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Comment by wbronitsky | Hacker News Reader

> Trump as if it's a foregone conclusion that he's a racist sociopath

You are totally correct. I do think this. I have ample evidence that backs up my case as well. I think the quote "when they start looting, we start shooting" which was hidden by Twitter for inciting violence, is enough for me.

> This is a strawman, because I haven't seen Trump "inciting random citizens to commit violent acts."

I don't think we can have a real conversation because we disagree about the basic facts on the ground.

Trump, from my position, is clearly, repeatedly and blatantly pushing people to violence using Twitter. In fact, even Twitter thinks so.

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> "when they start looting, we start shooting"

Umm... except that’s not what he said though. If it was, I would completely agree with you that it is an incitement (more accurately, a proclamation) of violence. But what he actually said was:

"when the looting starts, the shooting starts"

And, per Wikipedia:

"He said that he was not aware of the phrase's 'racially-charged history'. He added that he didn't know where the phrase had originated, and that his intent in using it was to say 'when there's looting, people get shot and they die.'"

So his statement is not an incitement, but a prediction. You may believe that Trump is lying about his intention, but that's a different debate.

So at worst we have someone who is intentionally inciting violence.

At best we have a leader of our country too irresponsible to do due diligence on his own posts to the entire free world. He has literally infinite resources at his disposal to communicate effectively about this.

Being a hateful bigot and or an ignoramus should both be unacceptable positions for the leader of the US. Furthermore this isn't the first time he's said or done hateful / bigoted / ignorant things / lied so you'll excuse people if they don't give him the 'benefit of the doubt'.

> Being a hateful bigot and or an ignoramus should both be unacceptable positions for the leader of the US

That's something you take up at the ballot box or with your Congressperson/governer, not Facebook.

When you have a 'bully pulpit' as powerful and far reaching as Facebook now provides to the president then it is totally reasonable to want to hold them accountable (given you disagree with their stance).

I don't exactly understand what is objectionable about protesting the decision making of corporate entities given the immense power they hold?

This is like saying you shouldn't boycott BP for their oil spill, you should just complain to your congressperson. I don't understand why you can't complain on both fronts?

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