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Comment by bflesch | Hacker News Reader

So European companies brought new jobs and prosperity to Greenville, SC, and the local Americans thanked Europe by voting 60% for Trump in the last election.

How do you explain that? Why do the locals vote against the countries that provide them the jobs? Are you also pro-Trump because you live in that town?

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Because when an American votes for a president, asking how his choice will affect Europeans is not his top priority.

HN sure does like beating up on folks in the Southern US by painting us all with the same brush, it's the worst kind of ugly.

I'm a liberal and I've lived in Texas (Austin) for 20 years. It is infuriating when I am on some liberal-oriented forum, someone says we should force Texas out of the union or whatever, and everyone cheers. ~40% of Texans didn't vote for Trump, and in absolute numbers are a greater number of liberals than most other states in their entirety ... yet my supposed fellows want to write us off. Ugly indeed.

Are you...doing to liberal-oriented forums what they do to Texas? Tarring everyone with the same brush?

Would you even call HN a liberal forum? It is full to the brim with profiteers who have no ethical framework except making money for US-based VCs.

The past years have shown that many have no problem to change affiliation with the zeitgeist. I feel many Americans are secretly pro-Trump as long as they make money. If there would be more liberals in US tech we would see much more leaks coming from companies such as Apple, Facebook, Reddit, Google, about how the senior leadership is supporting the government policies.

For example with Facebook it needed a woman to get sexually harrassed out of her job and write a book called "careless people" so that it is reported that Facebook engineers were actively embedded with the Trump campaign while at the same time democrat voters (black people) were shown literal fake news ads to keep them away from voting.

I have not seen one Facebook senior engineer being ostracized on HN for working on the trump campaign. Everbody made their millions and joined the next big thing, with us worshipping their amazing FAANG credentials.

If the people who worked on DOGE do a "SHOW HN:" nobody would call it out.

> Would you even call HN a liberal forum?

I just look at the patterns of things that are downvoted to death. Comments that would come out of Peter Thiel or Elon Musk's mouth any day of the week are regularly downvoted to hell here.

It's not a matter of 'liberal' vs whatever anymore, it's a matter of expertise and basic ethics versus corruption riding upon anti-intellectualism, cloaked in naked bigotry. Say what you will about the prevailing value system among HN commenters, this place isn't that bad.

My observation over the last 10-15 years here has been this is partially true. But what's more true is the Overton window has shifted. To use your example, the things that would come out of their mouths, especially Elon, has taken a decidedly right wing turn over time. So keep in mind you're also seeing people who have largely stayed the same discussing a culture that largely has not.

In a word, no.

I am?

Am I saying they should be disenfranchised from the country? Have I said they I have no empathy for their concerns and hope the worst for them? No.

What I said was it was infuriating when they are doing those things to the ~40% of Texans who are liberal. I didn't say it happens on all liberal forums, I'm complaining about the cases where it does happen. And please don't shift things because I said "everyone cheers" because it should be obvious it is a common phrase and doesn't literally mean I checked and every person on the forum commented.

Austin is the Lawrence (Kansas) of Texas.

Austin, the capital of Texas, is quite heavily Democratic and liberal. But most of Texas is decidedly Republican: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Texas

Stop playing the victim. When you have time to hang out on HN you're obviously part of the privileged class. The area is hugely profiting from "stolen" EU jobs, which according to Trumpistan logic is something that is not good. I don't see any uprising of all the "folks in the Southern US" against the lawlessness of your government. And if you're called out for it the victim reflex sets in.

To be fair -- there are a lot of people in the southern US who do the same thing to various demographics that HN users are likely to belong to. You can actually see serving politicians do that on TV, and have been able to see that for a long time. Not everyone does it, but not everyone on HN does it either. Indiscriminately doing the same thing back isn't good, but that kind of ugly seems to just be human nature.

It's not called the Southern Strategy for shits and giggles.

They extended their operations there because Biden lured them with insane subsidies.

Don't commit the mistake of thinking Trump politics is a rupture from what came before when it comes to how the US treats Europe.

It's been economic aggression after economic aggression from both parties since Obama. Different styles, same core ideas.

The subsides were during Clinton and Bush 2. BMW and Mercedes were here long before Biden and Obama. It makes good sense to manufacture your product in the area it is sold - that's the real reason for their mfg base establishment.

Not only the direct jobs, but also the other support ones - automation, suppliers, maintenance, facilities work, etc.

Absolutely, especially with larger/heavier items like cars... I'm frankly somewhat surprised there aren't more assembly plants across the US just to reduce the shipping costs of the final product. Even with a more globalized supply chain of the component parts.

I'm talking of the Biden-era IRA here. BMW had to invest 1.7 billions in 2022 to manufacture most of its EV directly from there as you can compete in the US market without the IRA subsidies and the conditions severely limit even which parts you can import.

That's a significant shift moving from final assembly to forcing most of the supply chain to be relocated.

Good point. "Free trade between free countries" is a nice concept but unfortunately Americans have cancelled that subscription.

What countries, beyond the US, are you speaking to? I mean, I'm interested in what countries you're talking about that don't leverage tariffs and other restrictions to favor domestic industries in those countries.

Most countries had tariffs before trump, including USA. None have dumbass tariffs like trump though.

You should realize that the Trump tariffs are about opening negotiations from a position of strength and not a final position...

Plenty of countries have negotiated more favorable tariff positions.

And what did you gain exactly?

Tax revenue. The nation is tens of trillions in debt with a multi-trillion per year deficit. Tariffs are proportional to spending, and encourage domestic production and security.

There have been several favorable trade deals as well as several announcements for new production facilities in the US... this may cost more than imports, but there's something to be said for domestic security in terms of access, especially in the likes of a global pandemic or war.

I'm not suggesting it's a perfect solution, or situation, only in that it isn't exactly an idea completely without merit and just blindly applied at random.

You're description matches a well planned and communicated slow increase of tariffs targeting specific products or industries so companies have time to adjust (newsflash, US was already doing this). Trump used blanket tariffs as a hammer to extort other countries, but its not like we want to buy your shitty cars anyway. Most of these facilities already existed or were planned. hint: most foreign brands were building their cars in US already.

If the economy is doing so well because of these tariffs why are they hiding numbers?

Its not even the first time US tried tariffs like these, it didn't go well then but Trump talks about like it was a golden age.

The US seemed to get through the industrial revolution mostly with tariffs over income tax revenue which was extremely limited early after enacted.

And you believe the world is similar to what it was back then? Are you mainlining fox news?

I think that humanity hasn't changed as much as maybe you give it credit for as a whole and that most human behaviors are somewhat consistent. I do think that taxes on actions as part of trade is better than taxes on income. I also think that taxes that are somewhat protectionist are better than "free trade" against nations that don't have similar quality of life, laws regarding labor, or free trade themselves.

The portions regarding trade are borne out by the VAT systems in place throughout EU and UK. The fact that tariffs exist in pretty much every nation of the world bears out their utility. The reason that most people are even arguing against it is that its being championed by Trump, who is admittedly a bombastic personality.

My opinions on tariffs long predates Trump. I have similar opinions against property taxes against individual ownership as well. I don't think that you should be at risk of losing personal property for the simple fact that you survived another year.

There is EU / Schengen which immensely boosted local economies. We had TTIP but unfortunately it was killed by opposing forces, and there is still MERCOSUR. However, Germany with it's brilliantly corrupt leadership, changed that strategy to "trade facilitates change" ("wandel durch handel") and went all in to removing trade barriers w/ russia and china because the idea was to convince them if we trade they won't try to kill us. Obviously this approach failed.

Strategically, it does not make sense for democratic countries to have higher trade barriers with each other than with autocrat states. But over time the hybrid warfare by autocrat states leveraged social media to convice people to vote against their own interest e.g. brexit.

> They extended their operations there because Biden lured them with insane subsidies.

Biden, really? If you’re attempting to stop disinformation, please start with yourself.

Michelin opened their US headquarters in Greenville in 1984. BMW opened their plant in South Carolina in 1994.

How was (at the time) Senator Joe Biden of Delaware responsible for that in any way? Why would he care so much about South Carolina?

The real reason is shipping tires and vehicles across oceans is expensive.

I said "extended" not "opened". That's indeed intentional. Please don't use a strawman to avoid addressing the point I'm actually making.

Michelin invested significantly in the site recently and BMW added a ton of EV manufacturing capacities, we are talking of a 1.7 billions dollars investment.

All of this is linked to subsidies they got through the IRA on top of local South Carolina subsidies. They had to do these investments to remain competitive in the US market as the subsidies are tied to local manufacturing and the conditions significantly limit what parts they can import. It was a direct attack on European manufacturing masquerading as green investments.

Guess which president passed the IRA.

Downvoted for a factual comment, I see the usual denial on the basis of party lines is still as strong as ever in the US. Here is a bunch of sources for the few who might be interested:

[1] Eager for Credits, BMW Breaks Ground on SC Battery Plant https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44361301/bmw-ba...

[2] Inflation Reduction Act 'super aggressive,' Macron tells his US hosts (https://www.euractiv.com/news/inflation-reduction-act-super-...)

[3] Michelin's US investments won't affect Europe, CFO says https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/michel...

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