Hacker News Reader

Comment by codesushi42 | Hacker News Reader

>PG once said that he was always interested in hacking politics, and as someone who's amusedly been watching the Gravel teens, I have a feeling they'll go pretty far.

Hacking politics has already been done, and more successfully. If you are interested in seeing someone "hack" politics, then Trump's election has been the best case study by far.

View on HN

Absolutely. Trump also serves as a case study of what kinds of safeguards exist within the American political system to prevent an incumbent president from really moving the needle. You cant go too far off script in the white house. You can be an embarrassing PR nightmare if you like, that's fine. So long as you keep supporting the institutions that have their grip on American democracy it's no problem.

Which institutions do you think have a grip on American democracy?

Eisenhower called it the "military-industrial complex". He observed how lobbyists and Pentagon reptiles could lead Congress around by the nose, voters be damned. He didn't anticipate the ways in which journalism would be co-opted into the constant push for more war, always constantly more war. This was foolish of him, since the Spanish-American War during his childhood was also started by lies in the press. He also didn't mention the part the unsupervised services would play in destabilizing societies at home and abroad, although since the Mosaddegh coup was his doing I guess he probably didn't have to say a damn thing about that.

Funny enough, Trump recently called out the MIC by name regarding Iran

with his next breathe he ranted about how The Iran Deal was the worst deal he's ever seen, because he knows deals. Trump is not a dedicated foe of The MIC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com