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Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

I really don’t understand how so many people can support this admin. It’s not that I ideologically disagree with them, but they are so corrupt that they appear incompetent. They actually aren’t incompetent, they just don’t care about what is important to almost everyone else. If you, for example, don’t care about public safety or accountability it turns out you can make a lot of money.

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The federal government and the executive branch has a well specified set of responsibilities to the people of this country, and they are massively failing at just about every metric. So yes, they are truly incompetent.

They aren't interested in those responsibilities, just enriching themselves and attacking their enemies.

A lot of us are coming to terms with "tier-1" venture firms like a16z tolerating corruption and ethics violations to support financial deregulation (crypto, prediction markets) and AI deregulation

Polymarket is even running ragebait ads[1] about Trump's corruption, while his son (profiting from the corruption) sits on the board

The word you are looking for is "greed", and it is ripping apart the moral fabric of this country

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DYmu4RJnFrF/?img_index=11

All regulation does is centralize the power to a few big players, which are corrupted themselves, and then they get little slaps on the wrist whenever they're caught by being fined 0.01% of their annual profits and then bailed out when they royally fuck up.

Like in every dictorship, they succeed because enough people rather profit from administration, rather than fighting with their moral and join the resistance movements, with all implications to their personal life.

similar to the Google-Facebook surveillance Capitalism that funded so many D-pols?

.. before this devolves into simple polarity jab posts.. taxation-based Big Gov seems very eager to embrace and extend constant tracking of location via devices.. social attribution profiles are maybe less so, maybe?

hard to see the positives in the new social dynamics, from either base in the US, from this chair

History has proven how capitalism is eager to work with such kind of governments.

Shareholders tend to not have morals as long as money keeps pumping into their bank accounts.

They are responsible for much of the sad state of affairs across the planet, now they even offer gold statuses back home, for little favours.

This is the very definition of crony capitalism. Capitalism without any government intervention/ force hasn't been a thing in a very long time.

How can you idealogically agree with them especially when the only idealogy they have is greed and bigotry.

I don’t agree with them. I should’ve been more clear. I was trying to say - putting ideology aside…

Information bubbles are wicked. I'm visiting family over the long weekend and they are all convinced that Trump is a selfless holy crusader against fraud who is finding so much Democrat fraud that he deserves a little side action :|

Thats not a bubble though, thats just Stockholm syndrome or genuine acceptance of this behavior as being acceptable or even perfect.

That's not just an information bubble it's stupidity sometimes but not always with a side order of racism.

The entire notion of somehow deserving to be corrupt as well is an indication of not just being unethical but literally not understanding what ethics looks like.

We have to come to terms with the idea that half of America is neither intelligent nor good people.

There is a vast, hugely funded, and incredibly adept propaganda machine aimed at about half the country. They use all channels available to them, as well as much of the machinery that surveillance capitalism has built to paint a picture that is very different from reality.

Many people’s access to virtually all their information is mediated through this propaganda machine. It’s frankly incredible that there are even any stories of people deep within it eventually breaking out seeing as how well functioning it all is.

Is this a conspiracy theory? Sort of I guess, but it seems pretty obvious to me. And no, I don’t think “my side” would be immune to a similar machine speaking the language we like to hear, but I just think that hasn’t happened (yet), and I hope I can be one of those to break out of it does happen.

> There is a vast, hugely funded, and incredibly adept propaganda machine aimed at about half the country.

There are propaganda machines directed at everyone.

> And no, I don’t think “my side” would be immune to a similar machine speaking the language we like to hear, but I just think that hasn’t happened (yet)

It seems incredibly naive to believe that propaganda in this age isn't utilised by all "sides". My base assumption for any information, particularly from mainstream media, is that it's biased one way or the other.

I didn't say "my side" doesn't utilize propaganda, I said there isn't a vast, hugely funded, and incredibly adept propaganda machine aimed at my side.

> ...aimed at my side.

that's how you know it's successful.

It's hard to buy that this is the sole reason. All the facts are out there and were out there before the election. The number one issue people cited in election polls was the economy. And Trump had a well stated economic policy that decades of knowledge of economics has shown us is a bad idea.

Ultimately voters run the US. It's our responsibility to do the research and make an informed decision. Propaganda has existed forever. You can't ban all propaganda, so it's hard for me to not still point the finger at the people who voted for this

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