy.

So you support stopping any Muslims from visiting the US?

Right now the two major parties cannot agree even on the causes of the problems (or on some level even that there is a problem) - why would I expect politics as usual to produce different results?

It's funny, because if this were a large software project that was going awry for whatever reason, I don't think anyone here would suggest, "hey, this isn't going well, bring in that blowhard from marketing, at least that'll break it spectacularly!"

Not sure why it's different when it's your government we're talking about.

That would be exactly what people would suggest, because they know from experience the "blowhard from marketing" will screw things up so badly, that the only viable option will be to start over with a clean slate. And that's exactly what's needed for a "large software project that was going awry" but it's always easier to say patch this here, tweak it there. Only when you can no longer patch and tweak yourself to anything functional will people actually clamor for a clean break.

That's why they vote for Trump. Nobody expects him to fix anything. They expect a clean slate at some point. Whether it's during his tenure or after, it's irrelevant. He's the catalyst.

It won't be a clean slate. It will be a very dirty slate, with the detritus of millions of ruined lives spattered around it.

A lot of what people hated about GWB was how he tried to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into a clean slate, and made a huge mess. Why would you want to do the same to USA (except out of some sense of radical fairness...)

Why would you expect a "wrecking ball" to produce positive results?

If you want to build a new house, you have to tear down the old one first. That's what people use wrecking balls for. I suppose the demolition in and of itself is not a positive. It is destruction, after all. But if your desire is to build a new house, you can't skip that step.

I don't think anybody wants Trump building that new house... but I don't think it matters who the wrecking ball is? Hence the original sentiment of the OP that it doesn't matter if it's Trump or Bernie, same result.

Heh, to follow your metaphor a little further, where do we live after knocking down the old house with the wrecking ball?

Somalia, presumably, to get a taste for what the aftermath of a wrecking ball looks like.

>I don't think anybody wants Trump building that new house...

...other than anyone who votes for Trump, which leads me to suspect they haven't thought it through beyond setting him loose and watching him burn down the White House. The repercussions of a bad presidency can last for decades, and are felt across the globe. I shudder to think about a purposely destructive presidency.

They can't agree on anything because the national Republicans have been captured by the tea party, who has in turn now been captured by the Trumpists. Both events were based on newcomers to the political process claiming that the system is broken beyond repair, and that they were the needed "Wrecking Ball".

The tea party managed to scuttle Obama's "Grand Bargain" with Boehner, which consisted of TEN TRILLION DOLLARS of spending cuts in return for one trillion in new revenue (taxes). In my mind, this is when the national republicans ceased to be a rational force, in others' minds it could be the blowup over our debt ceiling or the government shutdowns, but regardless most rational observers with an understanding of the political process would agree that the right has lost its mind because of capture by revolutionaries. A Trump administration would bring far worse (just this week he suggested that he'd be open to partial default on US government debt). It's basically a self-reinforcing cycle of crazy where bad outcomes from bad decisions cause irrational actors to make worse decisions in response.

So the reason the two parties can't agree on anything is that there's really only one party, and that's the Democrats. This is problematic, because our political system is based on having two parties, either of which could be trusted to provide reasonably responsible governance.

The United States is, despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, a strong nation with a relatively stable government and an economy that is literally the envy of the world. We certainly do have problems, and that is what "politics as usual" is designed to fix. So I urge you to play the game rather than try to kick over the table.

Americans need jobs.

The democrats want to soak the rich (I agree that, we probably should pay more anyhow), create a comprehensive social safety net, broadly have a larger role for government in individuals lives.

The republicans seem very concerned with collective security, 'judicial overreach' (any policy they don't like from a judge), and smaller government - this mostly seems to manifest itself as a firm 'no' to any proposed solution from the democrats.

Neither of them (at least at a national level) is focusing on what I see as the elephants in the room:

1. Broad swaths of the country that were prosperous 20 years ago are now not - and enormous areas that were busy 40 years ago are now dead wastelands. If you go out to a rural area, you'll see this, go on a road trip, go thru small towns, the only new buildings (built after ~1974 or so) are usually government or at funded by outside capital, (like McDonalds, or a Wal*Mart) sure, the college towns and county seats are often somewhat prosperous, but not like they were even in the 80's. If you look in third and fourth tier cities, you see similar trends.

2. In either place, rural or urban, its also very very hard for the young to find a good job, with or without a college degree - this has a multitude of causes - from we're teaching our youth the wrong things, to companies expecting inexperienced workers to come magically all trained up for the job - this topic alone is a couple thousand words - just suffice it to say, something is wrong.

Neither party is really speaking to this, they broadly don't see outside the beltway - I blame free trade, one size fits all regulation, and excessive defense spending (instead of say, infrastructure) for this malaise - I believe very strongly unless we fix these problems, they will come to breach the very foundations of our republic and we may end up with a much worse system than we have now.

Now you're talking politics!

This is how it works: take a platform based on issues and policy like the one you just sketched out, get the politicians who support it elected, and then let them horse trade to actualize some portion of your platform. Gain credibility, rinse, wash, repeat.

I know I have the makings of a political platform. I also have experience as a community organizer (event planning largely) - but I dont think I'm the man to lead a major political movement - its not impossible, but I dont know if its what I want.

    > I have enough faith in our system of government
    > to feel that its self regulating that we could
    > put pretty much anyone in the office of president
    > and they'd not be able to fuck it up too much.

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong other than....

Nomination of supreme court justices that take back decades of progress.

Starting new and unnecessary wars, making the geopolitical situation more dangerous and unstable : George W started 2 of them, didn't finish, and we're still dealing with the mess.

Have a leader who is a laughing stock, much like Berlusconi was in Italy.

I think the strong principle of the court to hold to stare decisis precludes a dramatic shift one way or another no matter which ideology is nominated to the court. I personally would rather see an ideological centrist appointed.

Isn't people's fear that his admin would instead disengage from interventionism? Which is the opposite of getting into foreign wars.

Peoples' fear is that there is no way to tell what he would do since he contradicts himself every time he talks.. One minute he talks about bringing all the troops back to the US and letting the middle east work itself out, the next he's threatening to shoot down Russian war planes if they come near US assets or send 30,000 troops into Syria to fight ISIS. He's also come out in favor of stronger forms of torture than waterboarding and won't rule out nuking Syria..

In actuality I don't see much difference between his stance and Sanders's. They both want to retrench. As for going after Isis and or Russia, it seems that would be congruent with "defending the homeland" which isn't contradictory with respect to disengaging from foreign wars.

In other words keep the homeland safe without initiating unprovoked wars and demand allies pay their fair share of expenditures for keeping _their_ territorial integrity. So western Europe, Japan, S Korea, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, etc.

I'm not a Sanders supporter but I don't remember the good Senator promising to expand torture, threatening to kill innocent family members of terrorists, or threatening to nuke Syria -- all of which would be war crimes. If you don't think there's room between Trump and Sanders on foreign policy, you aren't paying attention.

You're right he does not say that. But realistically if he saw it fit to go to war (and unless he's a pacifist) any involvement in war would involve the above, whether intentionally or not. You cannot honestly go into a war and think you can avoid that.

Maybe Trump really is looking forward to a conflict to commit such things, or he's realistic in that if his admin did get onto one, he's willing to admit the consequences.

The one I'd fear would be Cruz who is/was or wanted to sound like a warmonger.

How funny that Democrats are fine with electing another candidate who actively voted for one of those wars.

A lot of Democrats stopped liking HRC's actual politics in 2000 and have cognitive dissonance about the complexity and change of her whole career.

That's a good point with regard to some Democrats, but I'd imagine such things are why Bernie is as popular as he is.

One candidate or another is going to eke out a win requiring superdelegates to put them over the top, in the most divisive nominating race the party has seen since 1968.

A very significant fraction of Democrats aren't "fine" with the candidate you are referring to, even to the extent of seeing that candidate as a tolerable choice.

Hillary appears to be more of a hawk than Trump: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clint...

(I find her frightening, but Trump terrifying, for different reasons.)

Hillary's more consistent in her hawkishness than Trump, who talks even more extreme hawkishness on extreme non-intervention at alternating moments (and misrepresents his past support of failed adventures in hawkishness.)

Which would be more hawkish in practice is hard to guess.

"progress"

You think progress should be achieved by changing the interpretation of existing law? Odd view.

No, I think progress is harmed when far-right administrations appoint too many supreme court justices. See for example "Citizens United v FEC"

From the site guidelines:

> Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted.

If you truly believe that someone who is part of the wealthy elite will ever do anything to reduce significant problems like income inequality, immigration reform, and expansion of the police state, you're insane.

You don't get it. He don't expect Trump to play chess for his team. He expects Trump to blow the chessboard.

> reduce significant problems

Those voting for him aren't interested in reducing problems or fixing them. They gave up on that a long time ago. They're interested in breaking the system which gave birth to those problems.

Will Trump break that system? Maybe. It's a complex system and if he implements any of his wonderful solutions which he put forward so far, it will break a lot of eggs.

I'm not entirely sure breaking the system will be a net positive ... but I understand why people would want to vote for him. And it's perfectly rational for them to do so, if what they want is to break the system.

I would normally agree, but not in the case of Trump, because more than anything Donald just wants to be worshiped and adored.

A Trump Presidency will be bread and circuses for sure. His ambition is to be a populist tyrant in the mold of Julius Ceasar.

I've been enjoying watching a Randian Superhero in action, a completely self-interested man, a man that never gives anything away for free, a man that sees a pledge as just another opportunity to renegotiate better terms for himself.

He threatens the power of the Senate more than anything, and by Senate I mean the broad based aristocratic ruling class.

His enemies list will be long, and he will retaliate against anyone who so much as dares to dislike him with the full power of the executive branch.

It turns out that a majority of GOP voters never really believed in the Conservative principles their betters told them they cared about, save the resentment against rich liberals and poor minorities scrounging government benefits.

And he is smart. He saw the opening and he went for it. He can echolocate his opponents weakest point, and mercilessly exploit it for his own advantage.

And after he puts anyone in his way down for the count, he becomes gracious the minute they no longer threaten him.

He trains his opponents to be scared to go after him, because he hits back hard.

Trump, a chauvinist if there ever was one, has effectively made today's media cycle all about Bill Clinton's rape allegations and Hillary's "enabling".

A competitor, a dominator, a man without any altruism or thought for collective good, and a genius at manipulating the modern media landscape.

If he had more experience with equities and modern finance, rather than mere real estate deals and debt, I would almost think he could bring about some actual beneficial economic reforms for the middle class.

He would bully his enemies and the enemies of the masses from the bully pulpit like no other, because at his core, he is a brute, a bully.

I would almost want to see him in the presidency just to see what a smart outsider could accomplish in the office if he wasn't such a fascist with a torture fetish.

And in the end I think it will be his overreach that will make him the ultimate embarrassed loser this fall.

Even when he had the nomination wrapped up through his polarizing tactics to boost his resentful thug vote, he couldn't help himself with more statements sure to alienate female voters.

Even this fervent Sanders supporter has to concede that Trump is just a smarter candidate. Trump adapts, his reality and truth is flexible and situational.

I still hold out hope for a Sanders upset...

You have a good finger on what makes Trump successful, but why do you think Trump cares about the masses's enemies, after you so thoroughly explained how well he fights only for himself?

Because he wants the masses to love him...

A wrecking ball must be larger than the structure it demolishes. Throwing Trump or Sanders at DC is like throwing a pebble at the Burj Khalifa. DC changes politicians more than politicians change DC.

I as much want to send a message to the leadership of the two major parties as I want to send a wrecking ball to DC. Things are broken and have got to change.

>Things are broken and have got to change.

How many politicians run and win on that line? Maybe if you want actual change, you should elect candidates who have something more substantive to offer than being disgruntled and politically incorrect. Politics seems to be the only profession where having qualifications for the job disqualifies you for the job.

I know it's impossible for the Republican party to do that now, because they've hitched their wagon to a narcissistic cryptofascist orangutan, but maybe next time.

It's as much about breaking the power structures of the existing political parties as it is about changing government, both have to happen to get real change thru - and I'm not too picky on the order.

Trump's entire campaign until now has been for the party's nomination, and the approval of the power structure of an existing political party. What leads you to believe he's actually interested in breaking down the power structures he wants to control?

I think Trump is of a different character.

He won't even back down when reality hits him smack in the face. He is the king of his own world and does not even acknowledge the existence of a world outside his own.

Ask Hindenburg how well it works out to hand over power to authoritarian narcissists in the hopes that governance will somehow tame them.

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