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Re:New Wyoming bill forbids utilities from using renewables by jerf on Sunday January 22, 2017 @01:53PM (#13456546)
Without meaning this as an endorsement but as some explanation of part of the political landscape, this perceived hypocrisy is a non-trivial part of the reason why we have Trump now. I imagine most HNers are far more familiar with the Democrat side of the drama of the last couple years, but as most of you at least know to some extent, Trump encountered significant resistance from the Republicans, as well. If you recall the #NeverTrump idea, it was mostly coming from these conservatives.

Like many organizations in the last couple of years, they decided to go all-in opposing Trump, only to discover that they didn't have anywhere near as many chips with their putative voting base as they thought, because it has been the perception (key word, please do not ignore it, arguing about whether this is "really" the case would be missing the point) among the conservative base that "their" politicians said conservative things to get elected, but promptly shed them the moment they won the election. It is probably fair to say that it is the perception of almost everybody who does not live in Washington DC that there aren't really any free-market conservative politicians whose actions are accurately described by that term; each of the two major sides may have their own reasons for believing that, but both do.

So probably just about the only people who would not describe this as hypocrisy are the actual politicians in question. There has been plenty of hypocrisy to go around lately, unfortunately.

Re:New Wyoming bill forbids utilities from using renewables by Zach_the_Lizard on Sunday January 22, 2017 @04:03PM (#13457445)
Trump is not even close to free market ideals; he espouses heavy protectionism, for instance, which is virtually universally opposed by economists.

Trump is a nationalist, populist phenomenon. Trump's base is only in favor of free market ideals when they aren't on the losing end of competition. Because China is full of supermen or something it must be stopped.

Re:New Wyoming bill forbids utilities from using renewables by jerf on Monday January 23, 2017 @09:57AM (#13462555)
If you read carefully, you'll see I didn't claim that Trump was a free-markets candidate.

But now I will make a claim: I wouldn't be surprised he actually ends up being a free-er market candidate than any the Right has managed to elect in a while. Yes, even considering his protectionism. This is because, in practice, nobody the Right has elected in a long time has been particularly free-market at all, not because in absolute terms Trump is "pro-free market" in some sort of libertarian ideal, because he obviously isn't.

Oh, and "universally opposed by economists" doesn't carry much weight with me anymore. The 2008 recession/depression was virtually universally not predicted by economists, and the results of the response from the government were virtually universally predicted to be much better than they actually turned out to be. Mainstream economists are all but discredited to me until they actually admit that they have a problem, but they have not.

Also, the somewhat recent emerging consensus of "Well, globalism and free trade is generally good, but maybe it does in fact bone the American poor and middle class in the process as the rich get richer" would tend to suggest that protecting the American poor and middle class would traditionally be a Democratic priority, but it doesn't seem to be. Again, by way of explanation, you may begin to see the appeal for the people getting boned of electing someone who even claims to be standing for their interests, as opposed to people who stand actively against them and often deploy mockery or tells them that they deserve it if they complain. It's not exactly a winning political strategy for votes.

Re:New Wyoming bill forbids utilities from using renewables by pjc50 on Sunday January 22, 2017 @02:07PM (#13456648)
> perception .. among the conservative base that "their" politicians said conservative things to get elected, but promptly shed them the moment they won the election.

That may have been why people voted for Trump, but he's probably going to make them look like amateurs. Trump policy is going to bear very little relation to his campaign speeches.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02/28/will-it-be-trump-...

vs (note dates)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/goldman-i...