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Comment by alt227 | Hacker News Reader

> a glorified reality show egomaniac

He is also.... the president of the United States?

For three more years, and at significant risk of being basically neutered in a year (the polls aren't exactly going _great_ for him). Like, it's unclear how much accommodation one should be making to his delicate feelings.

I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to the president of the United States.

While I don't think "corporations should be in charge", I also don't think a President should be dictating corporate culture or policy short of going through the proper channels of using Congress to write legislation that keeps corporations in check and doesn't allow their power and influence to grow too large.

But... uh... yeah that isn't happening either. Instead, those in power are helping each other out, at the expense of common citizens of the U.S. (and likely at the expense of people outside the U.S. too.)

But the president absolutely can enforce civil rights laws which clearly ban racial discrimination in hiring and promotions.

> I'm continually blown away that the modern titans of industry readily bow down to the president of the United States.

If you dont, you could suddenly find that the thing you sell has a ridiculous tariff imposed on it. Then that might mean you sell a lot less. He has done much more for much less in the past.

If you make that thing in the US, good luck having the US government slap a tariff on it.

I mean, yes, Microsoft is international, and the president could probably find an angle to put a tariff on some part of their business. Not most of it, though.

So what?

There's a hell of a lot of power vested in the executive branch especially in the DOJ to really mess with companies and the real protection against it's misuse was the agreement that the President didn't directly instruct and control who the DOJ actually indicted. It used to be a notable event when a president even appeared to hint that he was encouraging investigations (not even indictments) into specific companies now we've got a president explicitly demanding the DOJ indict specific people and find any reason to do so, see Comey and Letitia James's recent indictments.

And, of course, since businesses are fundamentally in competition, that puts them in an interesting position: even if it's a net negative for the entire industry to capitulate to the bullying tactics of the executive branch, you can get a leg up on your competition by having one fewer giant complicated court case to worry about (even if the case is guaranteed to lose, it still costs money to defend it).

Yes, there's a lot of pressure to stay on his good side, even if the charges are bogus and eventually beaten or just ends in a pay-off like many cases the process is still damaging/costly and there's large incentives to pre-comply. Look at Apple's little gift plaque for an example of that, not really a bribe unless more laws are broken but a nice little ego stroke none the less.

So "democracy" [1], that term which is bandied about so much by those who seem to consistently fail at it.

[1] Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. You [2] voted for it, now you [2] get to keep it.

[2] you as in "We, the People".

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