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Thanks, I am appreciating reading this discussion.

> Of all the things you listed about Trump, I’d only really take issue with two

So then you agree that he tried to overthrow an election? This is the wild part to me. I don't know whether his actions after losing the 2020 election were technically illegal or not, but in my opinion this was the clearest threat to America's peaceful transition of power I've ever witnessed. I thought "okay, this is at least 50x worse than Watergate, even Trump won't survive this." Then amazingly (to me), he won in 2024. My only hypothesis for how that happened is that 99% of people who voted for him believed his unfounded claims regarding the 2020 election. But you seem to be an interesting counterexample.

Point blank, he won because of Biden’s weaponization of the justice department. The American people saw it happening right in front of their faces and they were utterly tired of it. It’s possible that Biden did this because he truly felt that Trump could not be allowed a second term, but when he made the decision to go down that path, he made a binary bet. If it worked, he would have saved democracy. If it failed, Trump would rise to power, hellbent on revenge. He made this careless bet without an actual strategy in place, and he predictably lost. In a way, Biden created the very thing he feared.

Thank you, for both responses. There are little things we could quibble about further, but it's late, so I'm going to keep it short [edit: I failed] and then go to bed happy that you and I were able to have a discourse that felt respectful, well reasoned, and beneficial - something I've felt so lacking for recently. Despite being able to quibble about details, I understand a lot of what you are saying and agree with many of your points.

> As best I can tell, he’s mostly doing what the people who elected him expected him to do.

The one thing I'd like to pick at tonight is this. I don't think many of the people who voted for him would have agreed with all of this a year ago, but they get stuck agreeing with it now out of confirmation bias and because he's on their team, and they want their team to win. It seems more like everything Trump does is approved by the vast majority of his base, no matter what that ends up being.

Before the election I enjoyed the debate between Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris[1]. Shapiro's main point was that though he didn't like a lot of what Trump said, he liked a lot of what Trump did in his first term. Shapiro was of the opinion that Trump wouldn't do all the things he said and that his second term would look a lot like his first.

It is my opinion that, a month into it, Trump's second term now looks nothing like his first, and Trump is making good on all the things he said he would do during his campaign. Everyone isn't Shapiro, but a lot of people listen to him and think like him. Taking Shapiro as an example, I would say he was clearly wrong. But if you watch Shapiro today, he accepts what Trump is doing full stop. He's not out there saying, "I didn't think Trump would actually do all of this." He's acting like this is what he wanted. And, thanks to Shapiro's confirmation bias and a good healthy dose of audience capture, it is what he wanted - at least the part about Trump being right, now that "right" has changed.

Anyway, I typed way longer than I intended to. Thank you for a good civil discussion.

> I’d be happy with Obama v. McCain at this point.

Fully agreed.

Good night.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTnV5RfhIjk&t=3s&pp=ygUWYmVu...

Chiming in, this point is a important one. Many people who voted Trump didn't actually believe he would do all the things he said. His whole thing is that he talks big. Its and incredible power really. If he says "I'm going to do <objectively bad thing>", and his critics call him out on it. His supporters say: its just talk to get a reaction, you're taking it out of context, etc. This happened a lot during the first term (big talk, not follow-through) and then lots of big talk during the campaigning for this term with the expectation it would likewise have little follow-through. But then he starts doing it, and his supporters immediately switch to "he said he would do this and he's doing it and he has our support".

Example during the first term was the "Lock her up" talk about Hillary. He didn't do anything about her at all. And people just accepted it as big talk. Hi supporters (mostly) didn't really expected him to go after her with the DOJ or whatever. It was just campaigning bluster. But today he says he's going to start unnecessary trade wars with allies and people said "its just bluster, he's not really going to do it", immediately to "of course he's going that, he said he would".

When he said that people would not need to vote again if he's elected a second time, was that bluster? Taken out of context? Not to be taken seriously? That's what his supporters said then. But what he starts making moves to actually make that happen? Then its "he said he would do that and was voted in, so that's what america wants". It's a wild to say its what people want when they didn't believe he would do it.

>Then its "he said he would do that and was voted in, so that's what america wants". It's a wild to say its what people want when they didn't believe he would do it.

It is what people want. Just look at how many people on HN are aggressively carrying water for Trump and DOGE in these threads. They aren't the minority, they're the mainstream. You can't simply pretend the majority of Trump voters who absolutely do want him to do the things he says either don't exist or didn't vote.

It’s wild watching America skydive into anocracy this quickly, but that’s where we are, I guess.

A few days ago I was worried they might pull all their troops out of Europe. Today… I think I’m more worried they won’t.

The inflection point has been quick - and I think a lot of that is due to Musk injecting himself into the process, and Trumpists spending the last four years organizing. They know they wasted the potential of their last term and don't intend to make the same mistake again.

But people have been warning about this all the way back during the alt-right/Tea Party days of Obama, which Trump was a direct response to.

It's been like watching the slowest train crash in progress, all while half the country accuses the other half of derangement for believing trains are even real.

Had the same thought.

>The alternative was someone with no obvious positions other than her predecessor’s, who was not elected by her party, and who was honestly just unlikeable as an individual for most people.

We used to live in a democracy, not a dimocracy. There were more options than the 2 major parties. Always have been.

> I’m not convinced he sexually assaulted anyone

Yeah, and his name totally didn't show up in Maxwell's black book, and he totally wasn't a pal of Jeffrey Epstein. /s

You're fucking kidding me.

> I don’t think personal financial enrichment was really a goal of his either time.

My brother in Christ, financial enrichment has been the only goal of Donald Trump, ever. He ran in 2016 expecting to lose so he could use the base as viewers of the new Fox-alt media platform he was trying to raise money for.

This is a guy whose life mission is to convince everyone else he's a billionaire, while simultaneously threatening to sue anyone who claims he isn't, while also simultaneously avoiding lawsuits that would open his finances up to discovery. He tried to sue his own biographer when said biographer claimed he wasn't a billionaire. Trump dropped the case when it went to discovery.

>I think his initial run was mostly on a whim, but (Hillary) Clinton offended him and he doubled down in response. His second run was personal - he felt personally attacked on both socially and legally, and has basically made it his mission in life at this point to destroy everything those who did that to him care about.

His first run was in 2000. His second run was 2012. Third run got him elected. His fourth run saw him defeated. His fifth run got him re-elected. Get your facts straight.