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Comment by ur-whale | Hacker News Reader

Can't agree with you more, the political atmosphere in the Valley and the tech. companies is simply unbearable.

Living in the valley in general and especially in SF basically means being subjected to a daily deluge of left-wing ideology that the people living in that bubble self-perpetuate and feed upon.

The Trump election came as a much deeper shock to the SF/Valley locals than the rest of America: most people there were totally dumbstruck when he won.

The very idea that this was even remotely possible was simply not part of their tiny self-contained world.

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We may never know but I would say that most people were surprised that Trump won not because his policies are conservative but because he is a very crappy person and makes statements that no political leader should ever make in the 21st century, IMO. You can have lots of opposing views towards the common political ideas found in SF and not have to be someone like Trump. I think the fact that won was very shocking because of who he is and how he acts rather than the fact that the rest of the country would vote republican.

>because he is a very crappy person

I don't disagree with you there.

But you have to realize that the rest of America is so disgusted with the silicon-valley style lefties at this point that they are willing to vote for someone like Trump.

Self-introspection time imo.

Silicon Valley? Left wing? You've got to be kidding me.

SF is like the ultimate neoliberal bubble.

This kind of comment is exactly what we're referring to. I'm sorry to be blunt, but it's so false that I wonder if it's a parody. SF's government is one of the most left wing of the entire country. Taxes are very high, the economy is extremely regulated (getting a building permit can easily take 6-10 years) and there's a ton of public aid.

In case anyone is wondering SF county (& many of the counties around it) pay 16.2% of their income in taxes putting them in the top 20 of the country [1]. SF/Oakland have some of the longest waiting for permits for residential at 10.2 months on average [2]

I can't seem to find any good sources on exactly how much public aid is spent.

Because I was wondering, the SF MSA ranked 25th out of ~1k in terms of worst income inequality [3]

All of these data points come from different sources and from different years.

[1]: https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/map-income-taxes-in-y...

[2]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/building-permit-delays-choke-u-...

[3]: https://www.epi.org/publication/income-inequality-in-the-us/

SF and California at large is run by liberal Democrats, but that's a far cry from actual leftism.

Do you know how many members of the San Jose City Council are Republicans?

One. And he's Vietnamese.

I grew up in the American south and was also dumbstruck. Heck I’m pretty sure the man himself was.

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