If he disagrees with the President, why should he (and why should anyone want him to) stop speaking into the President's ear?

All Travis has gotta do is just, uhhh, disrupt all of that, uhhh -- disruption going on? The stuff with the judiciary branch, and whatnot.

To be clear, I don't mean to be incredibly condescending, but: Do you actually think the POTUS or someone like Steve Bannon actually gives a shit what a nerd who owns an app actually thinks, in light of everything happening right now?

I'm being serious. Fundamentally, "nerd who owns app" is all someone like Travis Kalanick is, in this situation. He is not some magical negotiator or politician because he accepted a position with the administration on the Policy Forum. I don't know why to expect him to be anything more than just a soundboard/printed name. Why would I? Because he and Trump are business men?

And if he IS anything more than "nerd who owns app" -- why would he want to be associated with what appears to be a completely unhinged administration? People do not look at someone like Condoleezza Rice and think "I bet she tried real hard, talkin 'em down. Good show."

This idea "good ol' Travis or Elon" can just talk him down off the wire seems to be nothing but a dream, rooted in some fantasy, as far as I can tell. Maybe all the shit going down is bad for them. But if it isn't - why would they stop it?

Why would Trump listen to what Kalanick has to say about a policy order that is notionally an urgent response to national security threats from Iranian/Syrian/etc. travelers?

With Steve Bannon speaking into the other ear? Bear in mind his strategist is (apparently) deferred to over even Homeland Security officials and DOD commanders when it comes to these matters.

The fact is Kalanick is not going to influence Trump on this issue, but by remaining on the advisory team he might secure a sweet (life saving) deal for Uber down the road. The cost? Trump gets to use him as token for proof of legitimacy/economic acumen/America First/etc.

Collaborating with the administration legitimizes and normalizes their policies of hate.

This does far more damage than any marginal benefit from "speaking into the president's ear".

I'm sure it's good for Uber to be on Trump's team, but don't pretend you're "standing up for what's right".

This sort of thinking is so tragically misguided. If the only sane people who might potentially have Trump's ear turn away from this role, then the only people advising Trump are the extremely dangerous group he currently has! This is the far bigger danger then appearing to "legitimize" him (as if someone who was elected president needs any more legitimacy). The good he could do as an adviser is orders of magnitude greater than what he could do by turning down the role in fear of adding legitimacy.

It seems highly unlikely to me that Kalanick has any ability to influence Trump/Bannon's policy in this area. But I'd like to address to aside you made about "legitimacy".

GP talked about legitimizing policies. That is quite different than questioning the legitimacy of the electoral vote.

Trump signed an order that was illegal, apparently, to lawyers and laymen alike, because it authorized revoking legal permanent residents of their right to entry into the US without due process. Federal judges have ruled this to be the case, and yet for unknown reasons certain Border Patrol/Homeland departments are defying that order (which is not in keeping with their legitimate authority).

It's substantially likely to be illegal even without that exclusion because it includes discrimination based on the Christian faith of residency applicants.

The Constitution is the source of the legitimacy of presidential orders, and this policy is in multiple ways incompatible with that.

I understand your reasoning, and in the case of a fiscally conservative moderate (republican) that's not bought by corporate interest I would fully agree with that sentiment.

But for sake of argument, let's Godwin this:

I don't want an 80% Hitler because someone good is working with him, tilting him 20% towards the better. The only solution is opposition, and that's hard. He needs to be gone.

Normally I would agree, because that's true in most cases.

But we're past that here. The Germans went with it, and I'm sure some thought at the start that going along would let them do some good. Look how that turned out.

No, it's not okay to just do business as usual here and try to nudge things a bit with policy suggestions. It's time for much more active responses.

Ah, Godwin's Law. I hope when you reflect back on these times in a year or so you realize how childish it was to compare stopping some Muslims from some unstable countries (not even the big Muslim countries) with literally exterminating Jewish people and blaming them for all of the country's problems.

If you did pay attention at school then you'd know that extermination was final step of pretty long process of de-humanizing Jewish people.

Its not like they put them into prison camps overnight. First they couldn't attend university, then they couldn't own a shop later they couldn't get a passport. Propaganda people had much work to do to allow it happen.

We do not know if it is first step of many but direction is clear.

But who is 'they' in this analogy? The immigrants on hold aren't even from the biggest Muslim countries.

Temporary immigration restrictions on 6 countries is hardly the same thing as du-humanizing Muslims.

>We do not know if it is first step of many but direction is clear.

No it's not. Many other countries have very strict immigration controls dependent on the migrant's origin country and they aren't exactly stuffing people into ovens.

A very big stretch. Restricting immigration from a narrowly defined list of unstable countries (a list that was created by Obama with regards to the visa-waiver program) is very different than imposing restrictions on Muslims. Muslims from every other country aren't affected and Muslim citizens in the US are also not affected.

This isn't a Muslim ban. This is a 90 day ban on people from specific countries with the goal of improving the vetting process. It's neither permanent or specific to Muslims. Obama did a 180 day ban on Iraqis for the exact same reasons.

The effectiveness of this policy can be debated, but comparing this to Hitler -- that's just nonsense.

What 'Godwin' himself had to say: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...

  First, let me get this Donald Trump issue out of the way: If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.

The Holocaust wasn't a sudden event. It was preceded by a steady breakdown of protections and social norms -- see Night and Fog laws, Kristallnacht, etc. There's a lot of history before it came down to concentration camps, and it started with things like attacking the press and clamping down on visas.

Yeah, thus far he's only blamed them (and Mexicans) for all of the country's problems. Totally different.

> from some unstable countries

Like Mo Farrah, an olympic gold medal winning athlete and British citizen?

Maybe that's true, but not being on an economic advisory board isn't the kind of "active response" you're talking about.

Ahh yes, the advisory board with other fringe right-wingers such as Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and Sheryl Sandberg. How could he possibly be so two-faced as to throw his hat in with these marginal characters?

You're misinformed.

Nobody from Microsoft, Google, Apple or Facebook are in this group.

https://greatagain.gov/president-elect-trump-announces-addit...

So you think by agreeing to be on Trump's advisory board, Uber agrees with the immigration ban? I guess GM, Tesla, Disney, etc are probably pretending to "stand up for what's right" too , right?

We know exactly one thing: Uber (and none of the companies you list) disagree with the ban enough to threaten to drop out of the advisory board.

I guess there's two ways you can look at it if you're given the chance to advise a President you disagree with:

- Disagree out of principle. Someone else will step up to fill your stop.

- Agree and provide your POV of policy. A 'worse person' won't replace you (immediately).

I agree that he shouldn't be criticized for staying on, but only if he publicly voices his disagreement in unambiguous terms. If Trump only wants boot lickers, he can fire Kalanick like he did the acting attorney general.

Of course, it doesn't look like that is the case. By all appearances Kalanick is mincing words as he tries to balance the affections of the administration and angry users. My guess is that he is just another spineless think-for-himselfer.

That is how a child would behave. You can't quit and ignore the person in charge.

When have you ever heard the advice, "you get what you want by refusing to engage the only people who can do something about it?"

Or it's a child in charge, and it's time the parents assert control.

The person in charge is only in charge because we agree to it. Not agreeing -- and refusing to give them your influence -- is the only way bad leaders are ever removed.

That's preposterous, he's in charge for the next 4 years and nothing (even impeachment) will change that, since he'll just get replaced and his agenda continued. This "legitimacy" and "normalization" talk is just as post-factual as anything Trump ever said.

Is Bernie a fascist for saying he would work with the Trump admin on the good parts of his agenda?

If Trump were replaced by Pence, I think there would be a noticeable difference. The agenda, though perhaps similar, wouldn't be identical, and their personas are significantly different.

Just as an exercise, if Pence were president and Trump were VP, do you think we would be hearing as little from Trump as we're currently from Pence? And before you say, well, Pence is the VP, you're right, but I can't imagine Trump taking second seat to anybody, while Pence has.

No, if he gets replaced, Trump's agenda won't continue. It'll be Mike Pence's agenda that will replace his.

you're going to use Lyft, when it's a direct investment of both Peter Thiel and Carl Icahn? Both very, very close associates of Trump and actually helped him win the White House?

It's a real double plus good game he's playing at then, since Uber broke the strike and Kalanick is directly aiding Trump. I guess we're lucky that Uber is so consistently shitty that people saw through them, unlike what happened with Lyft.

What about the million dollar donation to the ACLU Lyft made? Does that count for anything?

Sure, but would have been more meaningful if they weren't also breaking the strike and painting Uber as the sole villain.

What about the three million dollar donation Uber made? Does that count for anything?

They didn't. It's a $3M "defense fund", however that is managed. It was also afterwards to save face.

I think the hullabaloo around this immigration matter is reasonable. However, it would have been really great if the left had used the same amount of enthusiasm and vigour to protest the killing of innocent muslims civilians[1] by the united states, but i guess it's alright if their party approved of it.

[1]https://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/21/turning_a_wedding_int...

"collaborating with the Trump administration on the one hand, while simultaneously trying to be seen as moral."

So is Musk, and many others.

Cook was just at dinner with Ivana a few days ago.

Except they left out the countries with the most known terrorist activities in the us, that happened to be countries with major trump investments, that would be Saudia Arabia and Egypt.

US has military bases in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, so that might have happened for strategic (for the US, not for Trump) reasons.

They have quite a few bases in Iraq, too. But no trump holdings.

He excluded the countries that were already excluded under Obama's executive orders on immigration. This isn't new foreign policy, just a strengthened one.

> that happened to be countries with major trump investments

And that (on a diplomatic level at least) also happen to be major US allies in the region.

I prefer no nuking of anyone or anything. Move off saudi oil. We've been doing it for years, actually. The latest way to get away is electric cars.

Everything is about optics. What world do you think you live in?

EDIT: I don't know what to tell ya, but downvoting doesn't make it less true.