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Comment by eksemplar | Hacker News Reader

A year ago America was a country I admired. My girlfriend and I were even planning a vacation to Washington DC and Boston this summer. We're white registered Christians from Scandinavia by the way, so the ban isn't affecting us legally, but we won't visit America under Trump. We won't buy American products under Trump, and I've recently moved all my mail/whatever accounts away from American companies and closed or heavily censored my social media accounts on American networks.

This is completely anecdotal but our reaction has been more norm than strange in our circle of friends and coworkers.

The immigration order was the last straw.

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As an American this makes me sad. I understand your feelings and actions, but it still makes me sad. I don't think my feeling this way is your fault though.

The only thing I can think of to say is that Trump and Trump's actions are "not in my name". Because I believe in kindness it is hard for me to condemn those who voted for him without realizing the extent of what he would actually do, but I personally did not vote for the man nor support his policy or administration. In some ways it is quite strange that we are told that "we have to support the president" because he won the election. I will say I wasn't super happy with our choices this time around in general.

So I'm living in a country doing what I can not to allow one president and one administration's policies to tarnish our relationships with other countries and each other, but it still makes me sad to see you feel the way you do. Again, I understand though.

Just remember, like good people in the US recognize that there are good people in every other country (all the time, even during tough times), we still have good people too.

I'm not giving up hope in America. When you get rid of Trump without ruining your democracy we'll be right over!

From the Iraq invasion, torture, black sites, rendition, Guantanamo, Libya/Syria/Yemen, 26,000 drone bombs dropped on mainly Muslims in 2016 alone, providing UN/economic/military help to Israel's apartheid state, crony capitalism exported around the world through trade deals while criminal bank CEOs walk free after scamming millions of people and nonviolent drug offenders sit in jail for years if not life.

And this is just since 2000! If a year ago America was a country you admired, here's some advice: do visit, and don't just go to NYC and SF like most tourists, but rent a car and drive through the country. See what there is to admire about how the leaders of the US have run the country for decades vs. home your Scandinavian countries are run. Go to places that voted for Trump whose jobs are gone, whose infrastructure is falling apart, who have no health care and little opportunities for education, whose life expectancy has declined down to 3rd world levels under the America you admired. Perhaps you will then understand better why many Americans found themselves desperate enough to vote for a madman.

We should be careful about reading too much into this election. There are many well off republicans.

Based on the statistics I've seen, Trump had _fewer_ low income voters than Hillary. In addition Trump has similar percentages of male and white votes to GW Bush Senior [0].

While the disenfranchised poor Trump voter paints a pretty narrative, it leaves out a large volume of voters who turned out that dont fit that mold.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e...

This. When people say "working class voter" or "working poor voter", the inevitably implicity define it as a white voter. When you examine an ethnic breakdown of these voters, it becomes evident that this isn't an economic group but rather a racial-economic group. Poor blacks didn't vote for Trump any more than they did for Romney[0]

[0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trump...

I think even that is more complicated than a lot of people are saying. There used to be a solid bloc of white working class northerners who were solid democrats in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Trump was able to flip those states. I personally wonder how long that will hold before they flip back, or if it will be more permanent.

A very sincere question to you - do you also boycott things made in China/Russia? Do you think those countries are "better" (whatever that word means to you) than USA under Trump? If yes, I applaud your integrity even though I may not agree with your actions. If no, why do you have different standards?

I don't think not going to the US is the same thing as boycotting goods from nations you have some ideological problem with. I think it is more about the uneasy feeling you get from visiting a country that makes you feel like you have no rights. (And indeed, at the border crossings you really do not have any rights to speak of).

As for boycotting goods from China: that's not really possible anymore, so it would be a futile exercise. But that's a different discussion.

It seems like the parent is responding to

>We won't buy American products under Trump

in the grandparent, not the bit about cancelling his vacation.

I've never bought a product out of Russia and I've avoided products from other human rights violating countries for years as well. Countries that suck are kind of hard to boycott when you make a living in the tech industry though. The majority of my hardware was made in the west, but I do have an iPhone which was build in China.

Our boycott of America is more of a protest than an anti-American sentiment though. I mean, non-US citizens don't have a say in US politics, and rightfully so, but US policies do affect us. So how else would we protest Trump?

The reason for avoiding the American cloud, however, has less to do with protesting and more to do with privacy concerns. Especially now that Trump has spoken out against the Privacy Shield.

Personally I drew the line at the USG demanding to know your social media identities in the ESTA forms. But that was the Obama administration. It is nice to pretend that all problems started with Trump, but in fact the situation of crossing the border and immigration already got worse and worse under Obama.

I know two persons who while born in Iran, didn't live there for quite a few years and haven't been able to visit the US for conferences in the last few years.

I can understand the sentiment but I'm not sure if further separation really helps. As a European with strong ties to the US I'm more than saddened by what is happening but also see that Europe is fighting its own daemons. I feel that those of us who believe in an open society (and there are plenty both in the US and Europe) should resist the temptation to cut ourselves off and rather continue to strengthen our ties across the pond. Our friendship built over decades is too important to be lost to what has been happening over the last few years.

> but we won't visit America under Trump

I don't think putting all Americans in the same bag because you don't like an elected politician is fair. I'm European and have been to America. It's a country that is extremely diverse. Maine doesn't look like Florida which doesn't look like Texas which doesn't look like California.

It would be like boycotting all Europe because some guy you don't like got elected at the European level and took a decision you didn't like. The whole TSA thing is a pain in the arse but I got there by car from Canada and I will always remember the fog descending on the hills on the early morning when I entered Maine, it was just magic. You're missing a lot.

So you were fine with Obama's bombing of said countries, but Trump's prohibition on immigration is unacceptable?

The immigration policy of the previous administration would also have rejected the people targeted with the bombs.

It's a great rhetorical strategy to conflate the attacks on various militant groups (that many people did oppose) with a blanket policy based on country of origin, but it's pretty weak sauce.

I don't see where anybody said that.

It's possible to think that bombing is wrong, while still holding the opinion that the immigration order is worse.

If he's going to stop purchasing and using American good and cancel plans to come to America after the immigration policy was implemented, but not after Obama's targeted killings in Yemen and elsewhere, then clearly the former crossed a line while the latter didn't.

You're replying to a poster who is trying to divert discussion. Please don't engage, because the post is not trying to have a discussion, it's trying to divert the rest of us from talking about the current administration.

You're seeing the conservative social media strategy in action -- repeat talking points to divert discussion whenever "their side" is criticized.

If we want real discussion we have to ignore efforts to change the subject!

An awfully good point – thanks.

Why are you trying to change the subject away from immigration policy? I could also talk about how the president is trying to subvert the media to sell his immigration policies, but that would not be relevant in this thread. If you want to talk about that subject, post a new article.

I enjoy pointing out what I percieve as great hypocrisy. Somehow, disallowing foreigners from entering your country is suddenly better than starting wars and extrajudicial executions. It appears as if many people are protesting because of ideology (republican == bad), not because of their actual moral beliefs.

I think you're incorrect (and perhaps a little paranoid) about this being, as you say,

'...the conservative social media strategy in action -- repeat talking points to divert discussion whenever "their side" is criticized.'

tomp isn't trying to change the subject. Instead he asks a valid moral question: why would someone refuse to visit the USA because of Trump's (comparatively insignificant) executive order, yet the same person not be put off by a far more morally repugnant act: Obama's killing of thousands with drone attacks.

tomp also has a strong argument in his comment below about hypocrisy. I'd want him on my team in a debate - he sounds like an honest man.

No, but why would Trump being terrible make me ok with that?

I mean, I'm not happy that America has been at war since 9/11. I simply don't think I can attack America for being in wars, that my own country is participating in, at least not without being a hypocrite.

> A year ago America was a country I admired.

This is very childish and shows that you never really knew much about America in the first place. Love it or hate it, our nation was never a Scandinavian hug box. Even under Obama.

Trumps election is a symptom of the effects of perpetual war, associated propaganda and globalization in markets and jobs in the US. He is symbolic of peoples frustration with politics, taught jingoism, and nostalgia for a less complicated world.

His selection is also a backlash against a culture too-far: the emphasis on PC thinking and behavior,the new religion of inclusion which older|traditional personalities find to be decadent and repulsive.

You can boycott what is 'American' because of Trump but Trump doesn't care about America.

The United States are an extremely large and diverse country. Trump received 4% of the vote in DC [1] 16% of the vote in Boston [2]. For a Scandinavian comparison, these numbers are both significantly lower than recent national-level polling of the Sweden Democrats at 22% [3].

I really hope you change your mind and visit us, it may help you see through the national stereotype to the subtleties of the situation on the ground. You're welcome to my couch in Boston :).

[1] http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2016&f=0&o...

[2] http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/datagraph.php?year=2016&f... (Suffolk County)

[3] https://www.rt.com/news/367187-sweden-democrats-second-popul...

I was thinking of search for jobs in America in order to work in companies that use bleeding edge technologies. (Comparatively the open source scene, tech innovation scene in India is not that good).

Trump and his policies have generated similar reactions in me. What about scandanavia? Where to start looking for tech jobs there?

It's good to hear that you're standing up for your principals. What's the status of the right-wing movement in the Scandinavian countries? It's really getting a grip in many countries in Europe, and that's been very discouraging to hear.

The OP is just virtue-signaling. He presumably still buys products from third-world dictatorships. Let's ask him. OP, how can you justify boycotting America and not China or a myriad of other countries that are ruled under a far more oppressive regime.

Which products these might be?

Btw a number of vendors mark third world products as "ethically sourced", so it's possible to avoid products from dictatorships.

What's there to justify? Even if 'eksemplar is a hypocrite, but is accurately representing the opinions of a large number of Scandinavians, we, the US, have an economic problem, and saying "You're all hypocrites" isn't going to solve the problem.

(Also, go back to Reddit with your "OP" business.)

> (Also, go back to Reddit with your "OP" business.)

OP is short for original post(er). It's much older than both Reddit and HN.

The difference is that places like China have very little influence over "us". We trade, that's it. Whereas the US, through Hollywood, Nato, SV and general industry, has humongous cultural and economic influence. When my Prime Minister goes hand-in-hand with your President and licks his gold-plated boots, we feel it. When you "help" our neighbors fall into civil war and we get millions of refugees, we feel it. And so on and so forth. This why we feel a duty to resist and condemn trends in American politics that we see as destructive: because you are our Rome and we can't afford you to take your imperial duties this lightly.

Old man got angry on the village and cut off his dic...

I just don't get this obsession with Trump. So what if he is the president of the US? It doesn't change US one bit. You will still find the same people, the same cities, the same landscape as half year ago when Trump was not president yet. Why would you deprive yourself of broadening your horizons just because a guy who you don't like is in charge?

That is BS. China is easily one of the most oppressive regimes you must be buying from, you probably use Gas from Russia.

Society != Nation. Trump!=America. Trump is an asshole politician (just like Hillary) who has grabbed power.

When you refuse to engage in Trade you are not hurting Trump you are hurting average American and yourself. Trump will simply tax Americans more to keep is Airforce One flying.

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