Hacker News Reader

Comment by yongjik | Hacker News Reader

Maybe, but I doubt it. Trump is not a mafia boss - time after time he showed that his words cannot be trusted. If Harvard makes a concession, there's no guarantee that Trump will "forgive" it.

Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.

View on HN

It's too bad Barron was too dumb to enroll at Harvard so his admission couldn't be rescinded

As a sovereign nation, China is in a somewhat different position than Harvard which is subject to US law.

Penn should support Harvard and publicly revoke Trump's degree. Bullies only understand force.

What force does that possibly employ?

When you revoke the degree of a sitting president, that costs him...?

It costs him the only thing he cares about: his ego

I see two risks with your analysis. First, you generally underestimate a person if you try to distill his personality into one negative trait (or, for that matter, if you select a bunch of negative traits but assume no positive.)

Second, he's still the president, so I don't see what pull the Penn degree has vs. that.

Justice.

> Trump is not a mafia boss - time after time he showed that his words cannot be trusted. If Harvard makes a concession, there's no guarantee that Trump will "forgive" it.

> Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.

Doesn't this example make the opposite of your point?

The point I'm trying to make is: if Trump bullies you, and you make a concession, Trump will feel no obligations to pay you back and may bully you further. China played hardball (up to some degree - I'm sure there were backstage talks), and that apparently made Trump "respect" China more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com