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Comment by fckfckfck | Hacker News Reader

This is insane, wtf have you Trump voters done.

Plenty of them here before the election. Wish they’d speak up more now and explain how any of these policies are objectively good for the US economy and US citizens.

it's got nothing to do with policies, it's tribal

Quite simply: de minimis import rules make no sense, they are inevitably abused by China in particular to import billions in untaxed goods. No foreign country has a right to sell things in America. China and EU and others impose their own arbitrary redtrictions and taxes on imports but for some reason if America does it, it gets worldwide press because for the longest time, it was just open season as we drained out manufacturing and gutted the base that built America in the first place.

We have laws on the books and they have to be enforced equally, whether you're shipping in entire containers or thousands of small direct mail packages.

Seems like the correct solution would be to just eliminate tariffs entirely then.. why shoot yourself in the foot by reducing trade when you can.. just not do that?

The irony is this comes from the conservative movement, who are purportedly neoliberal economists.. but then completely disregard a central plank of neoliberal theory.

consistency is low on the MAGA priority list

> No foreign country has a right to sell things in America

Flipping this around: this is a limit on the rights of American citizens to purchase things from around the world. My argument is it's best for policy to center the rights of American citizens vs trying to curtail the rights of people who do not even live here.

Of course de minimis import rules make sense. Processing every $20 or $50 parcel through full customs would cost more in bureaucracy than it would raise in revenue. This is why many countries around the world have de minimis rules including Canada, the EU, and even China.

De minimis had nothing to do with draining out manufacturing; that's been happening for decades. Before 1993 the rate was $10.

And who cares about the "base that built America"? US unemployment was low! The US doesn't need these terrible jobs or look to the past for opportunity. There is plenty of opportunity available by looking forward.

If they cared about measurable outcomes we wouldn't be in this situation.

For them, "success" involves feeling that a particular social arrangement has been solidified. It involves an exploitative hierarchy (which they believe is both inevitable and required) where they aren't obviously on the bottom and where "the right people" are on top.

They simply do not care how much it costs to raid people's attics looking for Anne Franco, or even the odds of finding her family, as long as The Authority is taking Firm Steps and people like Anne Franco are afraid.

I am not a Trump voter, but here's my understanding of what they're hoping for, economically speaking. By devaluing the US dollar, American manufacturing becomes more appealing to other nations. I think it's generally believed that tariffs are a pretty lousy way to boost domestic manufacturing, but I think it might be an effective means of accomplishing the goal of devaluing the dollar. This devaluing shouldn't have any direct, negative effect on Americans when buying domestic (e.g. home prices, locally produced food), but will significantly reduce your ability to travel or buy imported goods.

Again, I'm not a Trump voter and I think this is the clumsiest, most dangerous way to bring manufacturing back to the US, but that's my understanding of what their goal is. I'm not even going to touch the Christian nationalist side of the plan.

Sorry, but this does not place enough blame on those that didn't vote (about 90 million people). I will hold responsible anyone with a heartbeat who did not vote at all in 2024.

But Kamala Harris was not perfect in every respect. In fact, she had several policy preferences that don't align perfectly with my own. In a lot of ways, she was just like Trump. Also, she was not a very good public speaker. /s

When she tried to run in the primary in 2020, she was last place and considered a joke candidate. If even the Democrats don't like her, do you expect republicans to be charmed by her and switch sides?

We hoped that the party of law and order, of Christian morality would not re-elect a convicted rapist, convicted financial fraudster, serial adulterer, pathelogical liar and instigator of America's first coup attempt.

Even Liz Cheney was supporting Harris. This wasn't about "charm", it was about saving democracy. And now we are fucked...

she did get a whole ton of votes from people that didnt want trump in again.

Ah but how many of them were protest votes because they didn't think Trump went far enough?

Against Trump second term? Absolutely, it shouldn't even have been a contest for anyone with a modicum of common sense.

Lately I've noticed a social trend, where whomever you critique for The Current Mess, someone else is afraid that indirectly lifts justified blame from another group. Maybe that just reflects how we humans have limited capacity for attention and outrage, and there's too much to fix at once.

For example, the split between:

1. The willfully-culpable Republican party.

2. The inept/uninspiring Democratic party.

3. The lazy/clueless non-voters.

I'm not sure how to solve that problem... maybe arguing over prioritization is necessary.

________

P.S.: For something more-actionable, how about this: Many problems exist, individual humans aren't built to consider them all simultaneously and coequally, be kind to well-meaning allies that are focusing on a particular piece.

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