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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I don't usually comment on the political stories here, but...

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

It's just surreal to me that we've descended to the point where our President is communicating in this fashion. Not just the typos. The crazy hyperbole, lack of decorum, and the venue.

I worry what might happen if he uses this same approach with foreign relations. Sounds alarmist, but could the next war be started via Twitter?

Edit: A relatively good summary of the events that led here: https://twitter.com/justinhendrix/status/838010340579426304

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It's weird to see so many people utterly obsessed with appearances (which all of the above count as) as if the President's job was to be an actor.

Prediction: Trump's style will not make it more or less likely for him to declare war than if he had the style of a polished actor.

Is it that weird that there's an expectation that the US president should think about things before communicating them?

There's a difference between "polished actor" and "careful diplomacy".

You don't think his communication style might have been risky during the Cuban missle crisis, for example?

> Is it that weird that there's an expectation

What's weird is that you attribute any importance to appearances, and prefer one type of appearances over another.

You know what they say: judge people by what they do, solely by what they do. Never by what they say. This isn't even caring about what he says, but caring about the way he says it, even worse.

> You don't think his communication style might have been risky during the Cuban missle crisis, for example?

During that same Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets sent two letters. One that appeared ranting and almost drunkenlike, and one that appeared diplomatic, reasoned and moderate. The first was probably sent by Khrushchev, so he could seem tough, and the other by his advisors, who didn't have as much to prove. Yet the Cuban crisis went fine, because the US expected Khrushchev to behave like that, and weren't surprised by it.

Same with Trump, who's just as predictable as any other politician (I would say more so) if you follow him enough.

You care about appearances (which never matter) when what matters is expectations and consistency.

It's not so much that I care about appearances. It's more that I understand that other people, like foreign leaders, might care about something Trump says off the cuff.

Your example of Khrushchev might have worked out differently with blowhards on both sides.

> Your example of Khrushchev might have worked out differently with blowhards on both sides.

Which there were (on the US side, some in the admin wanted to bomb Cuba to shreds), but were overridden. Because leaders have skin in the game in a way advisors don't. It's something to call for total destruction as an advisor, and another thing to be the man in charge, where the decision, responsibility, and blame all lie on you. Human psychology saves the day.

Your position is basically that poor diplomacy never has consequences.

I'm arguing that this isn't "bad diplomacy", and only is if you judge it by its appearances.

Geopolitics is driven by constraints. Nobody will declare war against Trump because his tie is too long.

You're equating the power of speech and communication with a tie being too long. Speech can, and does, incite action, not always the intended action either.

> Speech can, and does, incite action

Action is the sole responsibility of the one committing the action. I don't buy the premises of the fascist "speech is violence" crowd, and thank God that world leaders are not as immature as them.

This is true, but deceptively and disproportionately so. It basically doesn't, with a single deceptively skewed 'demographically' constrained exception. I'll give you an example without labeling the entire group, and rather point out one of the 'louder' factions: SJW's putting vaginas on their heads while running around like freshly neutered pepper-sprayed autistic goats.

When the news you watch, tells you how terrible it is that Kellyanne Conway put her feet on the couch, or that Donald Trump puts ketchup on his steak, and Trump voters are ripping the Hijab's from the faces of Muslim women everywhere, and that people need to take action to stop it before the "Nazis" do something worse, people like you tend to adopt beliefs like the one I'm responding to.

Edit:The handful of muslim women who told their stories, all came forward admitting they made it up. Same as all the women who were 'raped' by Trump. There is a reason something close to 80% of people know CNN and the NYT are not trustworthy in the slightest. Better yet, at the same time, those same publications are claiming they are the ones taking action to stop the 'fake news,' meanwhile, NYT and Wash. Post recently and still currently are receiving 50% of their viewership from Chinese IPs, a jump from 1-2% since 2009, which is when China banned access to the NYT, where oddly, it's still nationally inaccessible today. (hint: they keep spewing bs, including that their viewership isn't totally tanked, while fudging their numbers....)

> judge people by what they do, solely by what they do. Never by what they say.

Who the hell says that? You should absolutely judge people by what they say.

That makes you much easier to manipulate, ironically (ironic since you wouldn't think that being more judgmental would lead to being more naive, but here it would).

People usually talk about what they want to do before they do it.

If you ignore them when they talk about it and only react when they actually do it, you lose the opportunity to stop them doing something bad before it happens.

That's simplistic and short-sighted. People usually talk butterflies, and then turn around and commit horrors, while your crowd will be gazing at the butterflies.

The smooth-spoken actor Obama has successfully branded himself a liberal champion, and now receives the same (similarly fake) adulation on the left as Reagan on the right. When people think "Obama", they think of the smile or nuances speeches (all appearance).

They don't think about the only things that really matter, actions. Obama used espionage laws to imprison journalists. Where was the outrage in the media? People now are calling Trump dictatorial and anti-1A, when all he's done is criticized news outlets in tweets, never (yet) used laws to limit freedom of the press.

This is just an example. Reputation, in the public consciousness, is based on appearances, and you can see how cancerous that becomes, and how easily manipulated it makes you. People not judging others solely by what they do is why democracy is so weakened today.

Leakers were aggressively pursued. Conceded.

James Risen (a journalist for the New York Times) was threatened with jail if he refused to identify a source. The government did not end up jailing him.

Which journalists were jailed?

You're totally right. Sources were. Journalists were surveilled (not just through bulk collection, but specifically) to have their sources revealed. The jailing of journalists, though, is now within the President's power[0], which is a disgrace no matter who the president is.

Meanwhile, the appearances crowd was nowhere to be found, and only a small minority actually looked behind the curtain.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-...

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