Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

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As a foreigner, I really don't get this attitude.

Hillary's a hawk, so let's support the obviously erratic, racist, bigoted, tax-dodging, incompetent, incoherent, sexually assaulting idiot who looks very much like a new Hitler and thinks if you win an election you get to lock up your opponents like a crazy third world state.

Boggles my mind that 'Murica' 'Freedom' can bring out such a petty, childish and obviously self destructive urge to vote for Trump.

What am I missing? Like with brexit, what the rest of the world seems to miss is the EU is a corrupt beuracracy with a privileged and out of touch political elite marching toward federalisation while deliberately ignoring it's citizens explicit wishes (I voted remain). Foreigners don't seem to report that, they portray the single market as somehow free, without a heavy cost and the British as inherently self destructive.

So what is it about Trump that's so compelling that is not reported to us? As the rest of the world is so horrified by this vile person, this demagogue. Why, America, why? How did he almost win? How did he even get 5% of voters?

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on... is probably the best article I've seen as a 'splainer for those of us from this side of the pond.

https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/ is also excellent reading.

>So what is it about Trump that's so compelling that is not reported to us?

It isn't complicated: there is an apparently large population of Americans who are tired of the establishment. Things have not been well for them for many years; wages are stagnant, they haven't benefited from the recovery much. These people don't want to see another politically established Bush or Clinton in the Whitehouse. This was embodied by Bernie Sanders on the left, and Donald Trump on the right.

Trump is the "I'm sick of politicians" vote, and benefits from "right place, right time".

I understand that sentiment, yet am shocked that people put aside all of Trump's faults.

The real issue that I wish American's focused on was their weak democracy. Why accept a two party system fuelled by private money?

I am an outsider as well, and from this side of the border it looks like Trump simpathizers in the USA are applying the "desperate times call for desperate measures" ideal with Trump.

Similarly to how German's where fed up with the war reparations and glooming economy which made them vote for the Nazi party.

https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/3560.html

What you're missing is nuance.

When you say "the obviously erratic, racist, bigoted, tax-dodging, incompetent, incoherent, sexually assaulting idiot", you're taking the opposition beliefs as fact, just like the Republicans who claim Clinton is an "obviously erratic deathly ill man-hating murdering warmongering power-hungry alcoholic liar."

Look at each candidate from their point of view. For example:

> thinks if you win an election you get to lock up your opponents like a crazy third world state.

Trump does not believe he can lock people up arbitrarily. He believes he can appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton's alleged wrongdoing surrounding her emails. He believes the only reason no prosecution happened already is because of political pressure.

There's a huge difference there. You may still, reasonably, find that belief concerning, but it's on a whole different level than "Trump believes he can lock up his opponents" just because he wins. Generally when you look into any claim about Trump or Clinton the reality is a lot more reasonable than one side or the other makes it seem. There are billions of dollars and massive, organized campaigns doing everything they can to paint everything the other person does as insane.

In general, the Clinton campaign is better at this, because they don't go around actively antagonizing the media like the Trump campaign does, and they have a lot more experience in the field. That said, you do still see of total nonsense about Clinton treated as fact even in "objective" sources - let alone the kind of insanity that propagates in the conservative media. For example, the latest meme is that the Clintons had Scalia murdered because of a wet-works email (that is actually about something totally different if you do even a little investigation.)

> When you say "the obviously erratic, racist, bigoted, tax-dodging, incompetent, incoherent, sexually assaulting idiot", you're taking the opposition beliefs as fact,

That's actually the way most people in Europe see him. Our source is not any opposition but Donald himself: listening to his interviews and speeches lets him certainly come across as "erratic" and "incoherent", he bragged about "sexually assaulting" women, and how he talks about and treats minorities makes him seem "racist" and "bigoted". As he has no clue about the state of world politics and no coherent policy proposals (flip-flopping during the same speech, interview or even sentence) the "idiot" label seems hardly avoidable. You could argue the "tax-dodging" though, for all I care.

I also don't see him as a new Hitler, more like a Mussolini type.

>just like the Republicans who claim Clinton is an "obviously erratic deathly ill man-hating murdering warmongering power-hungry alcoholic liar."

In Germany she would clearly be a conservative, which I'm not, but listening to her she comes across as extremely smart and very coherent, so "erratic" really doesn't apply. No idea why I would think she is "deathly ill", never saw anything that made her come across as "man-hating", no idea where "murdering" comes from; "alcoholic"? Never heard about drinking problems. That leaves "warmongering", "power-hungry" and "liar": maybe not more than the average American President in the last 200 years.

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