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Comment by skinnymuch | Hacker News Reader

How can one be a libertarian and support Trump? Meanwhile someone being Republican [or Democrat to a lesser extent] and supporting Trump makes sense in terms of the core principles of each party.

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You choose the candidate/party that best aligns with your views even if they don't align very well.

There’s a big difference between choosing and publicly loudly and financially supporting said parties specific politicians like Trump who do not align at all except in one aspect (taxing the wealthy and corporations less). In this specific case it isn’t “don’t align very well”.

The best equivalent would be socialists strongly, publicly, and financially advocating for Hillary like Thiel to Trump in 2016. That didn’t happen.

A preemptive note: Bernie is a democratic socialist. That’s what he himself says he is. Not a socialist.

“The Squad” seemed pretty happy to stump for Biden despite it being clear their interests barely overlap.

Does "The Squad" refer to the actual politicians or their bases? Because those groups are playing two different games. The only people I've ever met who were enthusiastic about Biden were hardcore Democratic Party mega-volunteers or staffers.

Biden has grown on me. Exiting Afghanistan helped. Were it not for Manchin and Sinema, his BBB package had a lot of progressive goals stitched in its fabric. He is, like Carter before him, an utterly decent man.

Biden as a symbol is everything I dislike. However you just made me realize he has grown on me too. In practical terms, people are being incredibly hard on him. Even I’m thinking whoa now. Exactly as you stated. He did leave however flawed. And he can’t do much with the two senators there.

I draw the line on him being an utterly decent man. He wasn’t chosen as Obama’s running mate for being someone who could stitch a few progressive goals together. He was chosen because of how conservative he was. Never apologizing for his rabid support of tough on crime (disproportionately affecting lower socioeconomic and minority people/men)

Biden has regretted the 1990s crime bills.

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2019/01/21/biden-s...

That’s nice. To do it on MLK’s commemoration is very off putting. It’s fine with the white washed MLK version. Not for the actual MLK.

I mean I just choose not to participate, but I guess this is what we get with what’s effectively a 2 party system.

I think you'd be surprised how many votes for Trump in 2016 were actually votes for "not Hillary".

Thiel didn’t just vote for Trump. The OP stated he did more than that. And from what I’ve read he has done more than that too.

I'm not arguing "Thiel is a good guy", but if he didn't want Hillary elected (assumption), using his public profile to boost Trump pre-election != actual MAGA hat Trump true believer.

I’m not referring to Thiel’s morality. Only on actually being libertarian. Sure what you wrote is technically plausible.

However he continues to work with the Trumps. Recently he’s working with Trumps to oust Liz Cheney. His own PACs focuses include many non-libertarian focuses. Immigration control, strict border control, supporting the military as it is now, are some of the top issues of the PAC. These actions are of a conservative Republican, not a libertarian.

Wanting to oust Liz Cheney does not make someone not a libertarian. And military and border control are among the few things that many libertarians believe to be a valid function of a national government.

None of those things prove he's not a libertarian.

Supporting huge military? Right immigration control?

The Liz Cheney stuff was about working with Don Jr. The reason why is unimportant.

The entire point of all this is for there not to be one smoking gun. It’s a collection of everything.

The entire way the right has obfuscated things is by getting by with “no one thing proves I am or am not X or Y”

I don't know what your questions mean or how it addresses my comment so I'll just repeat.

Political maneuvering doesn't mean someone is not a libertarian, and military and border control are not incompatible with libertarianism either.

Thiel like anybody has pretty complex views that don't fit neatly in a box, you could argue where they put him in the spectrum, but the examples you used are poor. I know many libertarian purists obsess over their image and "principle" to the detriment of actually achieving anything politically, but that doesn't mean all of them act this way.

I think you'd be surprised that "not Hillary" wasn't on either the 2016 Republican primary ballot nor on the 2016 general election ballot. Trump was. He was also on the 2020 Republican primary and general election ballots. "not Hillary" wasn't on any of the 2020 ballots.

You should re-read the simple sentence you're replying to. At the 2016 election, if you didn't want Hillary elected, you had to vote Republican, i.e. for Trump. How is this even up for debate?

Republicans need to take responsibility for their decisions. First, Republicans chose Trump in the primary. They had choices. They chose Trump. Then they supported him in the general. Then they supported him for re-election. That isn't up for debate.

You should probably argue your anti-Trump case somewhere relevant. Your points have nothing to do with either of the comments you're replying to.

Yes this is true to an extent in a vacuum. However for context with the overall thread. Many no-Hillary Trump voting people continued to support Trump through now. At which point it isn’t as clear cut it was actually a no Hillary stance as much as a combination of things while the easiest and trendy out at the time was to say no Hillary as your principe.

Otherwise yeah you’re right some did do just that for that one time.

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