I'm not an American, I don't live in the US and I generally keep away from politically charged topics on Hackernews, but I feel I must add to your comment a bit.

I would aggree with you that this "is just theatre" and as long as whoever is in charge is looking into the important stuff on economics and public policy, we could ignore the theatrics. I don't think this guy is doing a good job on the "important" stuff, but that's beyond me and I don't really have a say on tariffs, immigration or whatever else on someone else's country.

However, the "theatre" he does hurts real people in the real world. Trans people get killed or refused care, kids get shot in schools and even his own allies get hurt in the heat of the political theatre he creates. I must say I'm actually kind of glad he switched aim from vaccines to Tylenol: the whole antivax thing was extremely dangerous to the population as a whole, while blaming Tylenol will maybe hurt some pharma sales that's all. I wish he went with this discourse from the start, instead of spreading fear over vaccination during the times the World needed vaccines the most.

With that said, my whole point is that, unfortunatelly, political discourse has power, even if it's just theatrics. I wish you folks had more than two options in the US so you wouldn't need to choose his hateful and harmful discourse over the opposition, but sometimes you have to make do with what you have and it's not going to be good.

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orochimaaru 8 hours ago | parent [-]

In politics - facts are immaterial but emotions and simplicity count.

I don’t agree with the administration on abortion and trans policies. There is a lot more to trans than just trans men in women’s sport and bathrooms.

Immigration enforcement should have better due process and it should be welcomed by both Democrat and republicans. There is no reason for democratic law makers to claim not to comply with federal law.

Either way - the points I put out is something I hear often in the US. Most people get shutdown in public for even appearing to agree with the current admin on policy even if they don’t agree with the implementation theatrics. It’s a bit of a shit show here when it comes to having an honest conversation.

	▲	nemomarx 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Harris made several grandstanding stunts at the border and talked about her record on crime and immigration enforcement, and backed off on trans questions where she could (saying she would leave it to the states) This basically had no impact because the political ads just said she was going to open the border and use your taxes to pay for transing your kids anyway. The Dems can't reasonably change how they're viewed in the media environment and if they do manage to take out a moderate position on something they'll just be seen as the slightly less effective option - once everyone agrees the border needs to be tougher, why not vote for the party that's louder on immigration anyway?