Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

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>>They thought they voted for something different

Like what exactly? I mean the guy ran on cutting the budget by 2 trillion. In his last term he gave tax breaks yo the rich. Where did they think the cuts were coming from?

He ran very hard on raising tarrifs. Which demonstrably raise prices (thats literally their goal.) But now people claim "I didn't vote for this."

In truth they voted for him because he was the Republican on offer and they're die-hard Republican. The Republican party has made no secret of its agenda for decades.

I get it, people are good at cognitive dissonance. But this is the place for blunt truth. They voted for this. I'm not letting Republicans got off the hook here. They voted for this.

Just like to my Republican friends who are upset that CVE is cut. You voted for this. The general public benefit from CVE even though they dont know it exists. Just like you benefitted from dozens of other programs you didn't know existed, but have also been cut.

That's the problem with cuts. They ultimately end up hurting everyone.

Now clearly there's some fat that could be trimmed. Companies do it all the time. Done well its good. Swinging a hatchet in a crowded elevator does not seem like "Done well".

> In truth they voted for him because he was the Republican on offer and they're die-hard Republican. The Republican party has made no secret of its agenda for decades.

This is actually simply not true. The Republican party before the Tea Party looked nothing at all like this. Trump won the presidency last year riding a wave of distinctly not-your-typical-Republican lower class voters. As he rose the old guard Republican establishment formed the anti-Trump wing of the party until they were forced out one by one.

To put some numbers to this: Bush won the upper income brackets by 5+ points in 2000, with a lead that widened as you went up the income ladder. Trump lost the equivalent brackets in 2024 by 5+ points, a 10 point swing away from what Bush won them by. The lower brackets are even more stark, with a whopping 18-point swing towards Trump in the $30k-$50k bracket (inflation adjusted to $15k-$30k).

These numbers show that Trump is not a Republican in the George W Bush sense and he's certainly not a Republican in the Ronald Reagan sense. He's a populist and won on a populist agenda by putting together a coalition of rabid social conservatives (who probably really did go Bush in 2000) and poor people (who largely did not).

You are ignoring that trump rode to power explicitly by enabling the shittest of Republicans that already exist. To try and let republicans off the hook for supporting him, especially a 2nd time? Is hilarious

Even the first wave of Republican support came from the Tea Party types more than the establishment types.

> The Republican party before the Tea Party looked nothing at all like this.

Starve the beast is older than the Tea Party.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

There are extremely superficial similarities here, but they're just that: extremely superficial. Along the same axis but in totally different orders of magnitude, and orders of magnitude make a difference.

Obamacare and communism are along the same axis too, but the Republicans who claimed they were the same thing were obviously wrong.

I'm upvoting you because you make a coherent argument, and votes here should be for that, not whether I agree with you or not.

I would agree he's not George Bush, much less Ronald Reagan. Nevertheless those who voted for Bush and Reagan also voted for Trump.

This has been "decades" in the making in the sense that since Obama was elected (in 2008), Republicans have embraced racism at the heart of their populist message. That swing rightward was made palatable to center republicans with a woman democratic candidate in 2016 (one not terribly well liked in democratic circles) and a black woman candidate in 2024.

While racism, and misogyny gather a bunch of votes, long-term distrust of institutions is sown, and fostered. Republican policy becomes protecting white guys, and especially old, rich, white guys.

Reagan was popular and competent, and worked for the good of America. Today's president is nothing like him, but wins because a bunch of people "vote Republican".

> Today's president is nothing like him, but wins because a bunch of people "vote Republican".

There's a component of that, but it's not the primary cause. A lot of former Republicans stopped voting Republican with Trump, including a lot of old rich white guys, and a lot of the current Republican voters didn't vote for Bush. He wins because of the new wave of voters that counterbalanced the flight of the educated core of the Republican establishment.

Populism is not an agenda it's a style. Also the majority of poor people voted Democrat, the majority of people with low education levels voted for Trump (which is not the same thing as dumb, although voting for Trump is dumb regardless of PhD or lack of HS diploma). There's overlap between low levels of education and income but if you define class by income then low income people mostly voted Dem

> Where did they think the cuts were coming from?

When someone hands you a pencil, you don't wonder what variety of tree the wood came from, or what paint chemistry was used for the coating. It's a pencil. You might have broad opinions on whether the one in your hand is comfortable to use, and sharp - but you leave the details to the pencil makers.

About 70% of the population engage with politics the same way: Leave the details to the people who do this stuff for a living.

Do they expect to be disappointed? Sure, but everyone who engages with politics expects to be disappointed.

This pencil was proudly advertised as being comprised of the remains of all that was decent in humanity. The fact that it wrote in blood was gleefully touted and cheered.

It is traditionally cedar.

This is exactly the attitude Putin tries to encourage in his population. If enough people don't pay attention or don't think what they do matters, it's easier to subjugate a population.

If people in the US aren't starting to notice what Musk/Trump are doing it will bode very poorly for the future of the US.

You are a pencil company director. A CEO candidate promised to cut expenses by 30% by eliminating waste. People who do this stuff for a living countered wood and graphite exceed 70% of your expenses. The CEO candidate proposed to increase graphite spending. Do you wonder what the CEO would do if hired?

> Do they expect to be disappointed?

Aurornis said their relatives were shocked.

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