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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

> I am not sure why endorsement of a political candidate is sometimes equated with 100% parity on every single belief of that particular candidate.

Endorsement is one thing. Donating a massive amount of money is something entirely different. Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support.

And either way, that's not the point. The point is that, while most candidates have deep flaws, Trump has flaws that cannot be overlooked or explained away by political differences.

These include: racism (for which he has lost lawsuits), advocating sexual assault, and suggesting that Hillary Clinton be assassinated.

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$1.25M is less for Thiel than $100 is for most people. The absolute amount is meaningless, you have to normalize by wealth here.

I'm replying to the general concept that it's a lot of money for a campaign. It's really not. While it's a good amount from a specific person, this specific person has a lot of money.

Hillary has multiple people over a million. These are private individuals too. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/leaked-list-hillary...

The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world.

It buys a certain amount of airtime, organizers' time, etc. Thiel said, "I'm not going to do X numbers of hours of work for you, but I'm going to donate them to your campaign."

That number of hours is staggeringly high, by the way: equivalent to 30+ years of full-time work by unskilled laborers.

> The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world.

Right, I think GP was replying to your earlier statement that:

> Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support.

Rather than trying to minimize the 1.25M

It's still a lot of money for the campaign, isn't it?

> Trump has flaws that cannot be overlooked or explained away by political differences

You are right, and many take this view. The issue is whether or not one ought to be marginalized for _not_ taking this view. If we are allowed to cherry pick the worst in a candidate (Trump offers a lot to pick from) and define their entire candidacy, and further extend this to say that all of those who support him, with either a vote or with money, must necessarily share in this horrible worldview, then I believe that to be an oversimplification.

What's effectively being said here is that this person has been immoral in the past, and there is a strong likelihood of him being immoral in the future. Those who are not willing to pre-judge him for the immoral actions he is likely to commit, should be ostracized. I think that's wrong.

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