Epic Recall, Epic Fail | Hacker News Reader

Epic Recall, Epic Fail

taipology.substack.com

75 pointshunglee223 comments

I think it's really hard to take a political commentary article seriously when it includes images of opponent supporters crying.

May as well just say "Libruls BTFO"

toxic as usual... she will forever agree with Chinese as that's her tribe. Her criticism to the ruling party can just as well apply to KMT, they should focus on economics but no, they had to axe the budget indiscriminately like a bunch of brutes to show loyalty to their CCP masters

Political persuasion as an aside, isn’t the premise of the article itself functionally correct? Recalls should be used to recall politicians who endanger the citizens, not as a “do over” when the election results don’t match a particular ideology.

That none of the candidates targeted were successfully recalled suggests the proponents of the recall overstated or overstepped their understanding of the electorate’s desires to see change.

I think one can argue what the ccp supported legislatures did in Taiwan is actively endangering the existence of the Taiwanese state, the electorate either don't care or actively supports it

This comment appears to be explicitly racist by refusing to engage with the content of the author's arguments and instead explicitly dismissing it on the grounds of the author's race. Not only is it racist, it's profoundly incurious and shuts down discourse.

> "What is the author saying?"

> "Who cares, she's chinese."

I find that repugnant.

It also seems to be an illogical non-sequitur since the article is about a political system of three political parties headed by ethnically han-chinese people on island with a 90% ethnically han-chinese population.

Given this is an article about Taiwan, surely the more logical conclusion is that “Chinese” refers to the PRC? Otherwise, as you say, it makes little sense. The rest of the comment is still low quality.

This alternative interpretation doesn’t seem to have much basis either, since the author is apparently native Taiwanese, but perhaps the GP is accusing her of PRC loyalties?

It isn't just about Taiwan, it's about a pro-CCP party staying in power.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that the comment was about the governments, not the ethnicity.

In a country called The Republic of China where 90% of the people refer to themselves as Chinese in both english and in mandarin. Obviously they don't know what they're talking about and the word "chinese" next to the word "tribe" should only make you think of the government in Beijing.

Someone should tell all the people in the The Republic of China and The People's Republic of China about this logical axiom, then.

Even if that's the original intent, I would still find that confusing, unhelpful, and potentially offensive in a professional environment.

It is common in geopolitical discussions to refer to the nationality when talking about the interests of the country in general and/or the ruling party e.g. "Obama was aligned with the Germans because of XYZ." Also consider that the author is apparently Taiwanese, so their English may not be native.

> The Republic of China and The People's Republic of China

The party in power is also called the Chinese Communist Party, which literally has Chinese in its name (and is referred by the comment).

I understand you had a different interpretation at first, but I invite you to reconsider. It also goes along with HN's guidelines:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

This comment appears to be the usual accusation of racism towards any critic of the Chinese government .

It is not a racist assumption that nationalists will pursue the interests of their own nation. It's a tautology.

oh sorry, the context around Taiwan will always be around identity, so it's not about race rather identity. The US gets it, in Taiwan Relations Act it specifically spells out "To help maintain peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific and to promote the foreign policy of the United States by authorizing the continuation of commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, and for other purposes."

whereas when it comes to "acknowledges" One China Policy it is worded as such "interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves" so by Chinese it means those that are interested in unification with China as that is the author's stand.

I find it repugnant that you specifically erase Taiwanese by saying "han-chinese"

> bunch of people were wearing T-shirts with the slogan “I am the impurity.”

Reminds me of what happened in Bangladesh. Protestors opposed the leader, the leader calls them razakar (genociders, referring to the 1971 genocide), and they ironically started chanting "Who are we? Razakar, razakar!".

Of course, once she fled the country, the actual razakars ended up making a bid for power based on all the apparent support they had gotten ("look at our numbers!") and now are in line to run the country. And those who called themselves razakars now seem to regret it, realising that they were used and thrown away. This kind of negative polarisation ends up hurting way more.

Important rule of war-strategy: Always give your enemy a way out. Or they will carve a way out, and that would get ugly.

> bushy-tailed young volunteers asking you if you’d like to recall your local KMT legislator to “protect Taiwan and Counter China” because “they’re all in cahoots with the CCP” and “we have to protect our democracy before its too late.”

The CCP refuse to meet or engage with DPP, they'll only meet with the KMT. Meanwhile, KMT cut tons of Taiwan's defense spending in the legislature. But sure, it's all propaganda and fear mongering?

> You know what would make the people happy? If they just got to governing instead of grandstanding and brawling and actually tried to form a consensus instead of shouting each other down and trying to achieve absolute power. I mean, isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be about?

Kind of hard to do that when leadership doesn't control the legislature. See the Biden years after losing the House in 2022, Trump after losing the House in 2018, Obama after losing the house in 2010, Bush losing the House in 2006, and so on. Why does legislative compromise look like it comes easier in some countries than other? Not a snarky remark, an open question. German conservatives routinely coalition with social democrats, vice versa in Denmark, Switzerland has had a permanent grand coalition for a long while now, etc.

I'd like to add that existentialism in Taiwan is entirely warranted, and that denialism about an imminent military invasion was also widespread in Ukraine right up until Febuary 2022. That doesn't excuse poor domestic governance (though poor is likely a stretch, objectively the performance of the economy is very high, currently the PPP/capita is about the same as Denmark), but it does explain the priorities in messaging.

I've read this a few times and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. There are just as many examples of shared control in leadership/legislature that have resulted in less

The failed recall vote was trying to solve political gridlock for the DPP by winning enough seats for a legislative majority. My point is that in a well functioning system, this shouldn't be a step the DPP should take if they could get good results by compromising with the KMT/TPP. Having said that, I think the KMT/TPP are poorly aligned for Taiwan's interests, so this makes the situation extremely difficult.

> Kind of hard to do that when leadership doesn't control the legislature.

The DPP had control of both the Presidency and the Legislative Yuan for the past 8 years.

Politics is a tricky thing to handicap. The media is easily manipulated. I started asking the guys working the subway, my section 8 tenants, and the uber drivers in 2024 who they were voting for. Overwhelmingly Trump. The blacks were overwhelmingly blaming the immigrant surge for the increase in rent. I rely on these signals more than the media

Fascinating to see prominent anti PRC TWers (like Angela) flip in the last few years.

LBH, DPP blocking peaceful reunification routes, trying to insinuate it's treasonous to cooperate with CCP will only lead to forceful reunification. Any pathway to "peaceful" reunification will require political cooperation with CCP, which notionally some % on island is fine with. DDP shit fuckery (and US info warfare) wants to turn that kind of cooperation into treason, because neither wants "peaceful" reunification to happen. Cue effort to build the TW identity, and IMO we're now seeing the limits of engineering that on identity separatist/independence. If QoL on TW continues to stagnate, more and more TWers will find some form of integration with mainland acceptable, especially as they grow up... see HK kids now partying up in greater delta area post crackdown.

DPP demo mostly under 20-30s think with their heart not with their brain types. Each election cycle, getting more disillusioned/fatigued by the shitfest that is TW democratic system that took barely 30 years to start cracking apart. They're now at the part of process of dealing with contradictions of purging political opponents becuz muh security. Current DPP primary voting demographic also the last sizable cohort wave from 80s-90s before TW's terminally collapsed TFR makes newer gen #s too small to challenge 40+ voting block in a few election cycles, i.e. most voters will start thinking with their wallets, think like KMT. Incidentally probably last political configuration for peaceful reunification from both sides of the strait - politburo still likely stacked with patient geezers. Next gen of CCP leadership who only know peace can't wait to throw seperatists DPP into the torment nexus after occupation, and it's not like MSS hasn't got their hands on entire TW voter registry by now.

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