| ▲ | duped 2 days ago |
| > Wow this administration is f*ing batshit insane It's reasons why this that I refuse to associate with Republicans in my daily life anymore. They are undeserving of respect or decency for how they continue to make our lives worse. |
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| ▲ | sapphicsnail 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I think it depends on what kind of Republican someone is. I was raised in a conservative Christian community and later came out as a transgender woman. I've been surprised at how many people have been supportive of me since they got over the initial shock. I think knowing someone who's personally affected by this administration has an effect on people's opinions. There are plenty of people who are reactionary assholes that aren't worth talking to but there are people who still have an open heart. It's tiring, and I couldn't do it if I didn't have a supportive community to retreat to, but I have been able to sway some people. I don't judge anyone that doesn't want to put in the effort though. |
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| ▲ | 0cf8612b2e1e 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I guess that is my core problem: no empathy default. Opinion can be changed only by anecdotal example person (“you are one of the good ones”). | |
| ▲ | habinero 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, I've made friends with a bunch of (mostly ex- at this point) Republicans because we can agree (1) that other people matter and (2) structural inequalities exist and should not. If we have that in common, then I find the difference in politics is mostly implementation and method. I'm happy to debate civic policy on the merits all day at that point. The people who are drawn to the performatively cruel side are not rational actors and can't be reasoned with. I've tried. You have my admiration for trying, especially in this political climate. I've had younger folk straight up not believe me when I say this is exactly the same playbook they ran against gay men in the 90s. |
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| ▲ | seviu 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I live in Switzerland and Swiss post, which is the state owned postal service, does not ship to the US anymore. Here is the official link: https://www.post.ch/en/about-us/media/press-releases/2025/us... Pretty crazy if you ask me |
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| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I live in Switzerland and Swiss post, which is the state owned postal service, does not ship to the US anymore. That is not what the link says. It says that goods consignments are not accepted -- which is not at all the same thing as "does not ship to the US anymore". The link explicitly says that they're continuing to ship letters, will continue to ship goods via another service, and (I can only presume) will continue to accept personal packages, since those aren't affected at all by these tariff changes. The discussion on this topic on HN is far more heat than light. | | |
| ▲ | pj_mukh 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Wait, ARE “personal packages” exempt? Doesn’t say that in the press release. If I buy a Swiss watch (<$800) I’ll have to use DHL or UPS (though AFAIK, they also use national post in places) so I’m SOL. But if my Swiss friend mails me a watch they can use Swiss Post still? Unclear. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Nothing has changed wrt the personal exemption. Imports under $800 are exempt (i.e. you always had to pay tariffs on an expensive watch). I don't know how many commenters here actually realize it, but the de minimis exemption changes only apply to commercial import, which is how Temu and others could send a $10 piece of crap from China to your doorstep. I don't know if the Swiss post office has realized this, but it's true. Edit: one bit of nuance (see my comment downthread with some of the actual laws and the EO) is that if you buy a watch from Chrono24 or something then it's more like the Temu use-case, and I think the personal exemption probably doesn't apply? But if you go to Switzerland and pick up a $799 watch and post it back or carry it on a plane, then there's no problem. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > the de minimis exemption changes only apply to commercial import What exactly distinguishes a commercial import from a personal gift? How on Earth would the USPS adjudicate the difference? | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, I'm not a customs agent, but I'd imagine they do it in the same way they adjudicate anything else: inspection. Some things get through by chance, of course, but not at a rate you'd want to rely on if you're a business. In particular, if I walk into a random post office and send a one-off shipment internationally, the paperwork, origin, packaging, manifest, etc. is vastly different than what, say, Temu was doing to ship a $10 widget to US consumers at scale. The rule you're talking about is not new, so presumably they've figured it out. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The $100 rule might not be new, but given that it was by far exceeded by the $800 de minimis exemption until now, it just didn’t matter. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | This has nothing to do with the value threshold. US customs had to know the difference between personal packages and commercial packages before the change. You asked me what distinguishes a commercial package from a personal gift. | | |
| ▲ | lxgr a day ago | parent [-] | | > US customs had to know the difference between personal packages and commercial packages before the change. Presumably for things like import restrictions (I could imagine somebody sending homemade cookies is treated differently than a large-scale food importer), but not for a decision on whether to charge or not levy duties though, right? |
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| ▲ | kevin_thibedeau 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > how Temu and others could send a $10 piece of crap from China to your doorstep. The postal union treaty also externalized shipping costs. | |
| ▲ | pj_mukh 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yea I was asking really about what the various post offices are actually doing, as opposed to what the Trump admins hopes they would do. I have to actually deal with the former. |
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| ▲ | MandieD 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Postal services (including the one I'm in) are going with the $100 gift limit, not the previous $800 de minimus. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If so, they're wrong. | | |
| ▲ | MandieD 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | None of them wants to have a whole bunch of consumer/small business shipments stuck in US customs for who knows how long it will take for the US to figure out exactly what tariffs it wishes to charge and how exactly it plans to collect them, so are leaving it to the higher-priced experts like DHL (who will only do it if you’re willing to pay for their Express service, not their Standard parcel service from Germany), UPS, or FedEx. I doubt they’re conspiring to leave money on the table just to make Trump look bad. | |
| ▲ | fzeroracer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you're saying post offices around the world are wrong, it might be time to reevaluate your own statement for truthiness. There's multiple countries that are now suspending shipments over $100 to the US. So either there is a huge fuckup in communications from the US to every other country or there's a fuckup in the process itself. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > If you're saying post offices around the world are wrong, it might be time to reevaluate your own statement for truthiness. ...or you could read the actual changes? Accusing people of lying is not cool when you clearly haven't even read the source material. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/susp... Here's a summary by a law firm: https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/united-states-suspen... Specifically: > The executive order declares that “[t]he duty-free de minimis exemption provided under 19 U.S.C. § 1321(a)(2)(C) shall no longer apply to any shipment of articles not covered by 50 U.S.C. § 1702(b) [enumerating narrow exceptions, such as for donations, informational materials and transactions ordinarily incident to travel] regardless of value, country of origin, mode of transportation, or method of entry.” 50 USC 1702(b)(4) lays it out explicitly: > (4) any transactions ordinarily incident to travel to or from any country, including importation of accompanied baggage for personal use, maintenance within any country including payment of living expenses and acquisition of goods or services for personal use, and arrangement or facilitation of such travel including nonscheduled air, sea, or land voyages. You don't need to go into this much detail, of course -- you could just Google it or ask an LLM -- Google's AI summary currently returns the correct answer. https://www.google.com/search?q=does+trump+de+minimis+tariff... | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Here's the thing, nobody trusts what the administration or statutes say any more so entities like postal services in other countries are interpreting everything as a worst case scenario, instead of relying on good faith and mutual cooperation as they would previously. Here's a summary by a law firm: Normally that would be sufficient, but now we have an executive branch that tries strategies like personally suing all the federal judges in a district because it dislikes some of their rulings on one of the president's signature issues. CEOs of major corporations are literally giving the president lumps of gold to decorate the oval office. So you'll have to forgive me for discounting the value of legal opinions in general nowadays. | |
| ▲ | lxgr 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How about another White House source explicitly listing a $100 personal gift exemption, from the same day as the one you quoted, one bullet point below one outlining how shipments under $800 would be subject to duties? https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-pr... | |
| ▲ | Symbiote 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://www.postnord.dk/nye-toldregler-i-usa/ > Som privatperson kan du fortsat toldfrit sende gaver med en maksimal værdi á $100 You can see the number and read the obvious words, it's not even necessary to translate it | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | OK. So what? I'm not saying that post offices around the world don't make mistakes, or even make decisions that have nothing to do with the actual rules. I'm telling you what the rules are, right now. | | |
| ▲ | Symbiote 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You claimed Swiss post will continue to accept gift packages over $100, contrary to their press release. Several people have explained that you are incorrect — Swiss and others are not accepting gift parcels over $100. You then changed tack and said Swiss Post etc have the law wrong. So what to you? It doesn't matter what details and uncertainties are in the law, it's resulted in most European countries setting a $100 limit, and at least Finland has suspended delivery entirely (even letters). | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > You claimed Swiss post will continue to accept gift packages over $100, contrary to their press release. I literally just quoted the statement, which was explicit that the change involved “goods consignments”. They are continuing to accept mail, in general, and are continuing to accept goods consignments via another service. In other posts I showed you that there’s no change to US policy for personal exemption. Neither fact is in tension with the other. |
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| ▲ | fzeroracer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | So again, to be clear: You're saying multiple post offices around the world are wrong? Are they acting in unison? Is this a conspiracy against Trump? Explain to me your process here. The EO doesn't mean shit as much as how things are enforced. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > So again, to be clear: You're saying multiple post offices around the world are wrong? Are they acting in unison? Well, I don't keep track of what post offices around the world are doing, but if they're not following the rules that I just showed you, then yeah, they're wrong. It wouldn't be the first time that bureaucratic organizations get things wrong. > The EO doesn't mean shit as much as how things are enforced. You really need to step back from the keyboard. | | |
| ▲ | Symbiote 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You were writing about Japan's $100 limit yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017265 > I'd suggest something like: "Japan Post stops accepting US shipments over $100." | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure what your point is? What Japan does or does not do has no bearing on the laws, which I just showed you. |
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| ▲ | gpvos 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I doubt you can interpret the rules better than the combined postal services of Europe and their legal departments, and so should you. |
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| ▲ | throwway120385 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's a tariff code and ways of labeling for US customs that should get you through customs with that. Customs is more about regulating commerce and secondarily about preventing contraband from getting through. Sending someone a gift Swiss Watch is probably still possible as long as you don't just YOLO it straight into the mail like it's going to a domestic address. |
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| ▲ | tcumulus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Same here in Belgium, and many other European countries. | | | |
| ▲ | prawn 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Same in Australia now, I believe. |
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| ▲ | kergonath 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The vast majority of republicans caused this. You still need to talk to them and live with them. There will need to be a reckoning and they will need to own their mistakes, but you will need to move on. That’s the point of democracy. |
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| ▲ | mjcohen 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | They will never own their mistakes. That's the point of lack of democracy. | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I do not need to and democracy does not require me to. The price of their mistakes is permanent shunning. I'm not going to go around conducting inquisitions, but I find I've been inspired by the tenacity of old folks carrying grudges against communism from the Cold War, and I'm confident I can carry this grudge until I'm an old folk myself. | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > The price of their mistakes is permanent shunning. This won’t work. Just look at any country that dealt with a fascist regime. The ideology gets shunned, but you don’t just cancel even 30% of a country’s population, otherwise you just create a permanent state of tension. You need a combination of very harsh punishments for the leaders and the most harmful people, but you also need a way to reintegrate most of them into the democratic process. | | |
| ▲ | int_19h 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | They can reintegrate by ceasing to support the Republican party and its leadership. | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure! Like I said, I have no interest in launching an inquisition, I'm not going to demand a detailed political history from everyone I meet in 2030 or 2040. They can reintegrate by treating their support for the Trump regime as the shameful, dark secret it is, or by strategically "forgetting" that they ever supported it at all. I suspect that quite a lot of Trump supporters will not be interested in doing this, and will instead maintain a permanent state of tension by declaring their continued support of a regime that hated me. That's not great, I agree, but if there's one thing the 2024 election taught me it's that pretending it's OK doesn't defuse the tension. The Republican party had a clear opportunity to let the past go and win with a candidate who doesn't hate me - a candidate I would have voted for! - but they decided they prefer not to. |
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| ▲ | tastyface 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, no. This is no longer really an option. 47% of Republicans would still support Trump even if he was unequivocally proven to be a vicious pedophile: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-survey-found-... These people have lost all sense. The only remaining option is to make their party electorally impotent. Dominate through any available dirty trick. Redistricting. Impeachment. Ignoring judges. Endless executive orders. Shock and awe. Whatever they've done, return straight back to them. (Except the really grotesque parts like sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison.) It seems that many people still haven't gotten the memo that we're not really living in a democracy anymore. |
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| ▲ | MSFT_Edging 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'll associate but sorta make fun of them in conversation. It's not the most productive but for all the pain their "opinions" create, the least I can do is make them feel the group believes their opinions to be ridiculous as the group all laughs. I don't think they should get civility outside of the voters booth if they're uncivil within the booth. |
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| ▲ | worik 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I refuse to associate with Republicans i I understand I urge you to reconsider The purpose of the policies are to create division that can then be exploited. So fight them by building bridges and maintaining relationships It is hard work, but it is the most effective way to fight these people who would sacrifice general peace and prosperity for the sake of their personal greed |
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| ▲ | baggachipz 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | "When they go low, we go high" hasn't worked for a long time. They always find new ways to go lower and drag everyone with them. | | |
| ▲ | worik 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It worked for Obama - domestically | | |
| ▲ | baggachipz a day ago | parent [-] | | Did it though? He was constantly stymied, most of his policy goals were thwarted by republicans (specifically McConnell) saying that their only goal was to kill anything Obama wants. Romneycare was completely gimped. They went low, and it worked. |
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| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 'Fight them by collaborating as best you can' is an absolute losing strategy. The GOP isn't a normal political party any more, where you can appeal to long term interests, the back and forth of the political pendulum, national values and so on. |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | bsimpson 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Conflating the people in charge with Republicans as a whole, and writing them collectively off, is a disservice to society and by extension, yourself. The tl;dr of the current conundrum is that we have two corrupt political parties, and a system that's so rigged that it's nearly impossible to elect someone outside of them. Modern society's problems are complex to reason about and nearly intractable to solve. The people in power are not capable of even trying to reason about, let alone solve them. I grew up in Nevada. Most of the people I grew up with are lowercase-L libertatian: they believe the government exists to arbitrate between the conflicting rights of individuals; that it should be as small as possible and let them do what they like unless they're harming someone else. Because of the aforementioned duopoly, these people tend to count as Republicans (in the style of Reagan). (This is true generally - the more geographically isolated a place is, the more it skews libertarian. The more urban, the more it skews liberal.) The national Republican party was weak after Bush and got taken over by the Trump personality cult. The people I grew up with don't believe in instituting tariffs and arresting immigrants; yet if you force them to choose an R or D label, most of them are still going to count as R. The world is a nuanced place. If you ignore that nuance and force everyone you're willing to converse with to pass your litmus test, you end up with two tribes ostriching themselves into bubbles of partisan-approved groupthink. That begets more yelling, less mutual understanding, and makes it even harder to solve problems. All of this empowers the extremists who control the major parties to continue making the world a worse place in service of their own power. Yes, everything about politics sucks, and the people in charge are unfathomably awful. But if you refuse to share ideas with people you might disagree with, you're contributing to making that even more true. |
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| ▲ | cosmicgadget 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Conflating the people in charge with Republicans as a whole, and writing them collectively off Maybe not "as a whole" but the majority of Republicans voted for this so at least those need to be written off. The rest have an opportunity to claim that they oppose the takeover by the personality cult. A great way to do it is to change their voter registration to anything else. At this point, ever Republican has absolutely opted in to the current leader and platform. | | |
| ▲ | amalcon 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The problem is that, while I agree with more or less everything you say here - "writing off" approximately half the population is not going to work. You can't do that in a democracy, if only because that approximately-half actually have rather a lot of collective power. If they didn't, it wouldn't be much of a democracy. My argument here isn't moral. It's that this class of strategy simply cannot be effective. I'm not claiming a better one, only that it's on all of us to look. | |
| ▲ | worik 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > voted for this so at least those need to be written off. Are you willing to write off so many people? That is what the "fascists" want. Division is a core technique of erasing liberty | | |
| ▲ | sleepybrett 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Are you willing to write off so many people? That is what the "fascists" want. Division is a core technique of erasing liberty He told them what he wanted to do, over and over and over again. Now that he's doing what he told them he was going to do (again over and over and over again) they want some respect for their objections? They voted for him knowing what he was going to do. Exactly what is there about these fucking morons that I shouldn't write off? | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not sure what to tell you, I can't envision myself having a productive conversation with someone who, with sound mind, supports the person responsible for the Mar a Lago documents, January 6, and the Epstein cover up. > Division is a core technique of erasing liberty Seems like embracing a self-coup is also a core technique of erasing liberty? Maybe both of these statements are so broad that they are meaningless. | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What about the people who just voted against a party infrastructure that 1) insisted that a vegetable was sharp as a tack, 2) that you can't have a primary no matter how much you want it, 3) that the guy who won in 2016 is definitely working for Russia, and 4) is probably just as involved in the Epstein situation as the red team? You chose your lesser of 2 evils, and others chose theirs. There is no acceptable choice in American presidential politics. | | |
| ▲ | 8note 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | in what world is kamala harris as involved with epstein as epsteins best friend trump? she probably would have actually released the epstein files with only the victims names redacted. trump, as well, one of epsteins best friends in the whole world, who may have also had him assasinated, aint gonna be the guy to release all those files about himself. democrats have proved time and time again that they will turn on each other in an instant to prove morality while republicans all drop their morals the moment it affects their hierarchical power. wed still have some great democrat senators from the metoo era if that werent the case. ----- i think people pick by name recognition rather than by lesser evil. if folks think trump is less evil than harris, theyre probably far beyond any conversation i could have. as south park puts it, not even satan wants to have sex with him. | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I mean, exactly. If they live in a reality where Jan 6 is less evil than an incumbent president getting the automatic nomination, it's going to be hard to have a productive conversation. If, in their minds, Harris and Trump are somehow equally implicated in the Epstein scandal, all I can say is "lol, have a good one". | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit a day ago | parent [-] | | How does it change your calculation if you realize the lack of a primary is probably why you have the evil villain behind January 6th in office? I'm not talking about Harris specifically re Epstein, no idea what her involvement is. I'm saying the blue team in general. And is it really a good defense to say "my team was less involved with Epstein"? I'd humbly submit that it's not. | | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget a day ago | parent [-] | | They're not my team. I am an independent who votes for people, not parties. And yes, while any involvement with sex trafficking is bad, distant association is far, far better than actually perpetrating the crimes. Or promising to expose the perpetrators and then failing to do so. This is why we live in different realities. | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit a day ago | parent [-] | | > while any involvement with sex trafficking is bad, (why doesn't this sentence end here?) distant association is far, far better than actually perpetrating the crimes. Or promising to expose the perpetrators and then failing to do so. Different realities indeed. The dems didn't even do that first part of promising to release things before "failing" to. Nobody in charge wants this stuff out. This is why our system is fucked. You just have to convince people you're not as bad as the other guy, and you get carte blanch to do pretty much whatever. | | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget a day ago | parent [-] | | > why doesn't the sentence end here? Once again, because being in a political party that has rapists is not the same as committing rape. Do I need to explain this further? > The dems didn't even do that first part of promising to release things before "failing" to. So then don't vote for them? Though if you are voting based on this issue and have a choice between a man who is in the files and has a documented history with Epstein or a woman who is a former state AG and didn't run in the east coast Trump/Epstein circles, please tell me you aren't as naive as Joe Rogan. |
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| ▲ | habinero 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're trying to "both sides" here, but the problem is your talking points are fabricated and were never real. They're propaganda. 1. Biden was old and everyone knew it. He still got shit done. The idea that everyone thought he was great and fine is not true. That's what Republicans claimed people thought. 2. Primaries are not an official part of the election process. They are a party matter. The whole weird Republican meltdown over it is not based in fact or history. 3. Russia did interfere with the 2016 elections. There's a whole congressional report on it, by a majority Republican committee. [0] 4. I don't even know what this means. If someone did crimes, they should be held responsible. The idea that we don't want that is, frankly propaganda. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/... | | |
| ▲ | worik 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | My point is that all you USA people should work against division. You need to build bridges with people that you disagree with Casting somebody out of "the big tent" because of how they voted works towards increasing division. Increasing division, especially between majorities and minorities, is a time worn and effective tactic to create the conditions for authoritarianism. If you favour authoritarianism over liberty then I am not talking to you. If you favour liberty, support it, do not work against it | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 1. I don't believe that he was steering the ship, which is kind of important. Maybe you're fine with his team making all the decisions. That's a betrayal of trust for me. 2. I'm not a Republican and I like the idea of the people getting to have a say in their leadership. 3. The claim I mentioned was that Trump was a Russian agent. Where's the evidence for that one? 4. This means the blue team had plenty of time to do something about the Epstein files and didn't. We'll never know what kamala would have done about it, but my money is on jack and squat. Again, I'm not a republican. The red team sucks, and still the blue team wasn't good enough to beat them. | | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > I don't believe that he was steering the ship, which is kind of important. Maybe you're fine with his team making all the decisions. That's a betrayal of trust for me. Hahaha so instead of voting for 60 year old you voted for the almost-octogenarian who thinks there were airports in the revolutionary war, representing the party that has absolutely never hidden the neurological decline of a sitting president. My guy. | | |
| ▲ | ifyoubuildit a day ago | parent [-] | | I'm not a trump supporter. The point is that neither of the choices were acceptable. The blue team can't be rewarded for the shit they pulled, even if you have the boogie man on the other side. Also, is anyone claiming that Trump isn't steering the ship? The people elected him and he seems to be the one at the wheel. The people elected Biden, who may have been steering the ship in his good hours of the day, but who knows who made the decisions the rest of the time. | | |
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| ▲ | habinero a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | 1. You think that because of a whole lot of propaganda. I don't think you can look at Biden's behavior objectively and come to the same conclusion. Old? Yes. Slowing down? Sure. Is that good? No. Was he the loopy basket case people liked to claim? Also no. 2. It doesn't matter if you are or not, you're parroting the propaganda lines. Primaries have always worked like this. Anyone who passed high school civics should know that. I did and I do. 3. "Russia, if you're listening..." lol Anyways, people don't think Trump is an "agent" like a spy. The issue is his campaign and office are compromised and Russia has leverage on him. That's the real issue. 4. I still don't know exactly what you're talking about. Y'all do know the "Epstein files" are mostly imaginary, right? I mean, obviously he existed, he trafficked teenagers for sex, and he kept records and such. And yeah, we already knew famous people tagged along with him. But the idea that they're this spooky secret special trove of famous pedophiles that everyone in power is desperate to hide is straight out of QAnon baby eating fantasies. Nobody did anything about it because there was nothing to do. Basically everything was mostly released years ago. Trump flogged it because it got a reaction and now he has nothing to show. It's honestly hilarious to watch it bite him. |
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| ▲ | sleepybrett 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Trying to call the democrats corrupt on the same level of the trump administration is fucking rich. It's like saying that both antarctica and oregon are 'cold'. Fucking stop already. | |
| ▲ | orwin a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There's a way to show you don't agree with your head of state, it's called protesting. | |
| ▲ | 8note 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > yet if you force them to choose an R or D label, most of them are still going to count as R. this is to say they have a glowing endorsement of the trump agenda of authoritarian intervention in both social and economic issues. they could have stayed home, or voted for democrats who were pushing a more traditional conservative policy. they also could have voted for local politicians who are against trump policies, but the local republicans are lockstep with trump too. you need to reevaluate what the people in your community believe in. they mught say theyre libertarians, but their actions say theyre very favourable to criminal dictators. if they werent, they would have acted dofferently in elections, and the votes speak louder than words | |
| ▲ | kagakuninja 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The Republican leaders could have removed Trump from office after Jan 6. All those traditional conservatives and "lowercase-L libertatians" could speak up now, and do something about the ongoing fascist takeover, but they are not. American democracy is probably doomed, we will find out in 2026 whether we can have fair mid-term elections. | | |
| ▲ | bsimpson 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The whole party is corrupt. Lindsey Graham was loudly anti-Trump until Trump won, and now he's just as loudly a Trump sycophant. The establishment cares about its own power more than it cares about doing what's right. (That indictment is true of both parties, but I'm specifically talking about Republicans here.) I'm not defending people who voted for Trump. I'm saying if your response is "then I'm going to pretend you don't exist," this is only going to get worse. Normal people need to be able to work together to find common ground for us to have anything resembling a healthy society. It makes me sad that Hacker News, the place that emphasizes thoughtful curiosity in its post/comment guidelines, has lately often devolved into an echochamber indistinguishable from Reddit when anything remotely political comes up. Anything more nuanced then "Trump is evil and Republicans are stupid" gets downvoted, which is a microcosm of the whole problem that put them in power. | | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Why waste your time on unserious people? If Graham and Vance are going to flip from never Trump to sycophants, why listen to their press conferences? If the normal guy at the bar was talking about how great it'll be when Trump releases the client list and suddenly decides Epstein was a nothingburger, do you think you are going to change his reality? Hint: he never cared about "the pedos", it was just motivated reasoning. It is time 60% of the country decided to stop wasting effort on people who do not participate honestly. And please stop with the "oh no, Reddit" garbage. |
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| ▲ | Yeul 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | "If there’s a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis" |
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| ▲ | anon_reaction 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | ThrowawayR2 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And polarization and alienating voters has worked out so well as a strategy for the Democrats for the past 12 years, has it? Obama pointed straight at call-out culture as a losing strategy 5 years ago; NYT article: https://archive.is/Di4uG . The Democrats need to start divorcing themselves from "allies" like the parent poster immediately and loudly if they want to build a voter coalition strong enough to win the midterms. |
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| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Ah, bullshit. The Republicans have been playing that game for >30 years and just escalating steadily. Democratic efforts at bipartisanship are never reciprocated, whereas every time Democrats try to act unilaterally they are demonized. Obama was wrong. Look at your own article, which quotes Tulsi Gabbard gushing about the need for a little more of that 'aloha spirit', and compare it with her actual behavior now that she's Director of National Intelligence in the current administration. https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/454/gopac.html <- a 1995 strategy document from former GOP speaker Newt Gingrich's GOPAC. | |
| ▲ | crote 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And how well has pandering to the Republican-light voter base been going the last few elections? Zohran Mamdani is doing so well for a reason: a decent part of the voter base is getting increasingly fed up by the center-right politics the Democrats have been selling. Young left-wing voters really don't like the fossils currently leading the Democratic party. If the Democrats don't start selling something better than "we aren't the Republicans", they are at risk of losing yet another generation to the next right-wing populist who claims he's going to "drain the swamp". So no, call-out culture isn't the problem: the complete lack of left-wing values is. | | |
| ▲ | stale2002 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > pandering to the Republican-light voter base Its not that you have to appeal to them. Feel free to have policy positions and to stand on those. You might even get some people on the other side to agree with you on policy. Instead, the losing strategy is doing what the OP is apparently doing, which is preemptively dismissing half the population, wholesale. Defining yourself as nothing, exempt as a hating half of the country is neither a real policy position, nor does it gain much. > Zohran Mamdani is doing so well He is doing well because he is standing on values. Not because he spends his time saying that he hates half of America. I'm sure he would be happy to get republican voters who move over to his side and agree with his policy positions. | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent [-] | | have policy positions and to stand on those As if activist conservatives won't simply lie about them. Yes, in an ideal world everything would be evaluated on the basis of policy by rational actors using objective criteria. In the world we live in bad faith abounds, and voters aren't very attracted to candidates who are long on integrity but allow themselves to used as a punching bag in some sort performative political martyrdom. |
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| ▲ | mcphage 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > polarization and alienating voters has worked out so well as a strategy for the Democrats for the past 12 years, has it? It's worked really well for the Republicans for decades. The Democrats just need to try harder. | |
| ▲ | wat10000 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Obama spent most of his time in office trying to compromise with Republicans. The result was that they stubbornly resisted almost everything, and then elected Donald Trump in a fit of pique. | |
| ▲ | watwut 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Polarization and alienationg and being offensive worked great for conservatives. Democrats were nice and polite, always letting themselves be guilted into treating Republicans nicely. It was loosing strategy. |
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| ▲ | daseiner1 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| speak up, we can barely hear you in the top rows of the grandstands voters have essentially zero influence over policy and overwhelmingly vote on "vibes". also most people don't care about policy at any level of detail until it directly affects them. is this good? no. true nonetheless. much of why i'm not much of a fan of democracy and i think it's a sham. i don't think contributing to increased polarization, especially at the level of your neighbors, is something to be proud of. |
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| ▲ | intended 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The Republican media-political machine is by far the most competitive, and they have been punishing bipartisan behavior since the 60s. Such actions are imitation, and therefore the best flattery. The Repub model is being replicated globally too. It just works. | |
| ▲ | dfxm12 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Maybe you could have hid behind the "vibes" line the first time around, but not anymore. We're way past where we could realistically give people the benefit of the doubt. | |
| ▲ | tstrimple 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > voters have essentially zero influence over policy and overwhelmingly vote on "vibes" The "vibes" that attract conservative voters are fucking disgusting. |
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| ▲ | throwmeaway222 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| yeah it's what publicans had to deal with for years when they were seeing their jobs vaporize and we just said ' well globalization ' but they didn't stop associating with crats. |
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| ▲ | 8note 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | free trade was a reagan republican idea. hes the last republican god. the dems gave up fighting against it, but its still a republican idea to wreck the manufacturing base and put the publicans into unemployment | |
| ▲ | abakker 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | c'mon. IT outsourcing was done 100% to drive shareholder value, not to improve globalization. Don't drink your own kool aid. The party and its members engage in an incredible mutual hypocrisy with each other. It's all facile BS. | | |
| ▲ | therein 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | How many more cycles do you think you will need to realize it is both sides, in fact it is above both sides? Do you think it will finally click after 2 more cycles, that's 8 years or so? You will be your current age + 8, maybe you can then start saying "yeah man both sides suck, it is as if there is something above it that controls them both and we are made to support them as if we're supporting our favorite soccer team"? | | |
| ▲ | abakker 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm no apologist for bad policy or lack of rigor on the side of the democrats, but the "Both sides" argument is tired and not particularly persuasive. What the Trump administration is doing is objectively unprecedented, and the republican complicity in a degradation of the separation of powers is not something that has been attempted by "Both sides". Trump certainly has raised the bar on presidential power, but in context, republicans under Bush and through Obama's term have set a standard of the erosion of important balances to power. In regards to my ability to "realize" I suppose I'll keep myself to the facts. At present, I don't see a set of functional equivalency in each party's extravagances. | | |
| ▲ | therein 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It is not an argument I am making. It is just the reality of the situation. Not even going to try to convince you, data in front of you over years should be sufficient but people forgive, forget, adapt, justify, try to move on with their lives, misremember, look at the most recent argument they are presented etc. It is that they create problems, they pitch suboptimal solutions that will create the next crisis, and then they frame the crisis in a way that appeals to your emotions. So no, it is not a tiresome both sides argument. It is that you are being led by people that don't care about you, that don't have your best interests in mind; they have their own agenda and you're just being swayed left and right as the zeitgeist allows. And you're left cheering for your team because you think your team is better. But hey, the other team really bothched something up recently, so yay your team. And then we will get your team in power, they'll do some things you like while creating other problems and then pendulum will swing the other way, some will cheer for the other team and then swing back. And then before you know it, oops you're 64 years old now. | | |
| ▲ | abakker 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I see what you're saying here, and I guess I missed that point in the earlier post. Sorry. You are definitely right that the parties/political system does not make decisions in my favor (or really make decisions at all). Beyond just the crises, it's pretty clear that the "vested interests" in our economy have substantial sway in the outcomes regardless of how much of the discourse they try to avoid. to be clear, I'm not in favor of the expansion of the executive power through executive orders under Obama, nor am I in favor of Trump using it. I think the democrats were short sighted in allowing the precedent and not expecting it to backfire. IMO, democracy is strongest when the motivation is to close loopholes as an exercise in disarmament, rather than the pyrrhic victories of escalation. All that said, the recent escalations are alarming, and I hope that when I'm 64, the pendulum is still attached to swing. I understand the realpolitik of the situation, but I don't agree that I need to adopt such a fatalistic view of the whole situation that I won't care that people are making mistakes at all. | | |
| ▲ | therein 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, we seem to be in agreement. And you're right, the pendulum swinging is upsetting but it will be even more concerning when it stops to swing. |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | miltonlost 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ??? Republicans were also a huge driver of offshoring manufacturing, not just the neoliberal Democrats. What are you talking about? | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Indeed. Neocons were all about helping large corporations make a quick buck, which included free trade (except for a few critical industries) and offshoring. It shifted with the tea party, whey the GOP became a nationalist populist party. | |
| ▲ | Yeul 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Americans now hate capitalism. If you predicted this 40 years ago people would have called you crazy. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's silly. What's actually happening is far more nuanced and interesting: the parties have flipped. For years, Democrats were generally aligned with labor, and broadly opposed to trade agreements -- remember that Hillary Clinton campaigned on rejecting the TPP [1], and it was unusual that Trump agreed with her, taking the issue away. Now, suddenly, the left is on the other side of the issue, because the current executive wants to restrict trade. It's nothing but realpolitik. Also, not that long ago, it was the left that was advocating tariffs. For example, Obama in 2009 [2]. Admittedly nothing as sweeping or rushed as what is going on now, but still far from the party of free trade. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-trade... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32808731 | | |
| ▲ | danesparza 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This simply isn't true. Democrats still broadly align themselves with labor (the many people getting the stuff done) Republicans still broadly align themselves with rich CEOs (the few people profiting off the backs of the labor). It has been this way for at least 40 years. Labor vs. Trade ≠ Tariffs vs. Free Trade — Democrats’ historic opposition to trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP was about protecting workers from job outsourcing and race-to-the-bottom standards. That’s not the same thing as imposing blanket tariffs as a blunt weapon in foreign policy. Conflating the two is lazy at best, dishonest at worst. Obama’s 2009 tire tariffs were a narrow safeguard against China dumping, consistent with WTO rules, and widely viewed as a targeted response to an actual violation. That’s worlds apart from sweeping, across-the-board tariffs used as political theater. And if it’s all “realpolitik” like you say, then your whole point collapses: by your logic, both parties shift based on circumstance — so stop pretending there’s some tidy ideological flip when the reality is far messier. | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Labor vs. Trade ≠ Tariffs vs. Free Trade — Democrats’ historic opposition to trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP was about protecting workers from job outsourcing and race-to-the-bottom standards. OK, so we agree on the facts -- historically, the Democrats were aligned with labor, and opposed to trade. They had absolutely no qualms about opposing trade when they felt it was in their political interests to do so. > Obama’s 2009 tire tariffs were a narrow safeguard against China dumping I mean...you can attempt to diminish it in scale if you like, but the fact is that the left has historically been pro-labor and anti-trade, and the right has been pro-trade and anti-labor. Now the right controls the government, and they're clearly anti-trade. They've flipped. |
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| ▲ | buellerbueller 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your 1st source [https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-trade...] points out that many (myself included) contend Clinton was lying her face off to draw support away from those had felt burned by Democratic treatment of Bernie Sanders and his campaign. Clinton was VOCIFEROUSLY pro-TPP for quite a while, and "changed" her stance as the race with Trump tightened. I believe she was a bald-faced liar. The Clintons were ur-Third Way democrats. Financialization of the economy and globalization were the stock-in-trade (puns intended) of 1990s-2010s Democrats (at the Federal level) until Bernie came along. | |
| ▲ | dfxm12 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, the parties haven't flipped. Republicans and lobbyists just keep dragging the Overton window to the right and mainstream dems just follow along for most of the ride. Biden, who actually walked a picket line, is probably among the most proworker presidents in American history (certainly in my lifetime) and that's sad because the bar is so low. Trump, and his litany of judges, are all very much anti-worker and pro big business. He is trying to dismantle the NLRB at their behest! | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes, they have. I just gave you two documented examples, and I didn't try that hard to find them. As far as Biden goes, you do realize that he didn't roll back the tariffs that Trump 1 put on China, right? > Biden, who actually walked a picket line, is probably among the most proworker presidents in American history (certainly in my lifetime) and that's sad because the bar is so low. I said, at the very top, that the Democrats were historically aligned with labor. They had no qualms about enacting trade barriers or opposing trade agreements in order to appease that constituency. It is only since -- well, this year, basically -- that they have become free trade evangelists. It's realpolitik. Democrats see a wedge issue, and they're riling up the base to exploit it, regardless of the party's own historical actions. | | |
| ▲ | dfxm12 2 days ago | parent [-] | | These examples don't prove your point though, so they were easily countered. You even conceded this yourself when you admitted that Obama's tariffs were "nothing as sweeping or rushed as what is going on now". I'm not sure who is arguing against ever using tariffs in general. Obama's, like Trump's tariffs against China, they were at least planned and somewhat targeted for a specific purpose. The argument against Trump's tariffs this time around has always been they are capricious. | | |
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| ▲ | watwut 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Current administration is not aligned with labor and poor people are the one who will pay the most. It makes complete sense for the left to oppose this. And it is completely consistent with position of "i want these smart selective predictable tariffs". It would not be consistent with what is happening now | | |
| ▲ | timr 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Current administration is not aligned with labor and poor people are the one who will pay the most. You might want to tell labor. I just listened to an hour-long podcast with the Teamsters leader, where he revealed that over half of their members supported Trump in the most recent election: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-unions-went-for-tr... | | |
| ▲ | andelink 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, and it boggles the mind as to why they did. Biden was quite the pro-worker president. Biden saved the Teamsters pension fund and then still the Teamsters officially wouldn't endorse him or Harris. To have your retirement rescued so spectacularly while the opposing party was throwing stones at it and then go on to vote for that opposing party who would have stopped that funding if they could... I just don't understand. | |
| ▲ | Larrikin 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Poor people voting against their own interest is a large base of the Republican party. It's usually some combination of religion, racism, and temporarily embarrassed millionaire thinking. | | |
| ▲ | whatthesmack 2 days ago | parent [-] | | This predictable response to people doing what they think is best is so incredibly demeaning, infantilizing, and small-minded. Just because _you_ think somebody is voting against their own interest does not mean they are actually voting against their own interest. The most virtuous of us do not vote their own interest first, but rather the interest of justice and morality. The assumption that people should or will vote their own interest first & always is what the kids these days seem to call "mid" and "basic". | | |
| ▲ | Larrikin 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Hiding hate behind "morality" is covered by religion | |
| ▲ | watwut a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | They dont do what they think is best. They want to harm people not like them, they are attracted to fraud and want affirmation of hierarchy that they think is advantage to them. The infantilizing thing is constantly project positive motivations on people who do the opposite. They were literally looking forward to cause harm, they just thought it will harm only liberals, trans, stupid feminists and well ... anyone not them. |
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| ▲ | sleepybrett 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ask them what they think now. | | | |
| ▲ | watwut a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | They love his anti-trans crusade, they love his anti-eco crusade, they love he is sticking it to the libs. They find his sexual harasment issues to make him more true manly. None of that has anything to do with labor itself or economy. It has nothing to do with parties changing other then Republicans changing to more extreme right. That being said, actual labor as in worked did not went for Republicans all that hard. It appears that way only if you restrict labor meaning to males of specific demographics. It is not labor thing. It is gender resentment over not being on top of hierarchy thing. |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | croes 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Didn‘t know Nixon and Reagan were Democrats. Maybe you realize that neither do something for the working class but the big corporations and billionaires. The ones who try are labeled socialists. |
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| ▲ | philipallstar 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Haven't people been saying this for a decade now? The democrats purity tests make this test for copper look like child's play. |
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| ▲ | wasabi991011 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So your claim (based on your link downthread) is that - new regulation changing trade in a way that companies are struggling to follow is child's play compared to - a memo from a think-tank suggesting a particular choice of words ? | |
| ▲ | Mtinie 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I’m genuinely interested in which “purity tests” you are referring to. I’m all for bi-partisan ridicule if it’s warranted. | | |
| ▲ | throwmeaway222 2 days ago | parent [-] | | https://nypost.com/2025/08/25/opinion/dems-nix-45-woke-words... | | |
| ▲ | Mtinie 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Thank you for sharing. Would you agree that Third Way’s positions and suggestions should be weighted differently than official federal government stances and actions? | |
| ▲ | miltonlost 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | An opinion article from the NY Post. Neat. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Isn't it better to argue the content than ad hominem the source? | | |
| ▲ | anigbrowl 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The content is also garbage (I read this a few days ago). They collected examples of the wackiest, most tortured language that they could (phrases like 'birthing person') and ascribed them to Democrats in general as if the party had some sort of crisis of cognition. The truth is that ivory-tower euphemisms like this are not common political currency, but ham-fisted attempts at communication by individuals or tiny groups with little or no political capital. Tabloid trash publications like the NY Post are not honest messengers, but rather seek to amplify things like this using synecdoche to suggest that they're representative of the median Democrat. If the poster above wanted to showcase the underlying ideas, they could have just linked to the Third way website and paraphrased their argument directly, but instead they decided to share the gutter press version. I discount tabloid newspapers the same way I discount left-leaning outlets like Democracy Now! or Truthout - they might be right some of the time but the general level of bias outweighs their utility as providers of factual information, which is readily available from less biased sources. | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Hold on I will have an LLM write a 40-page rebuttal and when you don't read it I'll accuse you of ad homineming the AI. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar a day ago | parent [-] | | Well, either you've just invalidated the concept of ad hominem being bad, or you haven't. Which is it? | | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget a day ago | parent [-] | | False dilemma. I have illustrated that distrusting slop and a propaganda magazine isn't ad hominem. |
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| ▲ | RankingMember 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That source lost its right to the benefit of the doubt long ago. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar a day ago | parent [-] | | No benefit of the doubt required. Either read the content and comment on it or don't comment. | | |
| ▲ | RankingMember a day ago | parent [-] | | > Either read the content and comment on it or don't comment. These are not the only two options. Considering the source is always relevant and worthy of comment. |
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| ▲ | 8note 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | what actually costs something though? you want to pay more in taxes for everything because you dont like the high standards democrats have for themselves? some democrats also want to raise taxes? why not support them if you eant to raise taxes? | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar a day ago | parent [-] | | Democrats don't have high standards. Joe Biden was "in office" but with debilatating mental decline while other people did everything, and the Democrats were all in lockstep totally fine with this, until the one day they weren't and everything got reversed. |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | duped 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Donald Trump did get elected about a decade ago, so sure? | | |
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