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Comment by sys_64738 | Hacker News Reader

I've never felt this embarrassed to be an American in recent years. To all our foreign friends in computing, the majority of people in the US are not caricatures of POTUS and his sock puppet sidekick.

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But about half of America did vote for this, and Trump isn’t doing what he said he’d do and what the world said he’d do.

Half of American voters voted for this, which is far less than half of Americans. I’m almost as disappointed in the people who didn’t vote as I am in the people who voted for this.

Pretty close to half[1] of voters, but not quite half from the sources I have.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election...

https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/?office=P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...

77 million people voted for Trump. The US has 340 million people. 22.6% of the US voted for this.

I don't think it's fair to include the entire population of the US in that total, even the 78 million children who can't vote. And people who didn't vote made their choice as well.

By that logic, no democracy in the world elects their leaders with a 50%+ majority, not even countries with mandatory voting laws like Australia or Belgium.

What is being objected to is:

> But about half of America did vote for this

So it is fair to include the full population of America.

> By that logic, no democracy in the world elects their leaders with a 50%+ majority

Leaders are often elected by plurality, meaning less then 50% of the voters, but the winer still has the largest number of votes[1]. Trump did not win the majority according the sources I have[2]. 'Majority' is often used as a replacement for plurality in everyday speech, but sometimes you need to get into the nitty gritty details and need the more precise definitions.

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/e/majority-vs-plurality/

[2]

https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election...

https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/?office=P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...

This is nitpicking. When people say that half the country voted for X, it is implied they are referring to voters, not infants. You don't need to be more precise than that. Just like if I say "everyone I hang out with prefers wine over beer", I don't include my 2-year-old nephew or my cat, both of whom I hang out with regularly.

> When people say that half the country voted for X, it is implied they are referring to voters

In this case it is a very large difference and it is important to keep it in mind, even if starting with 340 million is not the best place to start.

Google tells me the adult population of the USA is ~260 million, so 260 - 77.3 = 182.7 and 182.7/260 ~0.7. So ~70% of the adult population did not vote for Trump. It is part of Trump's job as president to represent and serve that 70%. It is also part of Trump's job to represent and serve the minority of adults who voted him into office too.

I have talked to many people over the years that did not know so few people voted or the difference between majority and plurality. These sort of details can and do lead to misunderstandings, that unfortunately, can and do waste considerable time.

If you could vote and didn't vote for Kamala then you're the problem. You helped Trump into the White House and own this.

It's just a matter of fact that more than half of the US did not vote for this regime. You can object that more than half of the US did not vote for any president, and we would agree.

262m voters 18+ in the USA. 75m voted for Kamala. 187m are happy with Trump.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/29/2024-06... https://www.cookpolitical.com/vote-tracker/2024/electoral-co...

262m is the estimate for the "Population of Voting Age for Each State and the District of Columbia". Not all of these are voters, and only malicious thinking could lead to the conclusion that these people are all happy (or unhappy) with Trump.

I don't think that's a meaningful distinction. In a purely technical sense, sure, not half of the human beings alive at the time voted for one candidate. That has never happened and will likely never happen in the US.

But in common parlance, it is acceptable to say that half the country voted for one or another candidate. It happens all the time:

https://thehill.com/opinion/4935813-trump-appeal-conservatis...

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/how-the-other-half...

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/voting-elections-de...

I only see the hill article using that parlance. I looked at the articles the hill certainly says half the country voted for Trump. It is an opinion piece you linked to though not a news piece.

The center for politics and global citizen articles do not seem to use half that way though.

For center for politics the title starts with "How the Other Half Votes" and they seem to keep to that usage and never use half of USA/America.

For Global Citizen the title starts with "Half the Planet Will Vote This Year" an they seem to stick to that and never use half of USA/America

I intentionally linked to variations on that wording to show there's a pattern. If you're looking for those exact words, you can find plenty more examples online.

I do not see the pattern you are seeing. What I would need to change my mind here are communities using the parlance correctly, understanding the meaning, and it not leading to misunderstandings to a reasonable percent of the community.

I don't think I understand what you're not understanding, so I'm afraid I won't be able to change your mind.

Just because it's common parlance does not mean it's a good practice. HN is supposed to be a forum for reasoned discussion. Any kind of sophistry or propaganda should be called out. Since Trump describes his regime as having an "unprecedented and powerful mandate", and this is actually incorrect in several ways, it is worth drawing the distinction here.

Another way in which Trump is incorrect is that his election victory margin is average among presidential elections in terms of both electoral vote margin and popular vote margin.

So fewer than 1 in 4 Americans actually did something to stop this from happening?

>the majority of people in the US are not caricatures of POTUS

It's so sad that an evil magician has hypnotized so many Americans into voting for Trump. Thank you for reminding us how the majority would have voted if they hadn't been hypnotized.

As an American it pains me how well put this is

I don't understand why you assume your foreign friends in computing are not in favor of... eh, whatever you are "embarrassed by". And whatever it is, the (small) majority of people in the USA voted for it, so your statement simply means you are so invested in your own religion that you are willing to fool yourself into thinking "nearly everybody" is, not just every second guy. Which surely seems like "nearly everybody", if you don't want to consider their point of view has as much merit as your own.

If anything, I expected HN crowd to be one-sided, but not that one sided. All these laments in this topic are kinda crazy to read, honestly.

Should have felt embarrassed about Nuland and Blinken. This is the fall-out.

It's actually possible to be embarassed for both.

You don't speak for all or even most Americans. A majority of US voters selected Donald Trump as their President. I'm pleased with the President's pushback on the disrespectful, high-pressure bargaining tactics Zelensky tried to use today in front of the press at the White House.

49% is a plurality, not a majority.

You're right, he won 49.7% of the popular vote compared to Kamala Harris' 48.4%. Many states like Arizona and California took weeks to finish counting and I had not checked the final numbers.

If you're curious how most Americans feel now, you can read about Trump's approval ratings here; currently his poll results are net-favorable:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-t...

Takes a while for buyer's remorse to fully set in.

Yes, it hasn't been long enough for any real effects to start being felt, even though it's felt like an eternity.

That does seem to be home Americans feel now.

Bit I would like to point out that it took about 9 months for Biden's approval/disapproval rating to be around equal[1].

In contrast, it has taken Trump about 1 month to do the same[2].

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/joe-bide...

[2] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-t...

He won by plurality, not majority.

Under half of voters selected him - roughly a quarter of the population - and many of them claim to have done so on the basis of the policy positions he made during the campaign which have been reversed (Canada, Gaza, Ukraine, Project 2025, etc.).

well then i’m even more ashamed of my country lol. high pressure?

JD vance calling the guest out for being disrespectful in front of the media. Trump not letting the guest talk at all. did we watch the same video? Hilarious take.

I watched the whole thing. I suppose you saw what you wanted to see.

i also saw the full 1 hour segment and i think it was overall pretty cordial. I’m specifically referring to this heated exchange (the short clip).

I guess we all see what we want to see. We have biases after all.

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, I just find it interesting that Zelensky is having no problem talking politics with other countries (excluding russia). See the recent emergency summit in europe as an example. Why is that? Are we as americans that difficult to work with? If so - why is that? Do we want to be left with 0 allies after all is said and done? As Zelensky alluded, nobody is #1 forever, and pretending you will be (and treating all your allies like shit) is probably not a smart long term strategy?

Do you not see the incredible irony accusing Zelenskyy of "disrespectful, high-pressure bargaining tactics"??

His country has been under attack by an authoritarian government for YEARS, and the problem is that he's not "respectful enough" for you? What happened to "facts don't care about your feelings"?

It's "facts don't care about your feelings". As the originator of the quote shows himself, his feelings are still very important and must be cared for.

[flagged]

> WTF are you talking about?

> get the fuck out of here

> You are pissing on anyone

Whoa—swipes like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Please don't post any more of this. Your comment would have been just fine without it. (Well, that and the "little baby bitches".)

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, that would be good. I don't want to ban you and we've had to ask you this before.

roger that

sanitized sir

I appreciate the response! However it looks like I didn't explain the point clearly. I'll try again. (sorry, this is going to be kind of long...)

The problem isn't profanity and the solution isn't sanitization. Rather, the problem is crossing into pejoratives and/or name-calling and/or being aggressive to other commenters. And the solution is to edit all that out.

When you make edits like these:

WTF are you talking about? -> What in the heck are you on about?

get the fuck out of here -> get that terrible characterization out of here

You are pissing on anyone -> You are denigrating anyone

... you've sanitized the profanity, but your comment is still pejorative and swipey in the way the site guidelines are asking you (not you personally, of course! I mean all of us) to avoid.

Also, I totally missed this in the original post—this is another one:

> you should be ashamed. You need to do better.

The way to follow the site guidelines is to edit out swipes and take out pejoratives (especially personal ones). There are lots of ways to do that, but in case it's helpful, here's one:

  "I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that will end the destruction in your country" was what our VP said to kick off the spat.

  "High-pressure bargaining tactics" is not accurate. Zelensky didn't kiss the ring and our representatives reacted angrily when he corrected them gently on the actual history of diplomacy in that region since 2014.

  That is extortive, not appropriate American diplomacy.

I don't mean to tell you how to edit your own post! I just thought a concrete example might be helpful. In any case, if you'd posted that or anything similar, I wouldn't have responded with a mod reply.

A nice side effect of doing this kind of editing is that it makes your comments more persuasive, by both polishing and sharpening your argument.

I'll go through the guidelines again, obviously I hadn't yet since my edits. Your house, your rules and I'll try to make sure to depersonalize my displeasure in the future.

Thanks for the example, I appreciate it!

The good news: depersonalizing is more than half of the challenge. The bad news: it's way easier to come across as personally pejorative than one imagines. (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)

In any case, thanks for hearing me out with such patience—if it were always this easy, I'd...have more free time!

Trump behaved like a petulant fool. If you don't know it, let me tell you, every foreign government on the planet and their diplomatic corps knows it. Shouting over someone speaking your language at a public meeting was such a god damned embarrassment for the country. A total lack of decorum, a total lack of diplomacy, a total lack of understanding or control of themselves or the situation. He's not fit to run a McDonalds.

Why couldn't what Zelensky did be equally described as "appealing to the American people"? After all, aren't we a democracy? The President is supposed to represent us, and thus be receptive to such appeals. If it so happens that the appeal persuades Americans, the President should follow suit.

Dissuading and choking off appeals to the people suggests to me that the President is highly insecure in his position. People in secure positions don't get offended or upset when people appeal to their bosses (i.e., us).

Calling the recently-elected Vice President of the United States "bitch" in Russian, on camera, in the White House, was probably not the right way to appeal to the American people.

https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1895555421269868776

[flagged]

For a foreign head of state in the White House on a state visit sitting next to the President in front of cameras, you mean? Or did you mean someone else in an entirely different context?

You’re grasping at straws, I’m afraid. (Even if he did mutter it under his breath, by then, the boorish behavior by Vance and the President was well under way.)

Can you kindly answer the question presented? When—before this testy tirade began—was Zelensky disrespectful, and how? When considering your answer, what makes Zelensky’s behavior different from anyone else’s who wished to plead their case to the American people, which has been done throughout history without incurring similar drama and blowback?

I've read it was more like cursing at a situation, not calling someone a name. As if I said "son of a bitch" when reading comments that defend Russia and attack Ukraine.

> the disrespectful, high-pressure bargaining tactics Zelensky tried to use today

Such as? All I heard was him asking how an agreement or deal would help when the history of Ukraine-Russia deals has always ended up with Ukraine being invaded more

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