Comment by 5upplied_demand | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 5upplied_demand | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

5upplied_demand

> It's because the overwhelming majority of people, including the large majority of 'educated, "informed', Democrat voters', remain even as of 2026 far too tribal and addicted to cheering for the team they've been cheering for.

It feels like you might be doing the same thing, just in the other direction. Any time a political party does something that is positive for Americans, it should be cheered and rewarded.

I still remember 62 Democrats voting against the Patriot Act while being labelled as traitors. We can cynically call them theatrics, or we could reward them for doing what is right in order to promote them doing more of the right things. The positive response to incentives is a basic and well-studied human psychology.

No, you still don't get it. There is ample evidence that the large majority of those 62 are only willing to do so if they're 100% sure it's going to pass anyway. This means their only goal is to gain brownie points, without actually supporting it.

That should not be rewarded, it should be punished. Ironically, it's even more harmful than voting in favor of it when it's going to pass. It's literally the worst thing one can do, because it muddies the waters.

The very few who clearly would vote against it even if it might not pass, yes, those should be rewarded.

I understand the point of politicians playing politics, but your accusation requires more than conjecture. I would love to see the ample evidence you reference. Otherwise, what I see are 3 public votes in 2001, 2005, and 2011.

Each time there was one party that voted against it in significantly larger numbers. Sometimes it even cost them their seats because it was such an unpopular stance (i.e. Feingold). In 2011 it was a vote directly against a popular President from their own party. Meanwhile, the party that supposedly has all the "Libertarians" were almost unanimous in support for each vote.

The evidence is that not once when they were in control they did something that went directly against these things. Under those periods these things either stayed stable or indeed got even worse. That's overwhelming evidence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com