What I Heard from Trump Supporters

> “Silicon Valley is incredibly unwelcoming to alternative points of view. Your curiosity, if it is sincere, is the very rare exception to the rule.”

Substitute "Silicon Valley" for any major liberal enclaves, like universities and cities, and I think you see the same thing. I am skeptical by nature and try to take a scientific view of new ideas. However I feel like I get shouted down every time I merely bring up a contrarian view. People start throwing link after link of facts and don't want to even reason about ideas. It's hopeless and I end up keeping my mouth shut.

One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?) without risking their career and social life. Not because one is an awful person for asking awful questions. On the contrary, these are conversations we need to be having rationally and deeply, learning and growing from having them.

No, the threat of ruin comes from the religion of moral sanctimony we've allowed to flourish within our society. If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media and branded a bigot, a racist, a sexist, and so on.

Pretty sure those of us who aren't members of the church are just really fucking tired of this behavior, and unfortunately it's that very fatigue which seems to be one of the factors which drove people to vote for a truly awful leader.

For example - If someone goes to Bill Maher's show, anyone clapping on a conservative view point is seen as a criminal, while people with liberal point of view clap "together" as a group, with the smug arrogance of knowing that they are superior. If a debate takes in such an environment, the conservative people has no option but to hide his view point.

Liberal ideology should not be used as a fashion statement. Unfortunately it seems to be used that way today. What do you guys think?

1. People hate Hillary Clinton. Haaaate her. No, you think I'm saying they disagree with her politics, but you don't understand; many literally think she is an evil person, and they want her to burn in hell.

2. Most people don't really like Trump. They are bothered by his comments, his style, his bombastic way of living, etc. But they also don't think consider him racist or particularly sexist.

3. They are so fucking tired of identity politics. Oversensitivity, calling everything "-ist" to win an argument, trying to tie racism into everything, debates over "privilege", etc. I would be so bold as to say that if the left doesn't tone down the identity politics Trump will win a second term. Full stop.

4. They are tired of being spoken down to, told that they're not part of the America that matters, and they have a serious chip on their shoulder. It seems to them like they're being told there's only one "right" way to view the world, and it's not theirs. But they like their way of life, they don't want yours, and want politicians to generally leave them alone and let them be.

4a. The worst way to exacerbate that all of these things? To insinuate that people who vote for Trump are doing so because they're -ist or dumb or ignorant. Hillary Clinton did just that, and I saw more on Facebook about Hillary's "basket of deplorables" comment than about anything else in the election. I sometimes wonder if that was the tipping point to Trump for many middle-of-the-road voters in rural America

4. They are sick of "coastal elites" running their lives and pretending like everything is OK. Small towns are hurting. A lot. Realize the median household income in the town I came from is <$30k and the average number of people in each house is 6, and you'll understand why people are livid about Obamacare increasing insurance costs (after so many promised it wouldn't do so). Things are tight, taxes are scary, and when the seemingly rich, out-of-touch people are hand-wavy about increasing the single biggest expense by 50% when you're barely making it (food/housing is cheap) you get the hatred for Obamacare.

In regards to upholding and celebrating American culture I always have this thought:

Why do silicon valley types promote the concept of a "company culture" and feel it's important enough to base hiring decisions on,

while demeaning those that want to uphold and sustain their own country's culture in the same manner?

You hear it time and time again when a CEO stresses cultural fit as a prerequisite to hiring. To achieve this they:

1) Hire slowly so as not to dilute the culture, ensuring those that are hired assimilate and adopt the practices of the company they are joining

2) Have a standard, a bar, set a baseline of skills and ability any new employee must reach to be hired.

But when any American citizen brings up similar rationale vis a vis immigration / maintaining their own culture by, for example, wanting to limit mass immigration of those from a culture / ideology that is drastically different from their own it's viewed as the most irrational thing in the world, even described as a "phobia" of sorts (when discussing the Islamic side of the issue).

Are Indians criticized for valuing their culture? How about Mexicans? Are Muslims criticized for valuing theirs? Or are all these groups celebrated for their pride in their own cultures?

I even worked with a liberal Canadian from Quebec, who argued passionately about his provinces fight to uphold their language and culture, while on the other hand would strongly denounce any reasoned argument I had on immigration / American cultural issues.

It just seems like Americans who want to maintain what they value as American culture (complicated no doubt) are held to a completely different standard than others, and are viewed as the most hateful people in the world for holding these kinds of views.

> “I, too, worry about the dishonesty. His relationship with Russia, his relationship with women. His relationship with questionable financial matters. These all worry me and were they to continue I would lose all respect.”

All that stuff was covered extensively during the election. There's no reason for it to be a different analysis now. This is a rationalization of regret, it's not the result of a new decision-making process.

Basically, that person, like many I suspect, voted for Trump out of protest. They didn't think he would win, so it was safe. Well, it wasn't.

Watching the witch hunt over the last 2 months you would think it would be anything but that. Fake news (just call it propaganda), russian hackers, 4chan memes and white supremacists have all received the majority of blame.

I'm curious to whether the Democrats will ever come to terms with reality here, or will they just double down and continue the blame game?

This is concerning. If real reform doesn't happen on the left (I can't even fathom the right coordinating anything reasonable) we may be facing a similar pool of poor candidates the next round of elections.

a) compromise and appeasement of evil is wrong, if trump and his supporters act like nazis then call them that, and

b) it's totally unproductive and gets us nowhere to simply pile on joke after joke, insult after insult, millions upon millions of them on every social media and tv show available to us, on the red tribe aka the trump supporters.

Reading this blog post of course swings me back around to b). Then I read a casually racist opinion from a red tribe member or hear another xenophobic policy proposed by Trump and swing right back to a.

“You all can defeat Trump next time, but not if you keep mocking us, refusing to listen to us, and cutting us out. It’s Republicans, not Democrats, who will take Trump down.”

I believe we have a similar problem in Germany. Several political decisions where called "alternativlos" (having not alternative option) and everybody opposing them was basically labeled a racist or bad person. For example the bailout of greece or the opening of the borders for all syrian refugees.

I am not arguing for or against one side, but I do believe that there were not fair discussions about the pros and cons of these topics. And this is a big reason why the "alt-right" (or whatever) is on the rise in Europe as well.

So give people room to discuss all of these topics, hear their voices and truly try to understand why they have a different opinion. This way we won't have another Trump and we won't have far-right elections anymore.

I don't know if it has fully sunk in yet to the US populace how completely they have humiliated themselves, on the world stage.

We don't get exposed to Fox, or Breitbart, or even CNN. I get most of my international news from the BBC, for example. From our perspective, the election was between a normal, typical US politician, and a madman. And when the dust settled, you lot put a clown in charge of your country.

I remember first thinking, oddly, that the biggest loss was your media. How can anyone watch 24, or Olympus Has Fallen or any of the other films and TV shows where you glorify your president? The stern, respectable, dignified leader that the hero must protect or save? How could such a plot exist now, or in future, and be watched with a straight face?

I think Trump is very dangerous for our country. But that does not mean the people who voted for him are all evil bigots. On the left, we need to work harder to fight the more dangerous policy aspects, while not demonizing half our country. At the women's march post-inauguration, I was a bit taken aback by how hateful and not-conducive-to-fruitful-discussion many of the slogans were.

I don't really agree with the premise that America is no longer great. But anyway, I've had the thought that if we really want to "Make America Great again", a key starting point would be to reduce the hateful polarization.

Folks seem to stay stuck in bad positions because to change their mind would require them to come to terms with, and take responsibility for, having done something morally reprehensible. Ultimately though, it's immature and manipulative to ask that other people refrain from holding you accountable as your precondition to abandoning an indefensible stance. We should all try to identify this feeling in ourselves and use it as a nudge to approach a situation with humility and a willingness to take responsibility for our actions.

And you know what? Good for them. I heard a quote from a local Republican representative on the radio recently that really hit me. He was asked, how can we work together when the leader of the Republican party is so incredibly insulting and disrespectful to his opponents?

You know what he said? The American democracy is a combative political system. Don't work together with Trump, fight him. If you find him insulting, then take your outrage and channel it into fighting him. I will fight you and you will fight me. That's how we will resolve our differences.

Reading the history of American politics, it has always been this way. For decades I've watched liberals and conservatives use insults and ridicule, not to convince the other side, but to demoralize it. If you can make your opponents feel bad, they are less likely to vote. The ideal mean moves a little bit left and right over the years as each side has its ups and downs.

It's a terrible system, but that's how it works in real life. I think we should keep this reality in mind whenever we talk about the tone of politics in America.

I also recommend reading Trump's book [0] to understand his appeal. It's more coherent and nuanced than his speeches and tweets. Some of the logic is fallacious, of course, but in subtle ways that I think are worth understanding. For example, the idea of "have some other country pay for X" comes up in multiple contexts (not just the border wall). It sounds great if you don't really understand macroeconomics.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Great-Again-How-Crippled-America/dp/1...

And there is real evidence that the republican party is driving the lack of real debate. The republican party refused to allow hearings for a Supreme Court nominee for a legitimately elected sitting President. That's obstructionism driven to ignoring the constitutional duties granted to the President to achieve political ends.

I always vote Republican regardless, sorry.

I vote according to my pet wedge issue (usually guns or abortion), sorry.

I'm bigoted and racist but I'm not going to admit to that.

The alternative candidate wasn't very appealing so I figured why not?

I liked the idea of a bomb-thrower, sorry.

For all those Trump supporters who love the fact he's not politically correct, this shows how thin skinned they themselves are. There's no other way to sugarcoat it, a lot of these people voted for Trump because it validated their own prejudices: they loved him for being anti-muslim, anti-black, anti-immigrant... And yes, white privilege has been eroding recently and Trump was meant to be the savior and restore it - which is what Making America Great Again is all about.

So each of these groups is going to be disappointed in the way he governs. Sure he's anti-immigrant but deporting millions of people isn't really what anyone wants or can bear. Sure he's anti-muslim, but enforcing a muslim ban will actually make us less safe. And his party is more interested in snuffing out Obamacare which benefits whites more than blacks, and cutting benefits which again hurts whites more than blacks. So in their idiotic attempt to roll back a couple decades of liberal progress they have voted for a man who might deliver a temporary setback to liberal values but in the process will doom them to continued poverty and despair, if that is what they really wanted to escape. Oh the irony.

I wonder if this person realizes the irony of voting for Trump to increase subtle, political discourse.

Assuming that this person is talking about political discussion in the mainstream media (which is where this form of criticism is traditionally targeted), I don't think this person is accurate. The mainstream media encompasses a spectrum from Nytimes, Reason, the Economist to Fox News and Breitbart. To suggest that there's a monolithic 'discourse' out there is false. The fact that this person supported Trump suggests to me that they are less interested in subtle, political discourse, and more interested in having their 'side' be represented with less critique.

I suppose it's good that he got some perspective, but I'm concerned about how this expectation developed. The assumption, and the constant insinuation, that only some identity group or subculture supports the president is intellectually lazy. When those people are made to feel at risk--of ridicule, of losing a job, of violence--then we have a self-reinforcing distortion of reality.

There's also not much mention of religion. "God", "Christian", and "religion" didn't come up at all. Nor did race, in the black/white sense, come up much, except in the context of "white privilege".

Stopping abortion and the protection of American culture seem to be the crucial items for Trump supporters.

Also, main takeaway from this? Don't attack people. It seems like that's a big complaint from the[se] people: I've been attacked for my beliefs and values.

2A people are highly motivated to turn out to vote and were a major part of his support.

(I was at a 4 day shotgun class during the election; there were long debates about the two acceptable candidates on multiple issues -- Johnson vs Trump.)

If their response, after discussion, ends up being basically "there is nothing that could change my mind," then you are wasting your time. Otherwise, you can have an interesting discussion of epistemology, objectivity, and critical thinking in general, and can learn something from one another.

(am I naive to believe that having a private email server wasn't much of an offense, she was just doing her job in the Benghazi case, and that the Clinton Foundation has only ever meant to do good?)

This was a person who broadly speaking in the target audience for this movie (geeky, likes action comedy movies), and who was trying to punish people who almost certainly didn't know he existed in the least effective possible way by doing something that really deprived only him of any benefit.

When I pointed this out to him, he spent ten forum posts working his way around to some kind of clear ex post facto explanation for why he "wouldn't" like the movie.

So the point of the above anecdote is this: If you make someone feel genuinely hurt/offended/like you don't like them, they will do all kinds of things in reaction to that. What I see in Altman's interlocutors is a lot of people who were like, "The liberals alienated me." And they may have voted in someone who on some level is factually worse for them than the alternative, but they'll justify it to themselves.

(I don't think that this is a unique characteristic of Trump voters. I think basically everyone is prone to getting really offended and engaging in the politics or economics of spite.)

And sadly, while the "two party system" isn't a law-like-gravity, it's so ingrained in our thinking that people just can't bring themselves to consider voting 3rd party, unless they are explicitly part of that niche.

All in all, this is why I think one of the main reforms we need in this country is to switch away from plurality / FPTP voting and using approval voting or Condorcet voting or something along those lines. We need a situation where people who are "voting against Hillary" feel like they can vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, and not feel like Donald Trump is the only option.

It seems very common that people can't even talk about systems of inequality because simply mentioning that the status quo is unequal is often viewed as more taboo than actually perpetuating the inequality. e.g., there's no sexism in tech.

For example, when identifying institutional racism or sexism, one can be as scientific with data, but it seems that the mere act of suggesting that inequality even exists is painted as a personal attack.

Being pointed to inequality doesn't necessitate that the individual must assume that they're being attacked.

If someone tells me something, it can often mean that the mere fact they're talking to me at all is that they hope I have the capacity to self-examine and change. There isn't much reason to talk if they didn't think I would change at all. It's up to me if I want to construe it at an attack or an opportunity for learning.

Just like the election, it seems that the standard that each political side is held to is not at parity. Certainly, Hillary lacks charisma however, Trump's offenses and career have been, by a reasonable measure, more egregious than Hillary's; the bar she was held to seemed much higher during the election, yet it seemed there was nothing Trump couldn't do and still be elected. It seems that the disparity of expectations is somewhat generalizable to the larger political groups they represent.

From an outside perspective, the American right can perpetuate inequality, but the American left is barely allowed to talk about inequality.

I can relate. I did not vote for Trump, but I am right of center & loathe HRC.

I stopped talking about politics at work shortly after getting a job at one of the large tech firms with "oo" in their name, but I'm pretty open about my views on social networks.

Starting on 11/9 I began to fear for my job.

One friend/coworker, very left of center, also very vocal on social networks, set up a work 1/1 with me. A bit odd, as we hadn't interacted in months (moved to different buildings), and asked if I felt responsible now that Trump was president & so many people we work with felt threatened.

A very close (& liberal) friend mentioned that another coworker had started a FB messenger discussion about people in the office who didn't support HRC, asking what to do about them. I honestly have no idea what was said or who was on it, but the close mentioned that she told them I was a good person with various examples -- which was nice, but leaves me questioning what they were asking.

This is all why our executives openly wept about the decisions. We had safe spaces established. Leaders sent out emails to their teams attempting to comfort.

At the advice of others, I just went dark. I hate doing that. I enjoy discussion & learning where I'm wrong. But I realized with kids at home, my top priority is making sure they're taken care of, and when debate isn't welcome, I should just shut up.

Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting “targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him”.

People are afraid to talk about their views openly. I think this is really bad. Even here in the HN comments I saw a few people saying basically that "it is not worth discussing anything with someone who don't agree with me". This is really really really bad. If there is one thing I wish will change for the next election is that both sides would listen more to the other side (even if they strongly disagree).

    * A new new deal; end 'handouts', make it the government's job to offer productive job placement.
    ** This includes retraining for such
    ** or if that really can't work out (disability/age/etc)
    *** then 'retire' someone (frame the handout with a different name).

    * Simplify taxes (single plugin equation for base tax)
    * Simplify healthcare (everyone has everything, part of taxes)
    ** Deductions / penalties as carrot / stick to encourage behavior.
    ** Make all of the doctors in the area 'bid' (like a dutch auction) to set the price of covered activities.
    ** Free (to the user at the time) contraceptives, planning, and health education.

    * Secondary issue: The rent is too high // commute is too busy.
    ** Caused by lack of urban planning
    ** Poor housing quality/density near jobs
    ** Poor schools near jobs (as a result)
    ** School funding and core skills should be national funding.
    ** Raise the standard of privacy, quality of life, and SIZES of units in cities to make them family friendly.
    ** Increase market competition in cities, to make the rent family friendly.
    ** Get the families that can living closer to their jobs to free up the freeways.

    * Secondary Issue: Transparency (groundwork).
    ** ALL secrets must have an identifying catalog 'number' and 'sunset day'.
    ** A 'sunset day' is when it is automatically no longer classified; auto-released and published openly.
    ** A 'sunset day' cannot be more than 10 years in to the future.
    ** Secrets can be reviewed by an adversarial court process and the 'sunset day' updated (10 years from that day).

    * Secondary Issue: Transparency (budget)
    ** Secrets would be become 'line items' in a given fiscal year's budget.
    ** Top down allocation of resources, until they're hidden in secrets, justified, or pooled up (e.g. office supplies).
    ** Show every person where their tax dollars are going

Liberals need to start forgiving people and accept that saying or doing a bad thing doesn't make you a bad person. And more importantly, supporting a politician who has done bad things also doesn't make you a bad person.

I think this is important. Among the many problems with PC is this:

When you exclude an idea from discussion, you don't eliminate that idea. You drive it underground into an echo chamber where it gathers strength and resurfaces later.

Censorship -- even of a soft de-facto variety -- creates the impression that your position is weak. The censored idea starts to develop the mystique of a forbidden truth. You can see this very obviously in the whole "red pill" thing. In the original Matrix film, the red pill was a metaphor for forbidden knowledge.

An analogy would be to the war on drugs. Forbidding drugs makes them alluring and cool and creates a drug subculture. Forbidding discussion of nationalism, race, and gender has made race nationalism and gender determinism into forbidden, cool ideas that mark one as a holder of privileged secret knowledge.

On another note:

I know a number of Trump supporters. Here's what I have heard:

(1) Economic concerns are an issue. One person said (paraphrasing) "He's against outsourcing. He could eat a baby on live TV and I'd vote for him. I'll vote for Satan if he'll do something about outsourcing."

(2) A lot of Trump supporters I know just hate the system and wanted to cast a "fuck you" vote. They don't love Trump per se but hope he'll do a lot of damage to the existing international financial and political order.

(3) A lot of people hate globalism, or at least globalism the way it's turned out. It's viewed as a path to corporate feudalism. These folks hope Trump will set back globalism and restore national sovereignty.

(4) Some people just hate the Clintons and blame them for the 2008 crisis (repeal of Glass-Steagal) etc., so they voted against Hillary more than for Trump. Some also hate the Clintons for taking the nomination from Bernie Sanders. I know a few Sanders voters who voted Trump.

It's worth reflecting on how often we all worry about preserving culture. It's a frequent concern here on HN, it's a frequent concern inside every company I've worked in that is growing. As much as I dislike Trump, and as much as it feels like racism, I can see why this concern about culture really resonates with a lot of people, and what ways my liberal leaning family and friends share the same concerns in their own lives.

Instead of in-person conversations we have: Talking heads on TV (one way communication) encouraging subordination to the stronger will / better dressed. Twitter's "less is more" short messages (incomplete thoughts) encourage shouting. Typing "fire and forget" missives on Blogs / Facebook (writing is a challenge, intellectually, and physically to a degree) encourages dumping of an overly architected, precipitous idea. Picture / meme sharing (paste politician head on snake body) encouraging entertainment at the expense of compassion. Emoting via "Thumbs-Up'ping" (iconic representation of human emotional reaction) encourages mob mentality.

How do "the right" learn what "the left" thinks / how they react?

What is the next phase of communication technology can facilitate? More airplanes to fly Sam, and the rest of us around, so we can talk more with our fellow citizens?

It is insufficient to say "the problem is the media." Be specific. Communicating feelings involves nuance and experiential association.

> FROM: "What do you think about the left’s response so far?" > “You need to give us an opportunity to admit we may have been wrong without saying we’re bad people. I am already thinking I made a mistake, but I feel ostracized from my community.” > > “The left is more intolerant than the right.” Note: This concept came up a lot, with real animosity in otherwise pleasant conversations. > > “Stop calling us racists. Stop calling us idiots. We aren’t. Listen to us when we try to tell you why we aren’t. Oh, and stop making fun of us.” > > “I’d love to see one-tenth of the outrage about the state of our lives out here that you have for Muslims from another country. You have no idea what our lives are like.” > > “I’m so tired of hearing about white privilege. I’m white, but way less privileged than a black person from your world. I have no hope my life will ever get any better.”

Who I voted for is nobody's business... but I am definitely not supporter of Trump, I also don't support most of the things and hysteria surrounding newly elected president. I also don't feel like I can talk to people who got caught in the fervor of elections. So, you don't really have to be TS to experience alienation from mainstream media.

P.S: I never understand why people are so agitated over PC. Having being in raised in a country with no PC, I would much rather have an excess of PC rather than being yelled racist epithets on my face

Republicans are always going to vote Republican - the major issues are essentially irreconcilable. The Democrats don't need to listen to them, they need to field better candidates so that the left gets out and votes.

You should follow up by speaking to Hilary voters/supporters. This exercise is incomplete without that part of the equation.

If you're not familiar with this term, White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress be- comes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.

http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116

[edit: Can someone explain why this comment is being downvoted?]

I, for one, hope one result of these sorts of "revelations" is the re-emergence of the importance of real tolerance. Not the pseudo-acceptance that is the mainstay of today, but the belief that we should be free to harbor opposing views without being immediately attacked, exiled, shamed, etc. And not just for the current winners (or losers), which is the boomerang we're seeing now.

And we should be careful with appeasement of evil policies because we are "mocking them". I.e., being spineless democrats...

Granted, as noted they are narratives so it's hard to say if that's some kind of bias in how it's put together or even my own bias in reading it.

Even still, it struck me as interesting how much more cold and logical the dislikes/nervous items were in their appraisal of a presidential candidate.

I'd like to know more about what the respondent meant by that exactly. (UK resident)

Longer transcripts generally might be more illuminating.

but lefties are more interested in policy-making, i.e, what's the right rules and regulations to implement to solve social and economic problems (with an air of superiority of having the "right answer" coming along with that).

it's an easy way to talk past each other rather than truly empathizing (mainly sitting and listening rather than offering solutions).

let's keep hearing stories from neglected america and it just might help heal this rift.

I would humbly suggest, however, that if you genuinely want to understand the mind of a Trump voter, you might try viewing the world from the perspective of people whose values are very different than yours.

Often when we offer value to others, we are completely oblivious to the fact their values are different than ours. We may, for example, with the best of intentions, offer a big juicy steak to a militant vegan.

We may be completely oblivious to the fact that the gesture will not produce the desired feeling of gratitude.

Similarly, try to understand why offering “universal basic income” to a Trump voter is many orders of magnitude worse than offering a steak to a vegan.

Why is this? Because accepting a hand-out is an affront to their honor. Many would rather die than accept handouts from the state. Because they value PRIDE far more than they value CONNECTION.

Observe that the most popular insult among the alt-right is “cuck”. Why is that? This betrays their deepest fear of the blue collar Trump voter: The fear that their wives will seek other men because they are no longer able to provide for their families because no woman wants to be with a man who cannot provide for her.

If you truly get that and empathize with the terror that they feel, everything becomes much more clear.

I am very anti-Trump, but I don't (nor do those in my circle) think that his election somehow makes ~50% of the country racist, stupid, etc. Clearly, though, the impression is that I am of this opinion.

Conversely, I'd like to think that none of those interviewed thought that I was a weak idiot for voting for Obama, even though those sentiments were palpable at the time.

It's a good reminder that it doesn't take many loud, angry voices to poison the dialog.

It's nice of this person to take responsibility for their defensiveness, but for those of us who wants to convince Trump voters to oppose Trump, it's as much our responsibility to stop pushing people into a defensive position.

We need to use whatever methods are most effective, and as this blog post makes clear (and should already have been clear), attacking and belittling Trump voters isn't going to win them over. It's cathartic, but we need to win elections, not win catharsis.

It's time to stop trying to win points in an argument and try winning the support of the other half the country. sama is putting in a lot of time and effort in the early stages of doing just that--we'd do well to take note and join him.

The fear of losing career opportunities is real. I typically refrain from any political discussion online because of the possibility of it being traced back to me, and on my main HN account (and any accounts linked to my name) I have never posted anything political.

That said, I live in a mid-size city in the South where a lot of people voted for Trump. I think there's a few reasons Hillary lost the election that many on the left haven't grasped yet. The single biggest one is that most people are more focused on the economy than on social issues (with one exception, noted below). Whether this is philosophically a good thing or a bad thing is debatable, but I think it's an accurate assessment that the bulk of voters in the U.S. don't see the issue of transgender rights as important as the ability to get a job. While it may be the case that Hillary had a better economic plan than Trump, the fact that she focused more on social issues than Trump at least gave a better impression that Trump could handle the economy. Bill Clinton warned Hillary's campaign managers about focusing too much on social issues, but they largely ignored him.

I think some of the Trump support is schadenfreude, pure and simple. What Sam mentions in his post about "political correctness" is valid, and while both the left and the right are susceptible to thinking in terms of black and white, I find that the left is much more punitive and vengeful if you don't exactly agree with their position (see the debacle involving Scott Aaronson and feminism). The left is much more likely to conduct online witch hunts against an individual who says something "politically incorrect", which is another source of fear. In addition to that, many on the right get the impression that the left either subtly (or not-so-subtly) thinks they are the more intelligent party. This may be in part due to the left's general command of the media and institutions of higher learning. But Jonathan Haidt (despite being liberal personally) advocates for increasing the number of conservatives in public-facing institutions to get a better variety of viewpoints. For many intelligent people on the right, the intellectualism of the left instead comes across as pseudo-intellectualism (particularly on a website like Quora), where prose is written in a way that "sounds smart" but often only holds up to surface level scrutiny.

When Trump lies, he tends to do so outright in a blatant way. When the media lies, they do so in a much subtler way that is typically discernible only to an expert. (The average person does not have the time, resources, or desire to determine the truth on climate change from primary sources.) Thus a typical right-wing voter cannot be sure of whether the media speaks the truth or not, and because the media leans to the left, the right-wing voter errs on the side of "they are feeding me propaganda, so it's probably not true".

> “He is anti-abortion.” Note: This sentiment came up a lot. A number of people I spoke to said they didn’t care about anything else he did and would always vote for whichever candidate was more anti-abortion.

I think the abortion issue is a much bigger factor than many on the left realize. Sam mentions this in passing, but I think that if Trump and Hillary had the same views on abortion, Hillary would have undoubtedly won the election. In fact, the abortion issue was the main and deciding factor for why I did not vote for Hillary. But I morally don't believe in the idea of "the lesser of two evils" (i.e., a clothespin vote), so I didn't vote for Trump either; I ended up writing in a protest vote.

The abortion issue is philosophically complex — much more than either side gives it credit for. My issue with both the left and the right is that neither side seems to particularly care about actually solving the problem and is more concerned with disparaging the other side "as evil" (anti-choice, anti-life). I find that it is impossible to debate most pro-choice people because they immediately label you as misogynistic. But most of them haven't even heard of the Giubilini and Minerva paper, the sorites paradox, or the violinist argument, so how can they have such a strong view without even really understanding the topic? On the other hand, I don't get the impression that many on the right actually care about abortion either, because if they did, they would support increased access to free birth control (if abortion is really "murder", you would do whatever you could to stop it, right?), they would consider miscarriages to be the leading cause of death (and thus in dire need of medical research funds), and they would look to address the root reasons that people get abortions in the first place rather than just trying to outlaw it.

> He says true but unpopular things. If you can’t talk about > problems, you can’t fix them.

My take on Trump would rather be, that he says false but poular things (popular in the literal sense, not necessarily what is popular in the media).

The right to say something without the government arresting you is a far cry from an imagined right to be heard by everyone about whatever you want to say.

Looking forward opportunities to win over tepid Trump supporters is one strategy, but don't let anyone convince you it's the only strategy (or even the best one).

What I heard from 100 poor people What I heard from 100 women What I heard from 100 gay people What I heard from 100 black people What I heard from 100 immigrants What I heard from 100 Native Americans What I heard from 100 chronically ill people What I heard from 100 former felons

This is amazing cognitive dissonance. This is the reason "they" are "idiots" - not because they believe what they are saying, but because they can't argue properly.

You don't have to be defensive if your position is correct, you can counter with facts. If you can't counter with facts, maybe your position is wrong.

Liberals are afraid conservatives will take away their healthcare, starve the poor, kill black people, start foreign invasive wars, etc.

Yet conservatives are baffled when liberals feel so strongly about their politics.

I also find it baffling that the self same people arguing that political correctness is wrong want liberals to be less "mean". Strange.

This is a perfect example of do as I say, not as I do. The candidate these people supported mocked almost everyone-- a physically disabled reporter, a senator due to Native American ancestry "Pocahontas", the "lying press", etc.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being divisive around an ISSUE. Clearly defining sides is constructive in creating a productive debate.

The problem is when judgement and divisiveness expands beyond ISSUES to PEOPLE.

I remember several articles got flagged for discussing politics, might the rules have changed?

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a53275/trump-melbourne-...

This is one of the most startling facts of this election to me. Trump got the support of these people with emotional rhetoric that had little basis in reality. By putting on a hat and giving people groups to blame he positioned himself as a champion of the people besides his past showing is the complete opposite. Trump has spent his whole life taking advantage of middle-class people and sits on a literal throne in a tower in Manhattan. There is a large number of people in the United States, not just blue collar Caucasians, who have a couple inability to think critically and make well calculated well-informed decisions. Education is one possible solution to this problem, classes on logic and reasoning, starting at a young age. But what about now? Can we wait 20-30 years for a new population with better reasonings skills?

So he fooled you, just like every other politician has done and will do. Blimey!

Half of their beliefs leftists treat like heresy. So nobody wants to be hunted by inquisitors.

> as she worried she’d lose her job

Hopefully nowadays for heresy you are just fired.

We should all stop playing into their games and arguing over the issues and focus on fixing the incentives thay drive our current political process...

Sure, the issues are important, thats why we get riled up...but im the mean time, the much bigger evil is smiling at us being too distracted to stop him.

It is safe to say democracy has won here. A suppressed majority silently voting for their candidate despite and over pressure on them to not exercise their choice.

Only if people in silicon valley had done this before the election and not after.

Trump is the parent that says you can have candy for every meal. Only after you've gained a bit of wisdom do you realize this is not a good thing.

Liberals are afraid conservatives will take away their health insurance, starve poor folks, destroy the planet, start unfounded invasive wars, end their own bodily self determination. Etc. etc.

Among the billionaire bully-boys in SV, Sam Altman seems like quite a rational and fair-minded individual. I suspect he realizes that if things continue as they are, the right will wake up to the fact that, like Dorothy with her ruby slippers, they've had the power all along to hit back, hard, against the people who are lashing out and throwing a massive tantrum because the election didn't turn out the way they wanted it. And all of these "disruptive" industries are ripe fodder for decimation through legislatively-enabled lawsuits and stifling regulations.

I can well imagine the drama of congressional hearings where, for days on end, one tearful individual after another testifies how their lives were turned upside down as a result of Airbnb's "disruption". And I suppose Sam can imagine it too.

Then. Stop. Supporting. A. Racist.