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Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

There's a degree of separation you're missing. SOPA is a specific belief, Trump is a person who has many beliefs.

Person -> SOPA

Person -> Trump -> Sexism/Racism/etc

Thiel doesn't support Trump because he's racist/etc, he does it in spite of that. That doesn't make Thiel right, however it is an important distinction. If Thiel said or did anything racist/sexist/etc, he'd be out of YC. It's a slippery slope to start firing people because someone they support supports something you don't like.

After all, Clinton supports SOPA, and Sam just endorsed her.

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>Thiel doesn't support Trump because he's racist/etc, he does it in spite of that.

How do you know that?

I believe his point was that you don't know until Thiel actually makes the racist comments himself, so you can't infer that he does.

You also can't infer that he doesn't, which is what the commentor I replied to did.

Palantir is under investigation for racist hiring practices, so there's pretty good reason to think he supports Trump because of them.

Maybe he's a closet racist, who knows. But I think that's a dismissive assumption.

Here's a great article: http://theweek.com/articles/638051/why-does-peter-thiel-supp...

Some bullet points:

  * He believes we've stagnated (see http://blog.samaltman.com/trump)
  * He sees a unique opportunity to buy into politics at the highest level for a mere $1.25MM
  * He likes being on CNN and on stage. He's famous, but not politics-famous.
  * He found a way to get Republicans to cheer for the phrase "I'm gay"

Again, doesn't justify him... but potentially explains him.

At the end of the day, we shouldn't be surprised that a guy who's famous for asking "What's one thing you believe that no one else does?" is supporting the most contrarian candidate we've ever seen.

I didn't say we should assume he's racist, but you assumed he isn't. In fact you assumed his motivation very explicitly. I was asking how you made such an assumption.

Please acknowledge that this is a huge backpedal from your original statement.

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