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> I guess the fact that he's a billionaire means he can be bullied

No, the fact that he is supporting a republican means he can be bullied. The tolerant left is on some radical moralistic high ground right now and it's far more dangerous than any words Trump has said.

When the campaign of a presidential nominee (Hillary) is recruiting the homeless and mentally ill to cause violence at Trump rallies, simply condemning and attacking someone for having different political views is all but normal.

> When the campaign of a presidential nominee (Hillary) is recruiting the homeless and mentally ill to cause violence at Trump rallies

Citation very VERY needed. James O'Keefe is not an acceptable - that is, truthful - source. [1]

> The tolerant left is on some radical moralistic high ground right now and it's far more dangerous than any words Trump has said.

You need to unpack this. I don't understand how any ideology of "radical moralistic high ground" is more dangerous than Trump's "rigged election" rhetoric, which calls into (unnecessary and unfounded) question the system our country is built on.

[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/James_O'Keefe

The O'Keefe video[1] shows extended primary source material of named Democratic operatives bragging about recruiting the homeless to deliberately cause violence at conservative events, including providing scripted words.

You may not like the editing, and there could be material edited out that redeem the Clinton operatives 1-5%. But not much. At least by my lights, the evidence is quite damning.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

The "we have mentally ill people" bit is at 1:26, for anyone who doesn't want to sit through the whole thing.

https://youtu.be/5IuJGHuIkzY?t=86

The thing is, that's what people said about his previous work, and so much of that was discredited, it's hard to believe it this time. Definite case of boy-who-cried-wolf, for me.

I will admit I'm biased: I find the allegations very difficult to believe and their timing extremely convenient. That doesn't mean they aren't true (any more than the sex assault allegations against Trump are false because they only just came out recently), but rather that further scrutiny is reasonable.

There's also the argument that there's a big difference between individuals in the campaign doing something, and the campaign endorsing/encouraging/demanding something. That defense has been used by the Trump campaign whenever it finds anti-Semitic, white nationalist or obviously racist campaign operatives in the media (as has happened several times), so if it applies there, it ought to apply here.

> There's also the argument that there's a big difference between individuals in the campaign doing something, and the campaign endorsing/encouraging/demanding something.

The Foval Group is contracted directly with the DNC. As far as anyone knows, Trump has never paid anti-Semitic or racist protesters to literally cause physical harm to people at Hillary rallies.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to make excuses for the words Trump has spoken, words are EXTREMELY important, but the level corruption inside the Hillary campaign is on a completely different level than things Trump says. Remember, actions speak louder than words. With Trump, all we have right now are words. With Hillary, we have actions. What I am seeing right now is one candidate being exposed for massive corruption while another candidate is promising to clean up the corruption in US politics and essentially make it illegal for politicians to become lobbyists. That, in my opinion, is very important.

Edit2: Also, on the topic of voter fraud https://d1sb17b1leotpq.cloudfront.net/rigging-election-%E2%8...

Foval and Creamer are disgusting, but it remains unclear how much power they had in the DNC at large and if Hillary was aware of any of it. From the undercover recordings, they seem to me like megalomaniacs who see themselves as Machiavellian gods or something, which is a common theme for middle-managers overstating their reach. Maybe it'll be revealed the upper tiers were aware of what they were doing, but it also seems plausible they were self-initiated.

> Thiel sees Hillary as a bigger threat to his interests than Trump. To prefer an outcome does not imply you favor all aspects of that outcome.

It is however evidence of Thiel's values. He's chosen his side, and it is perfectly reasonable for people judge him on the fact that cares less about Trump's willingness to stoke hatred than whatever flaws he finds in Hillary Clinton.

People criticizing YC over this either actually believe, or are affecting to believe, that it's perfectly reasonable for them to drag others into their black and white worldview, in which apparently this season you're only allowed to align yourself with Democrats.

"Instead of Thiel, we should be admonishing our media"

I know it's trendy to bash the media, but I'm not buying that our current candidates are the fault of "the media" and not the voters themselves.

More than enough information was reported about Trump during the primaries to make it clear exactly what kind of person he was, and the Republican voters decided this is the person they wanted to represent them.

The DNC maybe was tilting their contest in Clinton's favor over Bernie, but I don't know that the same can be said about "the media".

> the Republican voters decided this is the person they wanted to represent them

You might as well say the American voters decided that, since it wasn't even close to a majority of Republicans. Trump's rhetoric just played well to poorer, xenophobic conservatives, and there are plenty of those in every state, and his asinine comments got him a lot of free publicity on the "boob tube".

> I don't know that the same can be said about "the media".

I don't think reports of violence at Trump rallies ever called into question that these might have been instigated by DNC operatives. But they will now, right?

So they might not have hand picked Hillary, but they definitely allowed themselves to be manipulated by her campaign to some degree.

> We should be admonishing Hillary and Trump supporters who turn a blind eye to their unethical tactics and ends justify the means mindset.

You don't consider Peter Thiel to fall in this category? Why not?

Fair point, but it really depends if Trump is being unethical in his campaign and might be as president. Sure he frequently spouts utter nonsense. He's only unethical if he knows he's doing it. Hard to say with that guy. With the Clinton emails, we have evidence of unethical behavior, and we have many prominent defenders responding with "look how bad Trump is". Sure that's what conservative media has been doing to Hillary 90% of the time, but there's not a lot of love for how embarrassing Trump is right now, as a conservative AND a human being. Thiel's recent silence (AFAIK) is telling.

Bullying implies a power relationship where Thiel is weak, and strong people are ganging up on him. But Thiel is a powerful man.

This is just debate. Huge, internet-clogging amounts of debate.

People are calling for the severing of working relationships based on the guy's politics, which is perhaps not a textbook definition of bullying but more than just debate.

Sadly the concept of civil debate seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Next you're probably going to deny that you're bullying Facebook!!!!!! :)

Thiel donating to Trump is not a big deal.

Honestly, if people really wanted to solve this 'issue' instead of criticizing the business ethics of YC, they'd go DONATE TO THE OPPOSITE CANDIDATE and VOTE ON NOVEMBER 8TH.

Because in the end, it's ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE, and I'm sure there's more people who disagree with Thiel than agree.

But then again, media—that includes HN—needs a news story.

> Because in the end, it's ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE,

Not sure this is really true. Because in the end, ads are effective, political spending influences people, and people like Thiel have vastly more money than I do.

If we were only worried about how Thiel was going to cast his own vote, then we wouldn't be having a conversation right now. But we are having a conversation, so it's a bit disingenuous to pretend all we should care about is one man's vote.

Let me ask you this - Why do you think the FEC chose to implement a limit of $2700 for individual donations to a political campaign?

Is it possible to think that law serves a legitimate purpose, and ALSO to think it's fine for billionaires to give multiple millions to a candidate? I allege that it is not.

I would argue that this election season is an exception: both candidates are polarizing, leaving very little room for undecided voters.

As a result, the marginal efficiency of political donations is drastically decreased.

In a regular campaign season, political donations that contribute to advertisement and outreach are more important, as there is a larger undecided population to target / convince; hence, the limit of individual donations seems applicable then, but not now.

In my opinion, regardless of who wins, a limit on how much a candidate can spend on their campaign should be enforced. Hopefully, this would remove any subjectivity associated with political rhetoric, with people focusing more on a candidates objective politics (such as policy).

> In my opinion, regardless of who wins, a limit on how much a candidate can spend on their campaign should be enforced

Okay, and how about organizations that have absolutely no affiliation with the candidate, who simply have an opinion and want to express it through ad spending? Can they have unlimited budgets and can I make unlimited donations to them?

We need to limit paid political speech, like ads. Not harshly, but at patiently and firmly.

> ...our media, which couldn't have hand-picked...

According to wikileak's hacking of Hillary's email, they didn't handpick anyone - it was Hillary who was telling them what to do.

> I guess the fact that he's a billionaire means he can be bullied

Poor billionaires, being bullied and called names by random plebs on the internet. Let's start a feel-good charity for billionaires.