Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

You’re analyzing this wrong. Trump has the edge among “non-activist” citizens: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/29/politics/turnout-2024-electio...

Trump’s authoritarianism appeals to people who feel that he can control the various unelected people they feel have too much power over their lives and society: career bureaucrats, corporate HE, NGOs, universities, etc.

Remember the 2017 “Resistance” against Trump? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/resistance-from-with....

This revealed that no matter which party wins the election, the fourth branch of government is staffed and run by Democrats. All the three letter agencies are staffed by 95% Democrats. And people think that Trump can bring them to heel.

View on HN

> All the three letter agencies are staffed by 95% Democrats.

[Citation Needed]

Assuming that campaign donations are evenly distributed between democrats and republicans: https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2016/10/federal-employe...

I’ll add many federal employees are members of professional organizations. And in the last decade, professional organizations have become overtly political. And all of these are staffed mainly by democrats. Paul Clement, one of the leading Supreme Court advocates of our generation, left Kirkland, known as a conservative firm, over the firms opposition to second amendment cases: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2022/06/23/kirkland-ellis.... This is a firm that will not hesitate to represent the worst Russian oligarchs, mass polluters like BP, etc.

Another example is SFFA. A super-majority of the public opposes racial preferences in college admissions and hiring. But not a single prominent law firm authored an amicus brief in support of overturning affirmative action.

Half the country doesn’t trust credentialed professionals anymore, and with good reason

"The former State Department secretary led the businessman by 5 percentage points among federal employees in a July poll by the Government Business Council, the research arm of Government Executive Media Group, with 42 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Clinton, compared to 37 percent who said the same for Trump."

From your article, that sounds more like close to even instead of your exaggerated 95%.

And I suppose non-credentialed people are more trustworthy then?

The point is that credentials plus $3.50 will buy you a coffee in our democratic system. The system shouldn’t be designed to give more weight to your views on broad value issues-say through the actions of unelected bureaucracies or professional organizations—just because you have credentials.

Not for imposing will on the people, that is for elected officials.

I trust credentialed people for providing facts and research in their domain, not writing policies.

You won’t find it because it’s impossible. Majority democrats? Probably they’d be more likely to be attracted to a government service office. 95%?they pulled it out of their posterior.

We’re actually saying the same thing: the plurality of voters just want to be in the “winning gang” so they can feel protected from the scary world

Reply on news.ycombinator.com