Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
Tainnor | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
Not an American, but it's wild to me how anyone could describe Kamala as "0.1% less bad". She's an accomplished politician.
zarkenfrood | parent | next
Accomplished politician wouldnt be a compliment though would it. One of the recent issues is bureaucratic bloat caused by career politicians. In that sense she would be less appealing.
loading story #42060164
15155 | parent | next
How'd she do in the primaries?
jeffhuys | parent | next
What did she accomplish?
tomrod | root | parent
https://www.miamidadedems.org/what_has_kamala_harris_done
loading story #42059563
pabl0rg | root | parent
It says she “Led the push for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act, federal worker unionization”. Federal worker unionization is very undemocratic b/c federal employees essentially blackmail voters. They become untouchable.
simonask | root | parent
In most countries in the world, unionization doesn't mean "get everything you want", it means collective bargaining. It's an approach that cuts both ways, creating stable employment terms, which benefits both employer and employee.
mavamaarten | root | parent
Indeed. It's crazy to me that unionizing is seen as a bad thing by exactly the people that would benefit from them, these days.

They're only bad for big companies that prey on and abuse their workers.

eadmund | root | parent
Government-employee unions are bad for their employer, the government.

They’re particularly bad when politicians can take money from taxpayers, give it to union members, who are then forced to give it to their unions, which then turn around and donate it to the politicians’ campaigns.

roenxi | parent | next
The accomplished politicians seem to struggle a bit because they have a history of being terrible. It isn't like Trump came out of nowhere - it has been most of a decade now and when he won in 2016 that was on the back of backlash that had obviously been brewing for a long time. It was notable in 2016 that he had to knock out Bushes and Clintons from the presidential race who visibly couldn't wring compelling support out of their insider status. The Bush family name was more of a serious liability because of the family history of, you know, the Bush years. Trump's most memorable line of attack on Jeb Bush was making callbacks to how bad George's tenure was (which isn't entirely fair, but it does go a long way to showcasing why being an "accomplished politician" is a handicap given how badly US policy has been playing out for the last few decades).

If the US political class had a history of success then being an accomplished politician might be a tick on the report card, but in practice it seems to mean that they have sympathies to the military-industrial complex and a number of extractive lobby groups.

loading story #42064946
lawn | parent | next
Constantly lying, grifting, and being a convicted felon somehow is only worth 0.1%...

Anything of the shit Trump has done would be an immediate disqualification for anyone else, yet everything constantly gets a shrug.

loading story #42059752
ekianjo | parent
> She's an accomplished politician.

So accomplished she could not even win a primary against an old man and was the first one out.