The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US. It’s too expensive, too much of a pain in the ass and requires mafia like payments. They will all just trade with each other instead.
Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
I don’t know how long this can go on , when will the average American not be able to take it anymore?
I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life. I’d be shocked if they started doing it now.
We are astonishingly bad at understanding abstraction. We understand that if Kevin shows up at our house and punches us in the face, we should avoid Kevin. But once you put a layer of abstraction between Kevin and the broken nose, we suddenly become baffled about how this could happen, and then we vote for Kevin.
> I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life
This is an extremely arrogant statement to think a single individual can know the best interests of an entire country and to know they were wrong in identifying their own. To quantify this, perhaps one close proxy is to see how many people really regretted their vote after the fact, which in the context of US does not appear to be that many (even those unsatisfied with the outcome post hoc would not necessarily have voted for the opponent if given a time machine.)
Perhaps it is not trivial to have visibility into the intricacies of other people's lives and their priorities. Even harder to generalize it to tens of millions of people in a country.
Voter behavior and motivation (and knowledge of the issues, and of basic facts about their own government...) is well-studied and has been for decades. Political scientists studied it really heavily for quite a while because early results were fucking alarming (and proved to be accurate, and also not just a temporary aberration) if you're starting from a firm belief in liberal democracy and a broad franchise.
Voters, to a great extent, aren't motivated by what one might either expect or hope, nor 1/10th as well informed about the operation of their own government or the issues at stake as one might hope. It's a shit-show, so much so that it's practically miraculous that voting produces functioning governments ever, at all, and the whole thing's terribly fragile (after convincing themselves the data weren't wrong, the next step was a few decades of trying to figure out some mechanism by which this whole thing wasn't as worrisome as it seemed, which effort turned out to be based mostly on "copium", to use a modern term, and was eventually regarded as having more-or-less failed)
I understand that. That is not the point though. Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy. I don't believe that many political scientists [sic] today publish and advocate disenfranchisement, perhaps because that's not politically correct, but all that is beside the point.
My point specifically is if people are voting for someone, more often than not (at least in the US, perhaps less so elsewhere where they elect the parliament and the parliament by proxy elects the executive which induces some machinations), want that person for whatever reason and consider that person aligned with their interests even if some second-order effects are not so. They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great. Proof for that is you are not going to find that many who say they would have switched their votes even after the fact. Those political scientists and the GP have the arrogance and audacity to project their own interests on every single person and conclude they did not vote appropriately.
> Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy.
Not necessarily! It means that the model of the typical voter's behavior (and of the reasons why elections go the ways they do) isn't what many conceive it to be (or hope it may be), and that democracy's weaknesses, vulnerabilities, strengths, and capabilities may in-fact be at least somewhat different from what one operating from that idealized (and apparently very wrong) model of voter behavior would expect. It could still be the best of a bad lot.
> They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great.
They are extremely often operating from incorrect information, either regarding facts about the state of the world, or about probable outcomes of various policies. This can include things that directly affect them (or don't) in ways that one would expect them to notice—one fun form of study that's been run a few times is to ask a population whether a tax increase or decrease that in-fact affected only a tiny sliver of the population but was the subject of substantial propagandizing and/or publicity affected them personally (this is about as direct as it gets!) and the typical result is pretty much exactly what your most-pessimistic guess would be.
Supposing that people very-often hold a bunch of incorrect beliefs about how policies affect them but are also good at voting for their own interests when it comes time to mark the ballot is probably somewhere in the category of wishful thinking—and that's assuming motivations and intentions focused on policies and their outcomes in the first place. There's less-strong but still-quite-strong evidence that, as the kids say, "vibes" are a huge factor in the outcomes of elections, even when those "vibes" come from things that even the extremely politically-ignorant ought to know have nothing much to do with, say, who the President is, like a rash of shark attacks for example. This, of course, doesn't mean that this "vibes-from-irrelevant-stuff" voting makes the difference for anywhere near as many people as incorrect information does (it almost certainly doesn't) but that it has an outsize effect on the true-swing (not self-reported swing, that's mostly bullshit) vote, which tends to consist almost entirely of so-called "low-information voters", with the result that it may not have any effect at all on most voters but elections still turn on it (one of a billion reasons FPTP voting sucks is that it amplifies the power of this effect).
I do think, separately, there are cases of rational trade-offs, of picking (say) an anti-abortion candidate who holds many other positions one dislikes because one's stake in one's position on abortion is that important. That's not the kind of thing I mean, and I don't think it's the kind of thing most people mean when they say people are making mistakes by "voting against their own interests", though the effect of such a choice may well be that one is also in these cases (consciously!) voting against one's own interests on various issues.
I agree there are incorrect information, incorrect analysis, and incorrect predictions by the electorate. What I am saying is that in aggregate, the political machine on both sides is fully incentivized with enough financial and media backing to counter the other side. It is not even inconceivable to see each individual vote for their "right" candidate for the wrong reasons. I fully acknowledge that.
In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it, and even if they become unhappy with the state of the world after four years, it appears to be unlikely to find people who say they would have switched votes. If anything, they are becoming more polarized and committed to one side, thus harder to "fool." In that sense, they are not mistaken. The human experience is not a set of entirely quantifiable metrics, and being "happily-fooled" is also a human interest, as long as they don't get buyer's remorse. Lots of buyer's remorse is really the only metric that can prove the counterpoint.
What GP is saying is isomorphic to telling Apple customers "you don't know your interests and Apple is charging you too much while keeping you in the walled garden." Maybe right, maybe wrong, but who are you to judge they would have been better off with a Dell?
> In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it
This is extremely close to one of the early "OK, but maybe there's a reason what we're observing at the individual level isn't so scary" hypotheses explored by political science in the latter half of the 20th century—that individually poor choices would nonetheless produce good outcomes by being in some way chaotic and the good outcomes often manifesting as attractors in that chaotic space, or something like that, or by some "wisdom of the crowds" effect that emerges in aggregate. These approaches have been found untenable despite much trying, though I think there are some limited efforts at it still under way.
HOWEVER! I think after this post I do see what you're actually getting at, which is that if people believe they voted in their own best interests ("as they see it" being key) then they may believe they did in-fact do that indefinitely, even if entirely incorrect, so long as they... well, continue to believe so.
The prisoner voting to remain a prisoner not because they don't want to be free—not because if you describe completely and in detail, leaving nothing out, the conditions they're in-fact in they tell you they would love to live that way (they claim they would hate it!), and then if you also describe free life they claim that is the outcome they would rather have, and if you carefully probe you find that it's not even for some greater-interest purpose they are voting to remain imprisoned (it's not that they believe they'd be a danger to others if free, for example), but because they believe they aren't in prison despite [gestures at their prison cell]—is voting in their own interest.
By that standard, yes, a lot more voters are voting in their own interest than may be reckoned by other standards.
Yes your penultimate paragraph is my core point. I argue that’s the real standard. Freedom means different things to different people. If you try to define it objectively, you quickly are in the realm of ideology and then wondering why half of the country reject such ideology, while describing their behavior as “against their interest.”
The Mullah regime in Iran also tries to forcefully direct people to heaven, because they think that’s in their best interest long term and they don’t know better. In fact they sometimes even use the same phrases used in your analogy to refer to mortal life: a prison.
It's not arrogant. Trump culture, and the subset of conservative US culture it grew out of, explicitly positions itself to be described in these terms. You don't have to be a mean or arrogant person to acknowledge that reality, unlike with most "normal" political parties.
It's also an opinion that doesn't require omniscience to hold. I don't know why that's the bar you've set. Yeah - of course nobody can really know what's best.
How did Trump come into the picture? Less than a year ago the other party was in charge voted in by the people. The comment was theoretical and applied to both sides equally. Are y'all just venting?
Having grown up in an African country that has been "collapsing" for the last 30 years, and looking at the neighbouring countries that went through or is going through similar issues, I think the US has far to go before things can be regarded as "collapsed". Unfortunately such an implosion is not instant, but it's a gradual frog-boiling decline that gets harder and harder to get out of.
If you are hoping for some limit to be reached where a popular uprising will be triggered, then I would advise to not put your hopes on it.
We're on track to be a much-richer Russia. Which is a lot better than being like Russia, and also as poor as Russia. But it's a lot worse than being rich and also not like Russia.
I expect most of the pain will be from lost potential growth rather than an actual decline in real terms, and that it'll take a while for most people to realize how stagnant we've become—because line will continue to Go Up thanks to an inflation-based debt reduction strategy, plus the US is such a giant player in the global economy that our slowing way down will also slow the global economy for quite a while, until it adjusts, so we'll still seem to be doing relatively OK for potentially another decade or more.
Of course we could also derail into something even worse than Russia. Or capital flight might hit us harder and faster than I think it will (anyone who can't see a way to, or can't stomach, getting on the good side of our rulers, will want to get out so they don't lose all their shit, including possibly their lives in extreme cases)
Talking of farming, are there any numbers on if AcreTrader or other similar companies has been buying up farmland, and if so how JD Vance’s investment has been performing?
Double-plus-good upvote for your very good question. Tanking smaller players and putting more assets within the grap of current & future American Oligarchs seems to be the underlying playbook right now. This is 1991 Russia.
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac going public? An opportunity for billionaires to own the mortgages that will default as the economy [intentionally] continues to tank leading to defaults and transfer of the homes and properties backing the mortgages as collateral to the oligarch class.
Considering how much harm he did to farmers in his first term, and they overwhelmingly voted for him again in 2020 and 2024, I’d say they apparently prefer this over the alternative. I don’t expect this to change anything.
Americans don't vote for policies, they vote for personalities. It literally doesn't matter to them if Trump bankrupts them, as long as they get to support the "tough guy" billionaire.
> literally doesn't matter to them if X bankrupts them
If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues. Perhaps some marginal short term economical concerns can be offset by personality/perceived cultural improvements, but not to the point of bankruptcy or even close.
"It's the economy, stupid" was Clinton's slogan after all.
> If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues.
Polls also show that Republicans rate economic conditions as positive when there's a Republican in office, and negative when there's a Democrat in office regardless of the actual state of the economy. (The effect is much weaker among Democrats.)
This means that people care about the economy, but are terrible at knowing whether the economy is actually doing well or not, and certainly not educated enough to understand the impact that particular policies have on the economy.
The conclusion is that when there's a Democrat in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is bad; and when there's a Republican in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is good.
Find a conservative-leaning group on Facebook or reddit and see the resistance you get when you try to explain that Trump's tariffs are an inflationary tax on Americans. Political opinions have no bearing on reality, especially in the context of economic policy.
Doesn’t matter what they think about the economy at large in abstract terms; sure they may be right or wrong about that, but I definitely question all those who say people don’t know how they are supposed to feel about their individual economic condition. This is straight from central planning and social engineering BS. I would not underestimate human instinct.
Before Trump, a lot fewer. There is a well known phenomenon of GOP governors in deep blue states (e.g. Christie in NJ, Schwarzenegger in CA, Baker in MA, Scott in VT). This is a lot rarer in deep red states. There are a lot more red states than blue ones, but it's still harder (not impossible) to find recent democratic governors of those states. Senators are a bit more proportional, mind you.
Trump has sort of killed this phenomenon - partly because his brand has rubbed off on other Republicans, and partly because they have been running more extreme candidates even in blue states. Before Trump, though, it was not even close.
All Ds I know pre-Hamas invasion were pretty much the same and would never vote out of party lines, but they wouldn’t say it that way. Rs say it more explicitly. All Ds pretend to be “independent” but they will find a way to rationalize their D. Both bases are quite sticky. There are events like Hamas that suddenly make a change in specific subgroups.
I don't know any Democrats who avoid voting Republican because they consider it a "sin." The Democrats I know avoid voting Republican because they think that Republican policies are bad for the country.
I also see Democrats perfectly happy to see Democrats justly convicted of crimes. The Republican approach is to defend members of your "team" at all costs, no matter how guilty they are. The cult of personality is much strong on the Republican side.
Yeah, but the hubris of American MAGA nationalists doesn’t allow them to see it that way. They’re convinced the world can’t function without them, that everyone needs them.
Anyone with a shred of sense can see where this is heading: the inevitable collapse of the American empire and the end of its unparalleled global dominance. At this point, it’s unavoidable. The U.S. has alienated nearly every ally it once had. Ironically, Trump might be the one who saves Europe in the long run.
Easier said than done. Most of Canada lives along the US border. Without the USA, Canada is as remote as New Zealand - we just don't have a lot of other neighbours close by.
> The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US.
This seems to be an emotional reaction by the observer, not a quantified study, so citation needed. The US market is so big and relatively unified in language and regulations and that make you willing to bite a lot of bullets. Have you ever listed an app on the App Store and dealt with French BS, for example, for a relatively tiny market?
> They will all just trade with each other instead.
Many of the US products and services are not as commoditized.
> Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
Why is this flagged? BBC seems like a trustworthy news source to me? I guess it might not be just due to the ad, but still it's a peculiar situation that's of interest to the world.
Stuff that casts the current US administration in a less than favourable light tends to get flagged pretty quickly on here. It doesn't seem quite as bad as a earlier in the year, so I wonder if they've taken measures to counteract it. You can visit '/active' instead to make all posts, including flagged ones, visible.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
Sh*t that goes down that will probably limit your hiring ability and restrict where your "goods and services" will be received is pertinent to the HN community.
Are they actually untrustworthy or did they just publish some stuff that slightly challenges your world views and so therefore you have to form the belief that they are fake news?
No doubt slapping tariffs on Canadian goods will reduce the flow of said goods.
But that's a reduction, not a termination. US demand for those goods still exist. And it is US consumers that pay.
The reduction is a result of lower consumer spending power. Which will affect everything, not just the tariffed goods.
Some of the goods may end up being sourced in the US. However that won't affect consumer prices, which will remain high. (The whole point of tarifs is to drive up local prices so domestic production can compete. )
Some may be sourced from other countries. But since all countries are being tariffed there are only marginal gains here.
At the same time Canadian producers will actively explore alternate markets. This will (long term) improve Canada's economic security by reducing dependence on US markets.
All the above assumes T won't start negotiating again next week. Which since TACO is likely anyway.
Either way, this will be a long-term gain for Canada and long term pain for the US.
Why doesn't Canada reduce tariffs on Chinese cars? Instead they're making their citizens pay extra for American cars when they could be paying 1/4 price for better quality electric cars.
The auto industry is huge for Ontario, the province behind this ad, and tightly integrated with US auto makers. As a result I believe tariffs on Chinese cars are being maintained by the federal govt. to show the US that Canada is very serious about ending this pointless situation.
If Chinese cars enter Canada and enter Mexico, you can say goodbye to the US auto industry. Recall, the most recent news is the bankruptcy of an auto loan firm in the US, itself a sign that cars are not affordable to workers, which is the only way these workers can travel for their jobs because public transit is so poorly funded.
Car manufacturing is not going to get cheaper in the US without a whole lotta pain, and the loss of inertia is going to affect all industrial sectors.
Chinese cars have entered Mexico. Over the last couple of years 20% of new car sales there have been Chinese brands. JAC is also making cars in Mexico, and BYD and BAIC have plans to start building in Mexico.
Mexico has increased tariffs, to 50%, but Chinese cars remain competitive even after that.
He probably feels powerful harming businesses (in the US and elsewhere) with his tariffs.
His inheritance performed worse than the s&p by a large margin under his stewardship.
He’s not a business man, he’s someone who inherited $450M in today’s dollars and wears a business suit as a costume, and incidentally more makeup than most drag queens.
He’s disgracing everything he touches and the Trump name will be hated and associated with stupidity and bigotry for a long time.
The ad aired a week ago and Trump said he’d do the same thing and didn’t care. However this development prompted a retaliation. There’s a low simmering trade war that Trump has been waging against partners and these are just excuses he claims so the media doesn’t focus on the actual details of the war but instead on BS culture war topics.
The ad ran last week, but the Reagan library tweeted the full video of Reagan's speech yesterday. Trump saw that, and then shortly after posted on Truth Social that the ad used fake video, which intended to influence the Supreme Court and the other courts against Trump on tariffs, and cancelled negotiations.
Doesn’t this action from Canada explain Trump rhetoric though? Essentially, Canada is saying that you can only sell tariff-free if you manufacture their. That’s the same thing Trump is pushing for.
The North American auto sector is propped up by subsidies on both sides of the border.
What the article in the parent post doesn't mention is that Stellantis and GM received massive handouts from the Canadian government to retool factories in Canada, contingent on actually operating those factories and employing Canadian workers. Abandoning them and moving production to the U.S. (because of tariffs) violated their agreements. Hence, no more tariff relief for them.
North American auto companies are between a rock and a hard place right now, but it'd be folly for the Canadian government to let them ignore their agreements without consequence.
TL;DR: It would be more accurate to say Trump tried to steal a cookie from the Canadian cookie jar and is now acting shocked that his hand has been slapped. Canada is merely reacting here, and rather mildly at that. Calling off trade negotiations entirely is clearly not warranted and everyone should expect another TACO Tuesday.
I picked a random article. As I said, the news is doing a terrible job covering this and using the clickbait fodder Trump gives them instead of providing a more detailed analysis of what the real moves being made are and why they’re being made.
>Doesn’t this action from Canada explain Trump rhetoric though?
Trump already tariffed cars and car parts from Canada under the guise of national security, in complete and utter defiance of USMCA (you know, the best trade agreement ever as described by the guy who signed it: Donald Trump). Canada should return the favour. Canada had tried to play nice with the "American" automakers, but if they screw Canada to pander to the rapist, they lose that benefit.
As a Canadian, I do have to say that we've been putting up tariffs on trading partners' goods and protecting our shitty monopolies as long as I can remember, then whining when others do it back to us.
The situation in Canada is kind of messed up. We literally have trade barriers between provinces, tariffs on a ton of stuff, government protected monopolies and all that has lead to capital either being allocated poorly or allocated right out of the country. Even government pensions put most of their capital in US markets instead of in our own country.
While US tariffs on Canada will obviously lead to economic malaise, I can't say it's undeserved. Hopefully it leads to a wake up call here (it probably won't though, Canadians will just become more and more insular).
It's funny, we've been trying to forge closer ties with the EU and China but again, we are rebuked because we have tariffs on a bunch of their goods.
Also Canadian here. Have been closely following US-Canada trade for years. What you are saying is news to me. I am leaning towards believing you are simply mistaken, but if you have specific evidence about these two assertions, I would love to study them:
> tariffs on a ton of stuff
> we are rebuked because we have tariffs on a bunch of their goods
I can guess why one might think some of this (tariffs on Chinese EVs directly led to agricultural counter-tariffs from them and dairy trade barriers have always been a source of frustration), but in general, Canada's tariffs and barriers are by all indications in line with peer countries (US, UK, EU, Australia, etc.) and not particularly noteworthy. If you have concrete evidence to the contrary (not just that some trade barriers exist between Canada and its trading partners, but that they are out of the ordinary and much higher than other countries'; and that the world, in particular EU does not want closer ties with us because of them), I would love to study your sources and update my understanding.
The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US. It’s too expensive, too much of a pain in the ass and requires mafia like payments. They will all just trade with each other instead.
Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
I don’t know how long this can go on , when will the average American not be able to take it anymore?
I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life. I’d be shocked if they started doing it now.
We are astonishingly bad at understanding abstraction. We understand that if Kevin shows up at our house and punches us in the face, we should avoid Kevin. But once you put a layer of abstraction between Kevin and the broken nose, we suddenly become baffled about how this could happen, and then we vote for Kevin.
> I’ve been waiting to see my countrymen vote in their own best interests for my entire life
This is an extremely arrogant statement to think a single individual can know the best interests of an entire country and to know they were wrong in identifying their own. To quantify this, perhaps one close proxy is to see how many people really regretted their vote after the fact, which in the context of US does not appear to be that many (even those unsatisfied with the outcome post hoc would not necessarily have voted for the opponent if given a time machine.)
Perhaps it is not trivial to have visibility into the intricacies of other people's lives and their priorities. Even harder to generalize it to tens of millions of people in a country.
Voter behavior and motivation (and knowledge of the issues, and of basic facts about their own government...) is well-studied and has been for decades. Political scientists studied it really heavily for quite a while because early results were fucking alarming (and proved to be accurate, and also not just a temporary aberration) if you're starting from a firm belief in liberal democracy and a broad franchise.
Voters, to a great extent, aren't motivated by what one might either expect or hope, nor 1/10th as well informed about the operation of their own government or the issues at stake as one might hope. It's a shit-show, so much so that it's practically miraculous that voting produces functioning governments ever, at all, and the whole thing's terribly fragile (after convincing themselves the data weren't wrong, the next step was a few decades of trying to figure out some mechanism by which this whole thing wasn't as worrisome as it seemed, which effort turned out to be based mostly on "copium", to use a modern term, and was eventually regarded as having more-or-less failed)
I understand that. That is not the point though. Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy. I don't believe that many political scientists [sic] today publish and advocate disenfranchisement, perhaps because that's not politically correct, but all that is beside the point.
My point specifically is if people are voting for someone, more often than not (at least in the US, perhaps less so elsewhere where they elect the parliament and the parliament by proxy elects the executive which induces some machinations), want that person for whatever reason and consider that person aligned with their interests even if some second-order effects are not so. They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great. Proof for that is you are not going to find that many who say they would have switched their votes even after the fact. Those political scientists and the GP have the arrogance and audacity to project their own interests on every single person and conclude they did not vote appropriately.
> Although, if you believe in that theory, you should reject democracy and aim for some form of aristocracy or monarchy.
Not necessarily! It means that the model of the typical voter's behavior (and of the reasons why elections go the ways they do) isn't what many conceive it to be (or hope it may be), and that democracy's weaknesses, vulnerabilities, strengths, and capabilities may in-fact be at least somewhat different from what one operating from that idealized (and apparently very wrong) model of voter behavior would expect. It could still be the best of a bad lot.
> They did not get "fooled" and bait-and-switched even if they later feel the performance was not great.
They are extremely often operating from incorrect information, either regarding facts about the state of the world, or about probable outcomes of various policies. This can include things that directly affect them (or don't) in ways that one would expect them to notice—one fun form of study that's been run a few times is to ask a population whether a tax increase or decrease that in-fact affected only a tiny sliver of the population but was the subject of substantial propagandizing and/or publicity affected them personally (this is about as direct as it gets!) and the typical result is pretty much exactly what your most-pessimistic guess would be.
Supposing that people very-often hold a bunch of incorrect beliefs about how policies affect them but are also good at voting for their own interests when it comes time to mark the ballot is probably somewhere in the category of wishful thinking—and that's assuming motivations and intentions focused on policies and their outcomes in the first place. There's less-strong but still-quite-strong evidence that, as the kids say, "vibes" are a huge factor in the outcomes of elections, even when those "vibes" come from things that even the extremely politically-ignorant ought to know have nothing much to do with, say, who the President is, like a rash of shark attacks for example. This, of course, doesn't mean that this "vibes-from-irrelevant-stuff" voting makes the difference for anywhere near as many people as incorrect information does (it almost certainly doesn't) but that it has an outsize effect on the true-swing (not self-reported swing, that's mostly bullshit) vote, which tends to consist almost entirely of so-called "low-information voters", with the result that it may not have any effect at all on most voters but elections still turn on it (one of a billion reasons FPTP voting sucks is that it amplifies the power of this effect).
I do think, separately, there are cases of rational trade-offs, of picking (say) an anti-abortion candidate who holds many other positions one dislikes because one's stake in one's position on abortion is that important. That's not the kind of thing I mean, and I don't think it's the kind of thing most people mean when they say people are making mistakes by "voting against their own interests", though the effect of such a choice may well be that one is also in these cases (consciously!) voting against one's own interests on various issues.
I agree there are incorrect information, incorrect analysis, and incorrect predictions by the electorate. What I am saying is that in aggregate, the political machine on both sides is fully incentivized with enough financial and media backing to counter the other side. It is not even inconceivable to see each individual vote for their "right" candidate for the wrong reasons. I fully acknowledge that.
In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it, and even if they become unhappy with the state of the world after four years, it appears to be unlikely to find people who say they would have switched votes. If anything, they are becoming more polarized and committed to one side, thus harder to "fool." In that sense, they are not mistaken. The human experience is not a set of entirely quantifiable metrics, and being "happily-fooled" is also a human interest, as long as they don't get buyer's remorse. Lots of buyer's remorse is really the only metric that can prove the counterpoint.
What GP is saying is isomorphic to telling Apple customers "you don't know your interests and Apple is charging you too much while keeping you in the walled garden." Maybe right, maybe wrong, but who are you to judge they would have been better off with a Dell?
> In aggregate, however, I believe in the US presidential elections end up voting for their own best interests, as they see it
This is extremely close to one of the early "OK, but maybe there's a reason what we're observing at the individual level isn't so scary" hypotheses explored by political science in the latter half of the 20th century—that individually poor choices would nonetheless produce good outcomes by being in some way chaotic and the good outcomes often manifesting as attractors in that chaotic space, or something like that, or by some "wisdom of the crowds" effect that emerges in aggregate. These approaches have been found untenable despite much trying, though I think there are some limited efforts at it still under way.
HOWEVER! I think after this post I do see what you're actually getting at, which is that if people believe they voted in their own best interests ("as they see it" being key) then they may believe they did in-fact do that indefinitely, even if entirely incorrect, so long as they... well, continue to believe so.
The prisoner voting to remain a prisoner not because they don't want to be free—not because if you describe completely and in detail, leaving nothing out, the conditions they're in-fact in they tell you they would love to live that way (they claim they would hate it!), and then if you also describe free life they claim that is the outcome they would rather have, and if you carefully probe you find that it's not even for some greater-interest purpose they are voting to remain imprisoned (it's not that they believe they'd be a danger to others if free, for example), but because they believe they aren't in prison despite [gestures at their prison cell]—is voting in their own interest.
By that standard, yes, a lot more voters are voting in their own interest than may be reckoned by other standards.
Yes your penultimate paragraph is my core point. I argue that’s the real standard. Freedom means different things to different people. If you try to define it objectively, you quickly are in the realm of ideology and then wondering why half of the country reject such ideology, while describing their behavior as “against their interest.”
The Mullah regime in Iran also tries to forcefully direct people to heaven, because they think that’s in their best interest long term and they don’t know better. In fact they sometimes even use the same phrases used in your analogy to refer to mortal life: a prison.
What's a great overview of this phenomena in book form? I'm intensely curious about this.
I mean, if you vote in a terrible human being to lead a country, you are bound to have problems. It’s not an arrogant thing to say.
It's not arrogant. Trump culture, and the subset of conservative US culture it grew out of, explicitly positions itself to be described in these terms. You don't have to be a mean or arrogant person to acknowledge that reality, unlike with most "normal" political parties.
It's also an opinion that doesn't require omniscience to hold. I don't know why that's the bar you've set. Yeah - of course nobody can really know what's best.
How did Trump come into the picture? Less than a year ago the other party was in charge voted in by the people. The comment was theoretical and applied to both sides equally. Are y'all just venting?
Having grown up in an African country that has been "collapsing" for the last 30 years, and looking at the neighbouring countries that went through or is going through similar issues, I think the US has far to go before things can be regarded as "collapsed". Unfortunately such an implosion is not instant, but it's a gradual frog-boiling decline that gets harder and harder to get out of.
If you are hoping for some limit to be reached where a popular uprising will be triggered, then I would advise to not put your hopes on it.
We're on track to be a much-richer Russia. Which is a lot better than being like Russia, and also as poor as Russia. But it's a lot worse than being rich and also not like Russia.
I expect most of the pain will be from lost potential growth rather than an actual decline in real terms, and that it'll take a while for most people to realize how stagnant we've become—because line will continue to Go Up thanks to an inflation-based debt reduction strategy, plus the US is such a giant player in the global economy that our slowing way down will also slow the global economy for quite a while, until it adjusts, so we'll still seem to be doing relatively OK for potentially another decade or more.
Of course we could also derail into something even worse than Russia. Or capital flight might hit us harder and faster than I think it will (anyone who can't see a way to, or can't stomach, getting on the good side of our rulers, will want to get out so they don't lose all their shit, including possibly their lives in extreme cases)
The average American loves this, because it allows them to punish their perceived enemies. Cruelty trumps self-interest.
How’s that working out for US soybean farmers?
The average American loves this Right up until they lose their farms, their distilleries, tourism-based jobs and everything else.
Talking of farming, are there any numbers on if AcreTrader or other similar companies has been buying up farmland, and if so how JD Vance’s investment has been performing?
Double-plus-good upvote for your very good question. Tanking smaller players and putting more assets within the grap of current & future American Oligarchs seems to be the underlying playbook right now. This is 1991 Russia.
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac going public? An opportunity for billionaires to own the mortgages that will default as the economy [intentionally] continues to tank leading to defaults and transfer of the homes and properties backing the mortgages as collateral to the oligarch class.
Now this is a very (very!) interesting angle. Yes, are there numbers?
Considering how much harm he did to farmers in his first term, and they overwhelmingly voted for him again in 2020 and 2024, I’d say they apparently prefer this over the alternative. I don’t expect this to change anything.
Americans don't vote for policies, they vote for personalities. It literally doesn't matter to them if Trump bankrupts them, as long as they get to support the "tough guy" billionaire.
> literally doesn't matter to them if X bankrupts them
If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues. Perhaps some marginal short term economical concerns can be offset by personality/perceived cultural improvements, but not to the point of bankruptcy or even close.
"It's the economy, stupid" was Clinton's slogan after all.
> If that were true, you'd not see economy as the top or one of the top issues.
Polls also show that Republicans rate economic conditions as positive when there's a Republican in office, and negative when there's a Democrat in office regardless of the actual state of the economy. (The effect is much weaker among Democrats.)
This means that people care about the economy, but are terrible at knowing whether the economy is actually doing well or not, and certainly not educated enough to understand the impact that particular policies have on the economy.
The conclusion is that when there's a Democrat in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is bad; and when there's a Republican in office, Republicans are told by the Republican news media that the economy is good.
Find a conservative-leaning group on Facebook or reddit and see the resistance you get when you try to explain that Trump's tariffs are an inflationary tax on Americans. Political opinions have no bearing on reality, especially in the context of economic policy.
Doesn’t matter what they think about the economy at large in abstract terms; sure they may be right or wrong about that, but I definitely question all those who say people don’t know how they are supposed to feel about their individual economic condition. This is straight from central planning and social engineering BS. I would not underestimate human instinct.
There's more to it than Trump's appeal (above half of Rs, bot certainly not all of them)
Faux News and other outlets have taught them it is a sin to vote for Ds or like anything they propose. They will chose any R over any D
how many D you reckon would choose any D over R? about the same?
Before Trump, a lot fewer. There is a well known phenomenon of GOP governors in deep blue states (e.g. Christie in NJ, Schwarzenegger in CA, Baker in MA, Scott in VT). This is a lot rarer in deep red states. There are a lot more red states than blue ones, but it's still harder (not impossible) to find recent democratic governors of those states. Senators are a bit more proportional, mind you.
Trump has sort of killed this phenomenon - partly because his brand has rubbed off on other Republicans, and partly because they have been running more extreme candidates even in blue states. Before Trump, though, it was not even close.
All Ds I know pre-Hamas invasion were pretty much the same and would never vote out of party lines, but they wouldn’t say it that way. Rs say it more explicitly. All Ds pretend to be “independent” but they will find a way to rationalize their D. Both bases are quite sticky. There are events like Hamas that suddenly make a change in specific subgroups.
I don't know any Democrats who avoid voting Republican because they consider it a "sin." The Democrats I know avoid voting Republican because they think that Republican policies are bad for the country.
I also see Democrats perfectly happy to see Democrats justly convicted of crimes. The Republican approach is to defend members of your "team" at all costs, no matter how guilty they are. The cult of personality is much strong on the Republican side.
The Planter thing is an interesting case study. We will see if the D party lets one in and undermines this
Those farmers dont care as long as libs get owned and colored people get abused by ICE.
I lay the first half of that at the feet of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. Decades of talk radio/propaganda turns out to be quite effective :(
The average? Are you sure?
Yes. Yes.
What are you basing that on?
Yeah, but the hubris of American MAGA nationalists doesn’t allow them to see it that way. They’re convinced the world can’t function without them, that everyone needs them.
Anyone with a shred of sense can see where this is heading: the inevitable collapse of the American empire and the end of its unparalleled global dominance. At this point, it’s unavoidable. The U.S. has alienated nearly every ally it once had. Ironically, Trump might be the one who saves Europe in the long run.
>Ironically, Trump might be the one who saves Europe in the long run.
Except that the political class in EU is almost unanimous in following behind US and begging US for approval.
Yes, old habits die hard, but it is slowly changing.
One may smile while sharpening a knife.
Easier said than done. Most of Canada lives along the US border. Without the USA, Canada is as remote as New Zealand - we just don't have a lot of other neighbours close by.
> The world is simply moving on from dealing with the US.
This seems to be an emotional reaction by the observer, not a quantified study, so citation needed. The US market is so big and relatively unified in language and regulations and that make you willing to bite a lot of bullets. Have you ever listed an app on the App Store and dealt with French BS, for example, for a relatively tiny market?
> They will all just trade with each other instead.
Many of the US products and services are not as commoditized.
> Tourism in The US is down to the tune of billions of dollars, soybean exports have tanked, US liquor is basically non-existent across Canada and other countries, etc etc.
It's all tech / AI / crypto focus now.
It's good that all of those things are definitely not prone to massive bubbles.
Why is this flagged? BBC seems like a trustworthy news source to me? I guess it might not be just due to the ad, but still it's a peculiar situation that's of interest to the world.
Stuff that casts the current US administration in a less than favourable light tends to get flagged pretty quickly on here. It doesn't seem quite as bad as a earlier in the year, so I wonder if they've taken measures to counteract it. You can visit '/active' instead to make all posts, including flagged ones, visible.
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
-- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Hacker News is not a political news discussion forum. It is an AI news discussion forum.
Sh*t that goes down that will probably limit your hiring ability and restrict where your "goods and services" will be received is pertinent to the HN community.
It’s just off-topic for HN.
P.S., > “BBC seems like a trustworthy”
Indeed! That’s their best trick.
Are they actually untrustworthy or did they just publish some stuff that slightly challenges your world views and so therefore you have to form the belief that they are fake news?
A better write up with more context (although it's still just as stupid as it sounds): https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-canada-trade-...
No doubt slapping tariffs on Canadian goods will reduce the flow of said goods.
But that's a reduction, not a termination. US demand for those goods still exist. And it is US consumers that pay.
The reduction is a result of lower consumer spending power. Which will affect everything, not just the tariffed goods.
Some of the goods may end up being sourced in the US. However that won't affect consumer prices, which will remain high. (The whole point of tarifs is to drive up local prices so domestic production can compete. )
Some may be sourced from other countries. But since all countries are being tariffed there are only marginal gains here.
At the same time Canadian producers will actively explore alternate markets. This will (long term) improve Canada's economic security by reducing dependence on US markets.
All the above assumes T won't start negotiating again next week. Which since TACO is likely anyway.
Either way, this will be a long-term gain for Canada and long term pain for the US.
Why doesn't Canada reduce tariffs on Chinese cars? Instead they're making their citizens pay extra for American cars when they could be paying 1/4 price for better quality electric cars.
The auto industry is huge for Ontario, the province behind this ad, and tightly integrated with US auto makers. As a result I believe tariffs on Chinese cars are being maintained by the federal govt. to show the US that Canada is very serious about ending this pointless situation.
If Chinese cars enter Canada and enter Mexico, you can say goodbye to the US auto industry. Recall, the most recent news is the bankruptcy of an auto loan firm in the US, itself a sign that cars are not affordable to workers, which is the only way these workers can travel for their jobs because public transit is so poorly funded.
Car manufacturing is not going to get cheaper in the US without a whole lotta pain, and the loss of inertia is going to affect all industrial sectors.
Chinese cars have entered Mexico. Over the last couple of years 20% of new car sales there have been Chinese brands. JAC is also making cars in Mexico, and BYD and BAIC have plans to start building in Mexico.
Mexico has increased tariffs, to 50%, but Chinese cars remain competitive even after that.
I assume that's the big stick Carney is using behind close doors to negotiate with the USA.
He probably feels powerful harming businesses (in the US and elsewhere) with his tariffs.
His inheritance performed worse than the s&p by a large margin under his stewardship.
He’s not a business man, he’s someone who inherited $450M in today’s dollars and wears a business suit as a costume, and incidentally more makeup than most drag queens.
He’s disgracing everything he touches and the Trump name will be hated and associated with stupidity and bigotry for a long time.
This seems like poor reporting. It’s far more believable that the ad is an excuse and the real story is this:
> Canada cuts tariff relief on some US cars due to Stellantis, GM ending some Canadian production
https://apnews.com/article/canada-us-auto-production-tariffs...
The ad aired a week ago and Trump said he’d do the same thing and didn’t care. However this development prompted a retaliation. There’s a low simmering trade war that Trump has been waging against partners and these are just excuses he claims so the media doesn’t focus on the actual details of the war but instead on BS culture war topics.
Strong agree. If it was the ads, this would have come when the news about the ads broke, not now.
The ad ran last week, but the Reagan library tweeted the full video of Reagan's speech yesterday. Trump saw that, and then shortly after posted on Truth Social that the ad used fake video, which intended to influence the Supreme Court and the other courts against Trump on tariffs, and cancelled negotiations.
That really does seem to be what set him off.
Doesn’t this action from Canada explain Trump rhetoric though? Essentially, Canada is saying that you can only sell tariff-free if you manufacture their. That’s the same thing Trump is pushing for.
The North American auto sector is propped up by subsidies on both sides of the border.
What the article in the parent post doesn't mention is that Stellantis and GM received massive handouts from the Canadian government to retool factories in Canada, contingent on actually operating those factories and employing Canadian workers. Abandoning them and moving production to the U.S. (because of tariffs) violated their agreements. Hence, no more tariff relief for them.
North American auto companies are between a rock and a hard place right now, but it'd be folly for the Canadian government to let them ignore their agreements without consequence.
TL;DR: It would be more accurate to say Trump tried to steal a cookie from the Canadian cookie jar and is now acting shocked that his hand has been slapped. Canada is merely reacting here, and rather mildly at that. Calling off trade negotiations entirely is clearly not warranted and everyone should expect another TACO Tuesday.
I picked a random article. As I said, the news is doing a terrible job covering this and using the clickbait fodder Trump gives them instead of providing a more detailed analysis of what the real moves being made are and why they’re being made.
>Doesn’t this action from Canada explain Trump rhetoric though?
Trump already tariffed cars and car parts from Canada under the guise of national security, in complete and utter defiance of USMCA (you know, the best trade agreement ever as described by the guy who signed it: Donald Trump). Canada should return the favour. Canada had tried to play nice with the "American" automakers, but if they screw Canada to pander to the rapist, they lose that benefit.
As a Canadian, I do have to say that we've been putting up tariffs on trading partners' goods and protecting our shitty monopolies as long as I can remember, then whining when others do it back to us.
The situation in Canada is kind of messed up. We literally have trade barriers between provinces, tariffs on a ton of stuff, government protected monopolies and all that has lead to capital either being allocated poorly or allocated right out of the country. Even government pensions put most of their capital in US markets instead of in our own country.
While US tariffs on Canada will obviously lead to economic malaise, I can't say it's undeserved. Hopefully it leads to a wake up call here (it probably won't though, Canadians will just become more and more insular).
It's funny, we've been trying to forge closer ties with the EU and China but again, we are rebuked because we have tariffs on a bunch of their goods.
Also Canadian here. Have been closely following US-Canada trade for years. What you are saying is news to me. I am leaning towards believing you are simply mistaken, but if you have specific evidence about these two assertions, I would love to study them:
> tariffs on a ton of stuff
> we are rebuked because we have tariffs on a bunch of their goods
I can guess why one might think some of this (tariffs on Chinese EVs directly led to agricultural counter-tariffs from them and dairy trade barriers have always been a source of frustration), but in general, Canada's tariffs and barriers are by all indications in line with peer countries (US, UK, EU, Australia, etc.) and not particularly noteworthy. If you have concrete evidence to the contrary (not just that some trade barriers exist between Canada and its trading partners, but that they are out of the ordinary and much higher than other countries'; and that the world, in particular EU does not want closer ties with us because of them), I would love to study your sources and update my understanding.
I don’t think Canada has tariffs notably higher than other countries.
Sure, specific sectors and certain quotes but all countries have those.
>As a Canadian
Didn't take long to discover that your "as a Canadian" is actually "as a hyper-partisan Alberta separatist that thinks oil is all that matters".
Kind of gave up the game when you said this nonsense: "we've been putting up tariffs on trading partners' goods".
"It's funny, we've been trying to forge closer ties with the EU and China but again"
You really, really have no idea what you're talking about.
The F your feelings crowd nodding and smiling to Trump ruling on feelings.