
Peter Thiel to serve as Trump delegate - coolandsmartrr
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/279331-paypal-co-founder-to-serve-as-trump-delegate
======
jboydyhacker
This is surprising mostly because Thiel is a libertarian. Trump has staked out
policy positions that provoke a much stronger central government.

To be specific.

\- Increased federal regulation. Especially especially around restrictions of
foreign trade. China/ Korea etc.

-Speech restrictions. Trump has advocated new laws against the press and others than disparage him (i.e. those small hands jokes for example or like Bill Maher- called him son of a chimp and was sued- trump lost and wants to change the laws so he'd win)

-Intervention in leading American business sourcing and investment decisions. Carrier AC is an example and of course Apple.

\- Pro Gun control. This is in direct contrast to libertarian views. They dont
want any rules from the government on gun control.

Now one could argue that Trump has a non interventionist military policy which
is a traditional libertarian view. However, Bush ran on that platform in 2000
but becasue he was so inexperienced he ended up started several large wars
including Iraq which was a dramatic failure. Trump is less experienced than
Bush was so it's possible he is at a high risk of entering new wars as well.

There is zero about trump that has anything to do with being a libertarian.
That's the puzzling part.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> Pro Gun control. This is in direct contrast to libertarian views. They dont
> want any rules from the government on gun control.

While he has certainly made pro-gun-control statements in the past, Trump's
currently stated position on guns is fairly strongly pro-gun.

------
Aloha
I just want to send a wrecking ball to Washington DC - I'm not really picky
which wrecking ball it is (Trump or Sanders).

So while I'd prefer Sanders, its clear to me that there are some fundamental
problems with our economy - both of the two wrecking ball candidates have
touched on something in common, which is average americans have lost in the
balance of free trade - and that government is far more accessible to the rich
and powerful than it is to the common man.

In the end, we lived thru 8 years of GWB - and very frankly, I have enough
faith in our system of government to feel that its self regulating that we
could put pretty much anyone in the office of president and they'd not be able
to fuck it up too much.

Yes, I expect to get downvoted for tacit support of Trump.

~~~
crispyambulance

        > I have enough faith in our system of government
        > to feel that its self regulating that we could
        > put pretty much anyone in the office of president
        > and they'd not be able to fuck it up too much.
    

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong other than....

Nomination of supreme court justices that take back decades of progress.

Starting new and unnecessary wars, making the geopolitical situation more
dangerous and unstable : George W started 2 of them, didn't finish, and we're
still dealing with the mess.

Have a leader who is a laughing stock, much like Berlusconi was in Italy.

~~~
colmvp
How funny that Democrats are fine with electing another candidate who actively
voted for one of those wars.

~~~
dragonwriter
One candidate or another is going to eke out a win requiring superdelegates to
put them over the top, in the most divisive nominating race the party has seen
since 1968.

A very significant fraction of Democrats aren't "fine" with the candidate you
are referring to, even to the extent of seeing that candidate as a tolerable
choice.

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mdorazio
Am I missing something here? Being a pledged party delegate is very different
from being a true supporter of a candidate. It just means that you intend to
cast your delegate vote for a particular candidate. There's essentially no one
but Trump left in the Republican Primary, so is it really surprising that
Peter Thiel, a Republican, would pledge for him?

~~~
venomsnake
Actually the surprising thing is getting involved at all. Right now even whiff
of support for Trump is toxic.

~~~
vox_mollis
Toxic in what sense?

Edit: It seems you mean career toxicity. Thiel, being able to write his own
ticket, would founders really be unwilling to work with him on the basis of
his political positions?

~~~
oarsinsync
What happened to Chris Christie's political career after endorsing Trump would
be one sense of the toxicity

~~~
googlryas
Yes, because he was ascendant in NJ before that.

What will happen to Christies career when Trump appoints him AG?

------
pieter1976
I guess this is on HN because people are surprised that not all programmers
are atheist members of the Democratic party.

~~~
partiallypro
Everyone that knows about Peter Thiel knows he's an outspoken libertarian,
critic of the GOP and DNC, and that's he's homosexual. The surprise isn't that
he's not a Democrat (everyone knew that) it's that Trump isn't exactly the
libertarian on...any issue (at least not openly.) There is the assumption that
Trump will be a major disruption to the establishment, that I have seen some
libertarians and liberals both embrace.

I have a hard time believing Thiel actually embraces Trump, and it's more that
he was going to be a delegate and will now be legally bound to cast his first
ballot for Trump. I am frankly a fan of Thiel, a lot of people here at HN love
Musk but I think Musk is a corporate welfare queen; and Thiel is not.

~~~
oarsinsync
> I think Musk is a corporate welfare queen

Can you elaborate on that?

~~~
beeboop
People dislike that he's benefiting a lot, directly and indirectly, from
government subsidies. I usually point out that oil&gas get a tremendously
larger amount of subsidies, but some people counter that by saying Tesla is
different because it wouldn't be feasible without the subsidies. I am not sure
I see the logic in that, if anything it seems like an argument for it to
_have_ subsidies because it's creating value that wouldn't be possible
otherwise.

~~~
drewrv
Not just oil and gas, the auto industry and aerospace (i.e. his direct
competitors) have received tons of subsidies and bailouts over the years. To
expect Musk to get by without any subsidies would be to hold him to a higher
standard than anyone else in his industry.

------
unchocked
Is Thiel a neoreactionary?

Trump is actually a great candidate for the neoreactionaries: an apolitical
strongman with barely veiled ambitions for unchallenged sovereignty. I'm
surprised Mencius Moldbug isn't on the delegate slate as well.

FWIW, I've had some success persuading conventional Republicans to write in
Hillary Clinton as a protest candidate in the upcoming California primary.

~~~
xyience
Thiel is a libertarian. If you're up for reading... [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html) dives into
some differences. The key one IMO being that no neoreactionary should actually
vote. Trump is of course the obvious best candidate from one branch of the NRx
perspective, but him taking office doesn't fundamentally change things.
Another branch of NRx could argue Hillary is the "best", too, but the
reasoning may be surprising.

The underlying reason for which I think Thiel might support Trump is that
Trump is ultimately a businessman, like Thiel, and one in the messy business
of real estate development at that. (For a fun fairly anti-Trump piece that
could also read as support: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-
the-art-of-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-the-art-of-
the-deal)) A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which
includes military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even
better King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and
professors.

~~~
mikeyouse
> A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which includes
> military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even better
> King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and
> professors.

Which is immediately disproven by the disastrous presidency of our first "MBA
President" GWB. (See the fellating articles before people realized how awful
he would be at managing the country[1])

[1] -
[http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mb...](http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mba_president.html)

~~~
harryjo
not pro or anti NRx ideas, but GWB is better described as a favored son of a
political aristocracy -- his MBA and CEO are more a form of inherited wealth
than business success of someone like Morgan or Thiel (or even Gates, who
certainly to a leg up, but was also a successful businessperson)

~~~
xyience
Yeah, there are many qualifications one could make to the "give us a CEO-King,
doesn't really matter which CEO". For instance one might disqualify anyone
from Harvard, or only count CEOs that managed large companies and didn't drive
them into the ground, etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W._Bush)
is an interesting wiki page though.

------
pinaceae
Peter Thiel:

"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for
libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an
oxymoron."

[http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/education...](http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/education-libertarian)

Fits right in with Trump.

How's the seasteading going btw?

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a_small_island
It should say 'Peter Thiel', not PayPal co-founder, imo.

~~~
uiri
The title isn't wrong. The original article uses 'PayPal co-founder' and HN
guidelines suggest using the original title unless it is misleading (which, in
this case, it is not). While Peter Thiel may have name recognition on HN and
in Silicon Valley, he is better known as a co-founder of PayPal in political
circles and the rest of the US.

~~~
tashoecraft
I agree the title isn't wrong, but I believe most hacker news readers know who
Peter Thiel is. There were many Paypal cofounders, however. A change in the
title isn't needed, but would have simplified some things.

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SilasX
Could we close and merge the other submissions on this:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=thiel&sort=byDate&prefix&page=...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=thiel&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

Note: this is one of the few that doesn't have "Thiel" in the title.

------
api
Does Thiel _support_ Trump or is he just legally or contractually bound to
cast a vote for him because he's a Republican party delegate? I smell click
bait.

Of course the real question is why Thiel would be a Republican delegate at
all. Does he not have better things to do than carry water for a bunch of
dimwits and apparatchiks?

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ScottBurson
I wonder if Thiel is still as enthusiastic about Trump after The Donald's
recent comment about printing money to pay off the national debt.

