the guy was always a laughingstock

He was “presidential” and anti-corruption before it was cool: https://www.c-span.org/video/?187762-1/united-nations-headqu...

Whatever claims of anti-corruption he may have made in the past kinda fell out the window when he appointed his family to key political positions, one would think.

...for example?

I don't understand your question. If he is ostensibly anti-corruption, the rampant and obvious nepotism is counter to that goal.

Unless he is simply anti-corruption that doesn't benefit him directly, in case rampant and obvious nepotism is not incompatible with his goal (but, I assume, not what voters were actually hoping for when they elected him).

Federal jobs, even near the top, pay so little that the nepotism claim is silly. This is a billionaire family, and we're supposed to be concerned with salary that is well below what a software developer can make?

Nepotism isn't about only salary, it's also about power and prestige. Because for a billionaire family(1), that's what matters past the dollars and cents. Ivanka Trump can afford to forego her salary, but no amount of money can buy the résumé entry "Former Senior Advisor to the President" and that past will open doors for her the rest of her life.

(1) It's also possible that the Trump family isn't actually as wealthy as they claim to be on paper, in which case being in a position to actually directly influence executive regulatory policy can have significant direct financial impact on their enterprises that they have no opportunity to exploit otherwise. For example, they could have a hand in implementing tax programs while owning significant financial interest in companies regulated by those tax programs (https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-files-c...).

That won't open doors. Neither party will trust her. Republicans think she is a democrat, and democrats would blacklist anybody who worked for Trump. She had plenty of doors open already, not that she needed them. She had her fashion brand, and she married into the finance industry. She doesn't need any nepotism.

The president needs people he can trust. If that means hiring family, I'm fine with that. Other politicians seem to have their kids work for Ukrainian gas companies, which is a lot more disturbing.

Wealth involving real estate is difficult to estimate, but typical estimates are several billion. For example, a drop from 4 billion before the presidency to about 3 billion now is one estimate. This is notably the opposite direction from a typical politician. Increases in wealth are far more suggestive of corruption.

> The president needs people he can trust. If that means hiring family, I'm fine with that.

We'll have to agree to disagree, because that is more or less the justification for every system that devolves from meritocracy into capture by a few trusted by connections and back scratching, be it the aerospace partnerships between the military and trusted contractors that exclude less expensive alternatives, the NSA and CIA becoming composed of family members that the agency already believes it has vetted, the Hapsburg dynasty, or the Trump administration.

you're clinging to a fantasy

You're going to be down-voted to oblivion on hacker news, but I do agree with the general point that, the post you're replying to saying "'reality TV star' vs 'politician subject to decades of effort and millions spent to make said history checkered'" is needlessly political and doesn't belong on hacker news (same as your post).

I'm happy to accept criticism of my characterization if it was factually inaccurate.

It’s not so much the factual inaccuracy as the loaded language. One can factually describe Trump in a positive light and Clinton in a negative light. It’s needlessly emotive and doesn’t belong on HN in my opinion.

I'm not sure I'd classify it as "needlessly" emotive; the topic is very serious and deserves engagement from people, and emotions are one of many ways to engage people.

In the spirit of the founder of Y Combinator, I'd suggest that perhaps the emotive response signals that there is a sacred cow worth exploring here.

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

I assume you would appreciate the loaded language if it was biased against your side then.

Yes.

Ok then. Personally I don’t like it and I suspect a lot of others don’t appreciate it either though. I think it also sabotages your own overall point because half the audience will just roll their eyes at the biased emotive language, rather than fully paying attention to your main point.

fair enough, perhaps I should restrain myself from rebuttals in the future... but it was just too tempting

> How about American business magnate and billionaire playboy

American is redundant. It is _literally_ a requirement of the office that you be an American. You might remember this because Trump spent almost a decade pretending to believe his predecessor wasn't American. Countries which are more confident don't have such a rule but the American Founding Fathers feared a European power might try to seize control.

Magnate just means wealthy or powerful man so it is also redundant with your other qualifications.

Billionaire is based on Trump's claims, he has gone out of his way to ensure nobody actually knows what he's worth. One of the dirty secrets about "rich lists" is that all the interesting people on them don't have verifiable wealth so the list makers invariably resort to guesswork or fiction.

So that leaves "playboy". My dictionary explains that a playboy is single and devotes their life to pleasure, typically sexual pleasure. But Trump is on his third wife and his main pleasure appears to be either golf or soaking up praise from other people.