Hacker News Reader

Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Why is it always or even generally wrong when politicians in a representative republic are interested in appealing to the electorate? We have a system of government in which a single man is given 4 years of relative impunity to act on the behalf of a hugely diverse population of ~250 million human beings. I don't believe that him compromising to popular opinion is prima facie a net negative.

edit:

> I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.)

What would be the dataset and the priors for this Bayesian analysis? Which presidents haven't changed in response to events and changing beliefs and political realities?

View on HN

I was gonna say that too—I'm sort of impressed that "this politician listens to the people they're representing too much" is a criticism now. Probably came from the same brilliant minds who gave us "she was overprepared for the debate, we need a president who doesn't take their job seriously."

(And I think both of these, the "overprepared" thing and the general insinuation that Hillary isn't human, are subtle propaganda points from the Republican strategists. So it's funny to see it in a thread about how the left wing makes right wing ideas unthinkable when literally the opposite has happened. Here's my controversial opinion that will get yelled at by most people: Hillary is a genuine and kindhearted person who deeply cares about making America better, and she was the best candidate for president from any party for decades—certainly far better than Bernie.)

> she was overprepared for the debate

Stealing the questions from the moderator (and still losing) is now being described as overprepared?

Clinton was described as overprepared for the debate the night of the first debate.

There was some amount of controversy over one such comment, by Chuck Todd (of NBC).

> Stealing the questions from the moderator

You're confusing two separate incidents, Donna Brazile giving one question from the primary debate to the Hillary campaign in March 2016, and Chuck Todd analyzing the first general debate in September 2016 and calling her "over-prepared". So, no.

Again, it's extremely funny how much false right-wing propaganda you're attempting to use in defense of the assertion that the left wing prefers orthodoxy to truth.

> it's extremely funny how much false right-wing propaganda you're attempting to use

I mean it's literally just what happened. Donna Brazille even said the reason she did it was because she didn't think Clinton was smart enough to be President on her own, and that she would be 'blindsided' by basic questions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com