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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

I'm not from the US but I'd vote for Trump. To me Hillary represent the imperial US, the economic Hitmen US, the could war US, the NSA US, the make sure Russia-Europe relations are poor US. She represents the elites, the Rothschilds, the banks, the family of secrets, the kill-list, the endless meddling in countries that have a lot of natural resources "for the common good". She represents Guantanamo bay, more drones and more trade agreements to sue poor countries if their companies behave poorly. She represents the lobbying culture, the Monsantos and the Bechtels.

I will be downvoted, I am already looked at as if I'm less intelligent than all the others at work. But I honestly think the 3rd world war is less likely to happen under Trump. He wants to talk normally to Putin. He represents a more US focused US imho and I am convinced the mainstream media hates him because they are in the pockets of the current rulers.

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You are correct about Hillary. She represents the worst of everything. Even paying supporters to start riots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

The irony is that what Trump supports, the Clintons have always supported for the last 20 years if you look at their old debates. They are nothing but crowd pleasers. Saying yes to anything, but rarely following through. Not sure how people don't see that.

After you saw that Youtube movie, are you not convinced that the Hillary camp will do anything regardless of ethics to win? I believe her party is able to completely destroy anyone's reputation.

Indeed

As a non American who would probably vote for neither of them, Hillary definitely ranks way higher on my internal psychopath detector. The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator. Trump is guilty of some of that too but he is somewhat redeemed by the fact that he seems dumb/naive enough to believe whatever he preaches.

> The constant fake smiling, cold and calculated question answering, passive aggressiveness, etc. In short, the traits of a great manipulator.

Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.

Let me put it this way: How natural do you think you would seem if you were spending hours of every day in front of dozens of cameras, knowing that the slightest misstatement or weird facial expression is going to spread across social media to the entire country and be analyzed and picked apart and turned into memes and used against you by your opponents? I think anyone who seems like a "normal person" in that situation is anything but.

I've been thinking about what bothers me about Clinton and here's an example:

In 2008, Clinton declares she's opposed to gay marriage. Now it's 2016, and the majority of the American people are in favor of gay marriage. And guess what, Clinton is in favor of gay marriage. The battle has been won and now Mrs. Clinton proudly jumps on the barricade.

Now you may say this is just the reality of politics, but at some point you wonder what she really stands for except saying whatever it takes to maximize her vote count.

Hillary's team states that she is still very opposed to gay marriage. She is simply lying now.

No she doesn't. The chain of emails you're referring to makes it clear that Hillary still believes her support of DOMA was justified to prevent a constitutional amendment, not that she still believes gay marriage is wrong.

There is no evidence to suggest she opposes it now, and a little evidence to suggest she was lying in 2008.

Well that's a fantastic way of interpreting the email thread and flipping my comments.

During a debate in 2008, she said marriage was between a man and a woman. So no, she wasn't lying in 2008 -- nor did I ever imply such a thing -- that was likely her true sentiment.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2631#efmAdFAfY

At this point, you literally don't know who is putting what into her mouth, or what she will really do once in office. That's an absolutely scary thing.

> Aren't those, pretty much by definition, the traits of a poor manipulator? A great manipulator wouldn't seem so false.

This is a good point and it baffles me to be honest. I said "great" manipulator because it seems to be working so far. Great manipulators don't necessarily need to be great with everyone all the time. Or maybe she intentionally wants us to think she's a poor manipulator so that we trust her more? But that surely fails Occam's razor.

To answer other comments, I didn't get this impression solely by watching her on TV, it is corroborated by her history as a politician and recently leaked emails.

It could be that people support Clinton for reasons unrelated to her personal skills at manipulation.

I mean, even leaving aside all issues of substance, campaigns spend a lot of money hiring people specifically for their manipulation skills; even if it's all about manipulation, the candidate's skill isn't the only weapon in the campaign's arsenal.

Or she's gotten to where she is because she's effective at her job and the people working with her see this. It kinda reminds me of myself; I have zero charisma, but I impress the people I work with and I advance.

Psychopath is one particular slur that I've started ignoring. We've been taught it is equivalent to evil, or something like that, and it's used as a thought-terminating cliche. But, the basic traits of clinical psychopathy aren't really inherently evil.

The characteristics that define clinical psychopathy are many of the same that make effective leaders

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startl...

(I certainly don't want a psychopathic criminal in charge, but psychopath != criminal)

Indeed - if all the voters were psychopaths then they would at least elect a candidate that served their interests instead of being totally persuaded by show.

I think most people who gain such a high office are much more psychopathic than average anyway.

There are a lot of good reasons to not vote for Hillary, but this has to be one of the dumbest. She's awkward and uncharismatic, so she must be a psychopath? How many actual psychopaths have you met, to compare her to? Have you ever seen her off camera? Do you not have any friends or family who aren't good at faking enthusiasm? Is disliking campaigning really the sign of a psychopath? Is "cold and calculated" not a good quality in a president? Aren't great manipulators usually extremely charismatic? Even supporters agree that Hillary is not very likeable or charismatic, is that really the sign of a great manipulator? How many years of psychological study have you spent calibrating your "internal psychopath detector"?

Amen to that. Another non US citizen here with the same feeling about this election. You managed to successfully summarize what I feel towards Hillary for a few months now.

Here's why I disagree (also not from the US).

If you look at actual history, World War 2 happened exactly because some countries were unwilling to defend other countries, and let the Germans effectively try to conquer Europe. From a game theory perspective, you really, really want to pre-commit to not letting other countries do things that will cause war. So you pre-commit to protecting allies and other countries against e.g. Russian aggression.

The years of the cold war, while hard psychologically, were relatively peaceful, exactly because of these pre-commitments and threats to use force.

I think it's wishful thinking to assume that the world is at relative peace, and that can't change. That's not the default state of the world. And without knowing a hell of a lot more about international politics than I do, I'd be incredibly remiss to throw out the current establishment and say "yeah let's bring in someone new who wants to rewrite the rules". The chance that things will be worse is huge - that's what usually happens when you change things.

You are assuming US and EU actions in Ukraine are anti-war? The boycotts (that kill European companies as well) are not anti-war, the anti-Russia attitude that almost everyone seems to have here, under the influence of our media, is not anti-war? John Kerry loud-mouthing his opinion in the Ukraine is not anti-war? The way MH-17 was blamed on Russia far before there was even talk about an investigation, is not anti-war? The fact that how Russia sees the Syria conflict [0] is never shown in our western press is not anti-war? The Russians love their children too.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbZDyr2LkdI

I have direct access to both Russian and Western news/propaganda.

There's a lot more warmongering in Russian state funded press than anywhere in the West. I haven't seen any Western news outlets talk about how "US can turn Russia into radioactive ash" in prime time. Technically true, yes, but you don't bring such things up routinely. It's as if you were talking to a guy, say, arguing about something, and every now and then he'd mention, "by the way, I have a loaded gun, and I could shoot you... but I won't, yet".

> that's what usually happens when you change things.

with that logic we should throw out our two-party system entirely and turn into a constitutional monarchy of bush and/or clintons...

I was speaking about overhauling the entire system. Both sides of the political divide in the States have e.g. maintained support of NATO allies.

I think both the OP and others are talking about Trump as "let's get rid of the current political establishment and get an outsider". That's fine, but an outsider that threatens a lot of the foundational international strategy of the US is a threat to world stability.

I also think Trump is threatening the very system of democracy int he US by calling the elections into question and threatening to lock up his political opponent. That's a very direct threat to democracy.

This is a guy that 17 nuclear commanders have said isn't fit to have the launch codes; who erupts on Twitter at the slightest provocation and said he'd fire on Iranian ships for looking at US ships the wrong way.

He'd take us to WWIII in a heartbeat.

Your reference to the "Rothschilds" also seems like dogwhistle anti-semitism to me, which has no place here.

One can reasonably conclude that neither is suitable for the office.

Which is why I find the squabbling over the candidates so interesting. They are both _deplorable_.

Well, one is controversial and has political opinions that antagonise a large chunk of the US electorate, but the other is batshit-crazy, narcissistic, anti-democratic and would blow up the world to salve his ego. So, it's not even apples and oranges here

The trouble is I'm not sure which one is which in that statement.

Hillary takes advice from Kissinger. I think third world countries should be vigilant.

As a non-US citizen I have the exact opposite viewpoint, Hilary is more of the same sure but she isn't demonstrably fucking crazy.

The better question is how this election became an election of the Unthinkable vs the Unelectable.

The one thing I do like is that you make me feel like at least the UK isn't the only basketcase at the moment in terms of politics.

Just curious: what nationality are you?

As an American I share your view of Hillary.

There are other candidates besides Trump, but I feel like I am taking crazy pills trying to educate people on Hillary's history.

And you will forever have that feeling as long as our K-12 education system continues to brainwash generations that participating in the two party system is synonymous with democracy. It's all they know or have heard of and anything else is foreign and not to be trusted.

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