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Comment by jasonlingx | Hacker News Reader

Trump campaigned on this. America voted for this.

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

> Every nation gets the government it deserves.

That sounds catchy, but isn't true. Think of all the dictators who came to power after a coup (sometimes backed by foreign powers).

Four times, it was America that installed said dictator...

The U.S. is clearly geographically stratified (and self stratifying), and the impact factor of certain regions is clearly larger than others with the electoral system.

I would take issue with the statement that "America" voted for Trump or his talking points. Priorities vary greatly; just look at local politics. For two extremes, California ballot measures (2016) have included things like legalizing marijuana and promoting bilingual school education; Kansas has ballot measures for things like right to hunt and fish (2016) or exemption from nationally mandated health care plans (2014).

How does it make sense to speak about an entire nation deserving anything? I didn't vote for this, but I'm getting it just the same.

Meet Collective Responsibility [1] AKA The most harmful idea ever.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_responsibility

This situation is what is known as a double-bind:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

I.E. When someone tells you "You must be free!", this is a psychological trap, because if you are not free to decide if you want to be free, then you can't really be free.

Actually, the majority of Americans did NOT vote for this. Even the majority that actually voted didn't vote for this.

Oh boy, not this again. The majority of the electoral college voted for this. That's how both Trump, and Hillary campaigned. To maximize electoral votes. There is no way to predict how it would have turned out, if it was based on popular vote.

Oh get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. The majority of the American people did not and still do not want Trump.

Yeah, the legally elected leader, according to the Constitution, is Donald Trump. That still doesn't mean the majority of Americans electing them. Parent was assigning the responsibility for his election to all American citizens, but it's kinda hard to blame the entire American public for supporting these opinions when only 25.4% of them actually cast a ballot for Trump, and even passivity is hard to blame when more people actively opposed Trump than supported him.

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