Curious: are there any republicans left on HN? I have no concept of how you can defend this

You're not going to get a real response. They're here. They literally just ignore it. It's too inconvenient of a truth. It's much easier to just point fingers at poor immigrants than to actually give a shit about the corruption of rich people.

If most were being honest, they would probably admit that the corrupt behavior like this is bad, but that the overall balance of good vs bad policy decisions still favor having Republicans in power vs Democrats.

Why shouldn't there be? Depending on the poll you look at, republicans are polling around 40%: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/ge...

I doubt there are many dyed-in-the-wool Republicans as such, but I'll bet there are many who still identify strongly enough with the old-school Republican messaging around rugged individualism and supply-side economics that they view the median Democrat as actively destructive by comparison to the merely flawed median Republican.

I'm far from being one of those myself, but I imagine the argument would be that any regulation one could propose to address this is bound to be worse than the problem itself, in terms of chilling effects on legitimate speech and commercial activity.

Not a Republican, but I support this behavior because I can't wait for more talent to leave the US

im not american. i'm not even from a western country. but as a bystand observer, it's a bit late to start a conversation with republicans on social media. after cancelling them for years. you reap what you saw. you never cared about understanding their point of view and now that conversation can never be had again

There are republicans left and most will devolve to equivocating talking about corruption under Biden (Hunter Laptop), Clinton etc and maybe say "everyone is corrupt and this is just slightly more corrupt maybe more in the open" why are you making a scene about it? Not realizing that steps like these mean that society as a whole will become overtly corrupt instead of covertly corrupt.

If a President is so corrupt that he is selling access for what is loose change for him - I mean what is $100k when he is getting $400million jet - their local offices will also feel comfortable nickel and diming them for small access. A trip to DMV will turn into "You want your driving license? That'll be $50 extra for me on top of the administrative fees". This is the reality of life in some low trust third world countries. Now coming to America!

But in the meantime lets celebrate equivocating and whataboutism.

Not a Republican by any stretch of any imagination, but here’s my attempt at a steelman argument:

I imagine these companies were already spending some amount on crawlers that would poll every N milliseconds to get an edge on some market-moving post. In turn I imagine Truth Social were also spending more serving this bot traffic.

Truth Social making $1M a month from it — a rounding error in Trump’s fortunes — doesn’t seem like a world-ending catastrophe.

Trump has done many bad things to erode trust in our institutions and government. When compared to him trying to overturn the results of an election, this too seems like a rounding error.

https://www.daynaemcraig.com/narcissistsprayer/

“That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did You deserved it.”

i suspect that, much like the rest of the world, HN has had a sharp increase in people who "don't do politics"

Define "republican". I am sympathetic to many sides. I would equate this comment to a comment that asks "how can you liberals/wokists/etc defend this" if the post were about California's "Stop Nick Shirley Act" or something.

For those without the power to change reprehensible institutions, invoking this level of tribalism only further entrenches those with power because we remain powerlessly bickering with each other rather than uniting.

Were you similarly upset when Trump was only on Twitter and Twitter had an API?

Well, I mostly lean Republican. I'm still registered as one, so I can vote in their primaries.

I have never voted for Trump, either in a primary or general election. I disagree with him strongly on much of what he does. I would describe myself as conservative, but definitely not MAGA. I'm what was Republican 10 or 30 or 50 years ago, not what they've turned into.

How can I defend this (pay for early access)? I don't. I oppose it.

I saw some yesterday, casually promoting the conspiracy theory of "Cultural Marxism", living blissfully in their shared fantasy.

I find all these people disgusting, but if you're curious I can repeat for you one of their dishonest responses. They said it's not really insider trading, because the people that benefit from this are already hitting the HTTP GETs over and over to get the news fast, instead what they're paying for is for getting the push notifications which is a good business practice from truth social, because serving push notifications when news exist is cheaper than responding to HTTP gets over and over.

(not a repub) I don't defend it, its outright fraud, but I also accept the reality that it is a more visible, and perhaps exaggerated, form of what has been ongoing forever.

Those who seek power seek it to: 1. Enrich themselves and their family 2. Wield it to achieve their means

The "pay to play" is rife everywhere. The contractors who get a sweet deal from local / fed government, the competition is stifled. The senators who make 10's of millions on insider information. The imminent domain cases where property is seized so corporation / donor can make millions. The "futures market" where insiders use their knowledge of product release date to swindle money for ordinary folks. The crypto scams, lotteries, casinos, street vendors, telemarketers, info-mercials, self-help gurus, snake oil sales, lemon peddlers, and more.

The truth is that the human system has not deviated far from the imposed hierarchy of feudalism / monarchy, we have only become better at concealing it, making it more potent in some ways. Power, corruption, opportunism, and greed are part of our nature. In an extremely large population with a democratic veneer, the levers of power become diffuse an ineffable, until they are blatantly shoved into our face.

In some ways I'm glad because its only through a constant vigilance and resetting the public vigilance that these kind of things can be controlled to any degree. Its an entropic force, seeping into the system at all times, only kept at bay by the disdain of the populace and fear in the hearts of the ruling elites.

Its definitely not a Republicans only phenomenon, the list on both sides of the aisle is embarrassingly long. But due to how our political system is setup, and human psychology, little will change by voting. People are tribal, and only have two choices in the matter, both of which are usually power-seeking corrupted. The prisoner's dilemma is giving the US a life-sentence.