Trump wins presidency for second time
thehill.com1601 points by koolba 19 hours ago
1601 points by koolba 19 hours ago
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It's the economy, stupid:
-Inflation is not prices; it is the rate of change in prices. Low inflation doesn't imply low prices. -Aggregate statistics don't necessarily explain individual outcomes.
The Dems failed on this count massively, and have, for maybe the last 40 years, which is about the amount of time it took for my state to go from national bellwether (As goes Ohio, so goes the nation) to a reliably red state. This cost one of the most pro-union Senators (Sherrod Brown) his job.
I don't think that the problem is that Democrats didn't explain the technical definition of inflation well enough. The problem is that people can't afford to buy things. Having better infographics on how inflation is the derivative of price doesn't really solve that problem.
> I don't think that the problem is that Democrats didn't explain the technical definition of inflation well enough.
it's clear that at least half all American voters don't understand technical definitions or explanations (this was Obama's problem too). "Drill Baby Drill", "Lock her up", and "cheap gas" is about their comprehension level.
Yep. They're voting on emotion, not logic or facts.
Emotions are much stronger.
Yeah, emotions like "I wish I could afford to buy food."
You can experience that emotion and then logic your way to "it probably doesn't make sense then to vote for massive tariffs." If you don't logic your way to that next point, then yeah, you're making a bit of an emotionally-tainted decision.
Except that at the the lower income bracket, there are many more Democrats than Republicans (58% to 36% according to Pew[0]). So I don't think the election turned on poor people not being able to even afford food.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship...
That's from 2023, and it sure as hell isn't how people voted this time: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535295/presidential-ele...
This (incorrect) attitude is another big reason beyond economy for the D loss.
as an outsider this is the biggest thing.
It's like D-voters don't even understand how unhinged they are.
"Everyone is stupid but me" doesn't do anyone any favors and doesn't fix any problem.
"I have the makings of a plan" is 100x more attractive to people who need change.
If that 5th grader rhetoric, and lack of any comprehensible policy, didn't resonate with Trump voters, he wouldn't have used it consistently. So the criticism is on point.
We can debate whether Harris' proposed policies would have worked or not, or good for the economy or not, but at least they were comprehensible.
That's my point! By talking about how great they are doing on inflation, the DNC campaign was LOSING votes because people experience prices which don't go down when inflation is "normal".
They lost because they forgot about wages and retirement savings.
Inflation was uneven. It impacted prices but not wages or savings. It reduced citizen wealth directly and transferred it to corporations and the already wealthy.
They wanted to publicize the problem but not actually take the cure. Now they have zero mandate in any institution. That's what selling out your base gets you.
One factor that is invisible to most posters here is that SNAP (food stamps) are adjusted for inflation each year in October. This year, using official government figures, SNAP benefits were increased by a maximum of one dollar per person. They might as well have left them the same as last year but instead went with the insultingly low one dollar increase. SNAP recipients, who are traditionally much more likely to vote for Democrats, saw that as a middle finger to them and their food security needs. It's like leaving a dime as a tip instead of leaving nothing. To them, it was a sign of contempt.
Most of Hacker News doesn't run in social circles where people are clipping coupons and going to several different stores to shop the best deals just so they can afford to eat that month, but for nearly forty million Americans who receive SNAP benefits (read that number again and let it really sink in), that's their reality. The administration looked either out of touch or even spiteful by doing a one dollar benefits increase to account for the past twelve months of inflation. I'm sure there are plenty of other similar things that are hurting the working poor that are invisible to those spewing scorn at voters who weren't concerned more about wars around the world and luxury beliefs.
No one I've pointed this out to has been able to empathize with these people yet, most coming up with glib replies about how everything for those voters will be even worse now that the other candidate won. Until they can understand the plight of the people who received that one dollar increase and why it was so psychologically devastating to them the month before the election, they'll never understand why their candidate lost. Instead they'll keep pointing to GDP, the low employment numbers made possible by people working multiple jobs to survive, and how great things are for the wealthy instead of trying to actually get in touch with the daily lives of those they rarely interact with. Maybe insulting these people and calling them stupid and evil a few more times will be what finally makes them forget about their food insecurity.
As a non-US citizen, I find it shocking that such a high number of US citizens need to live on food stamps, so I checked the numbers.
Indeed, it's 41.2 million out of a total of 334.9 million U.S.-Americans, or 12.3 % or more than one in ten folks - that this is more than one in hundred suprised me because the US are by some counts the "richest" country on the planet.
It's merely the country with the richest few, perhaps this calculation is just a way to show statistically what many believed all along, namely that the so-called "American dream" is a pipe dream for most, in the sense that the majority of people simply fund a tiny fews success in the way lottery ticket buyers fund a few select millionaires that don't deserve it.
In case anyone is curious, the $1 is the increase in the maximum SNAP benefit per month for an individual, from $291/month to $292/month. (The increases for larger households are similarly small.)
This is not the actual increase of the benefit amount. In particular, it appears the cost of living adjustment this year is 2.5%. I have been unable to find statistics on how many people/households actually receive the maximum amount, but I don't have a particular reason to believe it is large. (The average benefit amounts are significantly below the maxima.)
Tldr: the average SNAP benefit amount received by people has increased and will increase by significantly more than $1/month.
>No one I've pointed this out to has been able to empathize with these people yet, most coming up with glib replies about how everything for those voters will be even worse now that the other candidate won.
Right, because how do you empathize with someone who gets $1, and their response is: Oh yeah? Well fine then I'm going to vote for the person who wants to take away literally EVERYTHING to show you!
It is the definition of cutting off your head to spite your body.
I completely understand and empathize with someone on SNAP not getting what they need to cover the insane pricing increases we saw greedy corporations force upon all of us and wanting that rectified. But if your solution to that is to either not vote at all, or intentionally vote for the guy who has literally told you his plan is to gut all social services... I'm not sure what to tell you beyond whatever empathy I DID have for you is gone and enjoy sleeping in the bed you just made for yourself. I, and most of the folks on HN are going to be perfectly fine. Those folks that were on SNAP? Good luck...
> Right, because how do you empathize with someone who gets $1, and their response is: Oh yeah? Well fine then I'm going to vote for the person who wants to take away literally EVERYTHING to show you!
Consider how the program actually works. You have a job and pay taxes, but don't make much money, so the government takes the taxes you paid and gives them back to you. But you have to apply for the program, and then spend the money (which was originally yours) on only the things they tell you to. And there is more than one assistance program so you have to apply to them each individually. Then each of the programs have their own phase outs if you make more money, but the phase out rates combine to a very high de facto marginal tax rate, which means if you're still struggling you can't get out of it by working some extra hours because that just causes you to lose your benefits. It's a poverty trap.
Then prices go up by 20% or more, but you still can't make any more money or you lose your benefits. In response your benefits are increased by one dollar.
Are people even wrong to want to blow all of that up and replace it with a tax credit?
When your life is a constant struggle for survival/constant crysis you react you don't think. We don't typically blame someone for responding/reacting out of a place of crysis. Unless, apparently, you are a Democrat blaming the poor/working class for not embracing the party line of things are great just look at this economic report versus the guy who at least heard them (even if just to redirect/leverage their suffering into blaming out groups to gain himself power).
BTW empathy is when you can feel for those you don't relate to/have attachment to. Empathy is when you make a genuine effort to understand and connect, even across differences. It's not a concept only for people you already relate to.
Yeah, what exactly are we supposed to do or feel about people who absolutely refuse to vote or act in their own best self-interest, and instead do the opposite, acting self-destructively? The best thing to do with them is to get away from them, because their self-destructive actions could easily affect you too.
The entire point of empathy is making a genuine effort to understand and connect, even across differences. I don't think it is what you seem to think it is, reserved only for people you already relate to/understand.
You care harder, because thats the only way to ever win them back. It rarely works, but the hate route never does.
If people never have a shot at redemption, why would they ever try to redeem themselves?
But when "getting away from them" actually means belittling them, berating them, while cuddling with the corporations that exploit them ("you" doesn't mean you personally here, of course), you're not actually away from them. You're in their face 24/7, increasing resentment. And if you take their taxes, the value their work produces, or the fear of unemployment their unemployment keeps alive, respectively, while also talking down to them in their absence to an echo chamber, you are so not ignoring them.
And mind, the whole campaign was based on "Trump is worse". That is also hardly ignoring someone.
No one is touching welfare. It's a bedrock of Trumpism. Most of his base can't survive without it.
> glib replies about how everything for those voters will be even worse now that the other candidate won
Here is something I saw on Bluesky, where all the good people are:
"To all the misgueded twits who ignored every red flag, caved to your worst selves, and bought into all of the most obvious of Trump's insane lies: Everything that happens from here on out. The family members you lose, the suffering, the confiscation of your freedoms of at the whim of your dictator. It's all on you. You can no longer falsely blame dems, antifa, lgbtq, or immigrants for everything you set into motion with your prejudice and cowardice"
It goes on like that, and ends with
"Hope it was all worth it, you hateful fuckwits. Enjoy the ride"
That's just the most widely shared and liked on I happened to be shown by Bluesky, I've seen this repeated in individual comments in many variations. Basically, "at least we'll burn together and it'll be your fault."
> they'll never understand why their candidate lost. Instead they'll keep pointing to GDP, the low employment numbers made possible by people working multiple jobs to survive, and how great things are for the wealthy instead of trying to actually get in touch with the daily lives of those they rarely interact with.
as Cenk Uygur said here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7m0tbZJgE
So she put out some good things in the beginning, and we were excited about it. She had some economic populist policies about housing and price gouging etc. [..] She then turns around and sends Mark Cuban all over CNBC to go, remember, I love business interests. [..] She's never going to do the price gouging plan. They swear up and down on CNBC and all over cable news. Well, then she lost her lead. Why do you think you're getting the lead, why do you think you lost the lead? No, they'll never figure it out.
While I agree with your overall comment, in that clip Cenk says that picking Tim Walz as VP was the obviously right thing to do.
I don't think that's as obvious as Cenk seems to believe it is.
Did they pick $1? Isn’t it a math formula based on various consumer goods, which may it may not be right.
Someone decided that going through with an obviously insultingly low $1 increase was a good idea.
to play devils advocate, if that person had decided to go with $0 instead that there would be equally bad headlines/interpretations of "Instead of allocating the formulaic $1 we are entitled to inline with all other changes over X years, they squandered it on Y"?
The media wasn’t talking about that, it was repeating in a loop: “The economy will be better with Trump”, including the media in the far left.
So I'm in the Philippines. These things have far-reaching effects outside of the US because of the dollar. This is why Filipinos (and Latinos, and Muslims) love Trump. A female Filipino business owner gushed to me a few hours ago (awkward!) about how she's happy because now she'll be able to afford to fuel her car (gas/petrol is notoriously expensive in SE Asia for most people).
Point is, business, markets and consumers vote their interests. Look at Wall Street, Bitcoin, &c. in the hours leading up to the election.
And with tariffs incoming, this is going to get worse, not better.
Trump is very serious about tariffs, and the president has more unilateral authority in this arena than folks realize, he wouldn't even need an act of congress to do alot in this arena
In retrospect it's baffling why Dems didn't hammer home this point more: Tariffs will increase prices.
Suggesting tariffs was his way of saying "stuffs so messed up I will make radical change" to the angry working class. It also harks back to the early 20th century which he loves.
The Dems didn't really have an inroad to that demographic. Suggesting federally granted home buying credits just sounded like another financial scheme from on high and missed the mark entirely imho; there was no bigger economic discussion happening there.
No, tariffs are his way of saying "magic wand make economy good" to people who don't (but can and should) know better.
Probably because they don't have much leverage in this area, with Biden continuing some of Trumps policies on tariffs.
Targeted tariffs as part of a trade war is significantly different than the proposed universal tariffs to "eliminate taxes" that he's proposed.
AKA: we figured out how to pass a consumption tax which disproportionately hurts poor people without calling it that because we know it's universally unpopular. When billionaires effective tax rate drops to what will probably be 1%, the wheels are going to REALLY fall off.
Isn't it Biden that increased tariffs on certain imports from a certain country to 100%?
Just EVs, and how many Chinese EVs were we importing before the tariff increase? All I can think of are some Polestar models and the entry level model 3.
No arguments there. I certainly expect tariffs will lead to inflation getting much worse.
View the tariffs as carbon tax that represent the true cost of goods being produced in a coal heavy country and transported on boats that burn the most dirty kind of oil possible. It makes the whole thing look quite nicer and the economic cost a bit more worth it.
The per-ton CO2 emissions of those boats is still much, much lower than by truck or rail. Large ships are insanely efficient at moving cargo; that's why it's so economical to transport stuff across the planet.
Isn't the question, a/ travels across the globe + rails and truck vs b/ maybe rails + truck ?
Not arguing that the carbon tax is legit. It hasn't been proven yet that it isn't just a way to collect money while pretending to do something about the environment.
Well but maybe Chad in Nebraska would appreciate buying a Halloween decoration for $0.50 on wish!?!
We should maybe just reconsider in general what kind of thing is economically viable
If it hits major economic metrics in a way that makes him nervous, watch out for what he might do to the Fed. So long to a relatively-depoliticized institution. He was already grumbling about them in 2020. Hell he might just lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess we’ll see.
>Hell he might just lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess we’ll see.
Why would he not? It's not like he respects institutions such as the Supreme Court. And what repercussions has he ever faced for the destruction of norms and guardrails? If anything, he gains even more support.
I’m banking on the resulting stupid-low interest rates to refi my mortgage to help survive the guaranteed crash after. Not even joking. Great sympathy to those for whom that’s not an option. I figure there is an outside chance that such a move will fail to drop rates to the level it normally would because banks will also be worried, in which case I guess I’m just screwed as much as everyone else.
Damn whoever used that “may you live in interesting times” curse once to many times.
What disrespect has he shown, ever, for the Supreme Court? And if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return, why wouldn't you destroy those norms? After all, I voted for him on that basis.
> all of our tax dollars to NATO
Total US spending on all defense, not just NATO, is ~$900 billion or ~13-14% of federal spending. NATO has a total annual budget of less than $4 billion and we cover something like 15% of that budget, less than 0.001% of military spending and some infinitesimal portion of overall spend.
> for nothing in return
The US gains incomparable wealth from controlling the global prime currency. Part of the enforcement of this primacy is 750 military bases in 80 countries, giving the US a force projection capability greater than any empire in human history. For the US, NATO is just a just an organizational tool to manage resources among it's allies.
> And if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return
All your tax dollars? How much do you think the US spends on defense without giving anything to NATO? Do you think that’ll somehow decrease if you leave NATO? It just means you’ll have to handle everything yourself. At least currently the US gets to charter about half of all their craft from various European allies.
Not for the justices, but for the institution of the Supreme Court. He files frivolous lawsuits and appeals designed to give his appointees the opportunity to legislate from the bench (e.g., "official acts"). He appoints blatantly partisan judges at all levels of the federal judiciary. And he sabotaged the FBI's inquiry into Kavanaugh's history, which is standard for any appointee at that level, by having any concerns be routed to the White House instead of handled by actual investigators. In short, he's demolished any pretense that the Court exists to enforce laws fairly, and has turned it into an unapologetic arm of the MAGA Republican party.
> if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return
We do not give our tax dollars to NATO, at least not in any meaningful way. NATO's entire budget as an organization is about $4B/year, which includes valuable shared command/control systems. For the most part, we fund the American military, and we commit to using it in concert with our allies in certain scenarios.
In exchange, we get incredibly valuable hard and soft power. We get access to land in Europe to use as bases, which are staging areas for potential worldwide threats (e.g., an imperialist Russia). We get shared intelligence. We get goodwill with the rest of the West, so that they'll join our trade pacts. We get commitments of Polish tanks and British spies and French manpower if there ever to be a hot war, so that the US can focus on what it does best (air and naval superiority).
But also, you're the only one who brought up NATO. There are myriad unrelated norms that Trump broke the first time around, and will certainly break further this time, that make the institution of "the American government" less able to serve its purpose. Norms like, a president can't pardon himself. A president can't use his position to direct foreign powers to patronize his own businesses. A president can't summon a violent mob to Washington to overturn an election. A president can't conspire with state legislatures and militias to disregard the results of their states' elections. A non-sitting president can't steal classified documents, and can't have ongoing secret communications with a foreign power. A president keeps special counsel at arm's reach. A president shouldn't use tax policy to explicitly punish states that don't vote for him.
Everything you wrote in your first paragraph sounds pretty boilerplate. You can't seriously say he has gone above and beyond Biden, Obama, or Bush. And if he's not unique, then your vendetta seems personal, which makes you seem hypocritical.