Or that supposedly intelligent people are able to justify supporting Trump.

I think this goes beyond mere party politics - the man is incompetent and utterly unqualified for the job. I've heard numerous arguments (including in this thread) about Trump being a "wrecking ball" to the political establishment and I think it's telling about the audience of HN. If you were living on the poverty line, depend on government programs or, hell, are Muslim, you might not want to play so fast and loose with the current system. We're lucky that we can afford to risk such an idea.

This just shows how little you know about Trump's policies.

Everyone that knows about Peter Thiel knows he's an outspoken libertarian, critic of the GOP and DNC, and that's he's homosexual. The surprise isn't that he's not a Democrat (everyone knew that) it's that Trump isn't exactly the libertarian on...any issue (at least not openly.) There is the assumption that Trump will be a major disruption to the establishment, that I have seen some libertarians and liberals both embrace.

I have a hard time believing Thiel actually embraces Trump, and it's more that he was going to be a delegate and will now be legally bound to cast his first ballot for Trump. I am frankly a fan of Thiel, a lot of people here at HN love Musk but I think Musk is a corporate welfare queen; and Thiel is not.

Not a fan nor particularly informed on Thiel. But my brief impression is that he (also) considers himself some kind of realist. Trump is less conservative on many issues and presumably will push the republicans in that direction.

While I (unsurprisingly as a European) am far to the left in terms of what the government should do, I hate people who take advantage. But Musk mostly just had good timing (when both the space and car industry in the US was loosing momentum) and as long as you don't pretend he did it all by himself I don't see a problem with it. On the other hand you could claim that Palantir is part the military industrial complex.

> I think Musk is a corporate welfare queen

Can you elaborate on that?

People dislike that he's benefiting a lot, directly and indirectly, from government subsidies. I usually point out that oil&gas get a tremendously larger amount of subsidies, but some people counter that by saying Tesla is different because it wouldn't be feasible without the subsidies. I am not sure I see the logic in that, if anything it seems like an argument for it to have subsidies because it's creating value that wouldn't be possible otherwise.

Not just oil and gas, the auto industry and aerospace (i.e. his direct competitors) have received tons of subsidies and bailouts over the years. To expect Musk to get by without any subsidies would be to hold him to a higher standard than anyone else in his industry.

> I usually point out that oil&gas get a tremendously larger amount of subsidie

Oil and Gas do not get direct subsidies, they get to write off capital expenses. That's completely different.

You can downvote me all you want, but writing off capital expenses is available to every business and this is always included in the "oil and gas subsidies" number people tout, because it fits an agenda of corporate welfare for everyone else. Corporate welfare should be abolished. The Oil & Gas sector did get a bailout in the early 90s, and it shouldn't have. The auto industry also shouldn't have been reaped rewards from government bailouts.

All of the companies he's involved in receive government dollars, directly or indirectly through subsidies. Tesla, Space X, and SolarCity. That's 3 out of 3. Hence the moniker.

To be fair, all of those industries have had and will continue to have heavy government involvement. He didn't create the problem, although he seems to be attracted to industries which have those sorts of problems.

Only 3? What about Zip2 and PayPal?

> welfare queen

is a deeply offensive term, and even undermining to the point you are trying to make about Musk.

Surprisingly I can see people here being anti-establishment more than Democrat or Republican.

Both Trump and Sanders are presenting themselves as such.

I have heard more than one time, if Sanders doesn't win, people claim would switch to vote for Trump. Sounds crazy right, well not so crazy if you partition candidates by "entrenched in political establishment" vs "anti-establishment".

As much as Republicans hate Trump. He is probably their best chance at survival. And this is coming from talking to a "rich old white guy" -- the stereotypical Republican. His comment was that based on current trajectory, Republican party will fizzle away.

> I have heard more than one time, if Sanders doesn't win, people claim would switch to vote for Trump.

Note that lots of PUMAs -- from polling data, more than this is true of Sanders supporters in this election -- said that they would do that if Obama won the nomination in 2008 rather than Clinton. General election polling data found that that group had evaporated by then.

What people say in anger during the primary campaign and what they do in the fall often aren't the same.

Regardless of whether the democratic nominee is Sanders or Clinton, _MANY_ republicans will hold their nose and vote democrat if the republican choice is Trump.

You can't say the same for Sanders supporters. Traditional liberals aren't going to vote Trump under any circumstances.

I have seen so far a lot of claims about the current election proven false.

I think we are in black swan territory.

While I can't vote for Trump, I definitely understand the sentiment. With the exception of a few large mostly coastal cities, the entire country has been in a low grade depression since 2001. Parts of the American interior are nearing collapse of civilization levels of decline.

This is really really dangerous. It's the classic precondition of totalitarianism. Existing politicians in both parties are doing nothing about it. Being occupants of coastal cities (DC) and largely upper class, many don't even seem to realize there's a problem.

I spend my time between Kansas City, Dallas and Austin and at least in those interior parts the world looks amazing and growing well. New restaurants, excellent hospitals and community/four-year colleges, medium to high employment...

Do you have any data to back up your claims that there is an economic dichotomy between central America and the coasts? I certainly don't see it in Kansas City. I would agree that there is a widening chasm between rural America and urban America, but that doesn't encompass the entirety of the country not on a coast.

Which parts of the American interior do you nominate?

Then you should read Scott Adams from Dilbert fame.

Not voting is part of the way there, if you know that a Clinton defeat means a Trump presidency.

I think the interesting part would be to see if his cabinet is more pluralistic and diverse in composition than that of the other candidates --who by and large pick apparatchiks. Remains to be seen, but if he does, I hope it would pressure other candidates to be more politically inclusive.

Or all gay people?

Honestly I think it's far more interesting that he has multiple Congressmen as his delegates, given some of the lines that are rumored to have been drawn inside the party about supporting him.