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Comment by monodeldiablo | Hacker News Reader

Please don't encourage ill treatment of US citizens overseas. Americans who travel outside her borders are not the people making these decisions, tend to be much more worldly than the average citizen, and are the first to be horrified at these developments.

If you want to make the US change, speak the language we speak: lawsuits. Sue, sue, sue. Call your embassy and demand that they pressure the White House to retract this stupid policy.

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This is, for better or worse, a populist decision.

I'd be all in favor of other countries holding up any Americans coming through on a tourist visa. Maybe if enough of their friends gripe about the way they're being treated overseas, Trump country will think "Oh, it's really not a very nice way to treat people." (To say nothing of ineffective)

I think there is very little overlap between international travelers and Trump supporters.

Well that's a silly statement.

I think that's a pompous assumption to make as it boils down to "If people travelled more, they wouldn't have voted for Trump." Which (even setting aside the economic assumption that everyone can jet off to Europe or Asia) is a pretty dismissive way to look at why people voted for Trump.

My takeaways were instead the following. (1) If one disagrees with the way the country is heading, one first has to understand the needs that drove people to Trump, and support people who fulfill those needs in a more positive way (rather than dismissing them). (2) Stop considering oneself absolved of blame if one didn't vote for Trump. One still participated in the environment that led to a Trump elector college victory, and is thus complicit.

Every day, not just election day.

They might not be making the decisions but they are the only ones who can affect them. How can foreigners demand that the US government changes its policy?

What power do you think the average citizen of the United States has to affect its government? A phone call to their senator (most likely ignored, best case you end up a tally in the nay yay spreadsheet, and either way it doesn't matter because they are going to vote the party line) and a vote on Election Day (hah!).

> Americans who travel outside her borders are not the people making these decisions, tend to be much more worldly than the average citizen, and are the first to be horrified at these developments.

They also most likely wield dis-proportionally large influence to get this nonsense stopped.

Why? What would give you that idea? "People who travel internationally" is not, to my knowledge, a privileged political class in the US.

People who travel internationally tend to be wealthier and better educated than those that never leave their country.

They don't need to be a privileged political class in order to wield more influence since influence tends to be loosely correlated with wealth. See also: Trumps billionaire cabinet.

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