
Ask HN: Best way to oppose Trump? - pduan
It&#x27;s been only 8 days since Trump was sworn in as president and every passing day I find myself more and more disgusted and appalled by his racist and idiotic actions.<p>As a common citizen, what are the highest impact things I can do to oppose his actions?<p>Edit: Sorry about bringing up politics here but this is something that I feel cannot be ignored any longer. The reason I ask here is because I feel like there are some of the smartest people in the world who read HN and would love to get everyone&#x27;s opinions.
======
masondixon
Trump supporter here.

Get less of us to vote for him in 4 years.

Pick objective ideologically-neutral metrics that we can all agree are good
for the country when optimised. Focus on these.

Things like GDP growth, unemployment, child mortality, life expectancy, crime
rates, terrorist attacks, etc.

If unemployment is going up, GDP growth is faltering, and there are continued
terrorist attacks, then he will certainly lose support.

You need to test your beliefs with objective facts. And these tests need to be
applied equally to avoid bias.

Everyone is susceptible to bias. You should have some objective measures for
which you would admit Trump was good for the country. If you don't have these,
then you are not be rationale.

The President has a job with performance targets, and if they are not met they
are gone.

~~~
sawmurai
Just out of curiosity and without judgement: are you still supporting what he
does?

~~~
masondixon
Yep.

Looking back after four years: what numbers do you expect to point to showing
that he was as bad as everyone made out he was?

------
grep2
Vote with your feet: Germany for example has a strong democratic culture,
vibrant economy, (nearly) free education system, functioning public healthcare
and - best of all - people speak German. To be fair, just with English you'll
also get already pretty far.

Drop me a line in case you're interested, I'd be happy to help where I can.
Same holds for companies.

------
candiodari
Best way: take away the reason Trump got elected.

I know this will sound somewhat out of reach for most people, but
realistically, we want to stop the isolation wave, this is what needs to be
done.

We need to have 3x minimum wage + benefits zero-skill jobs and we need
something like 20 to 40 million of those in the US, and half a billion of
those worldwide. Note, we don't need the jobs themselves, we need to actually
have those people do something economically useful.

I realize this is not easy, and you can't just cheat, so shouting basic income
will not get anyone anywhere. But if we could do that, worldwide, the "wave of
conservatism" will stop dead in it's tracks. Trump will be opposed, borders
will open, Europe will stay whole, ... And the best part of it is: if you do
this, you'll probably yourself get to be in the top10 richest people in the
world.

The alternative is that we get into ever more debt. Now debt requires interest
to be paid. So when people say debt is now 100% of GDP that means there is
effectively a transaction tax of, let's say on average twice the Fed's
interest rate. This is extremely inaccurate, but it's not totally off of the
mark. Right now that's a tax paid to the 1% of about 1% of every time you get
paid, every dollar you spend, every dollar you give your landlord. If the FED
raises rates 3x (or more) this year, as they've promised to do, by the end of
2017 it will be 2.5% or more. So in order to pay the interest on it we'll need
systematically more austerity measures. Pension cuts, unemployment cuts,
healthcare cuts, everything cuts.

(Now do you understand why countries going bankrupt is such a big deal and why
debt restructuring is so unacceptable to the American rightists (democrat or
republican) ? The 1% has a huge problem here. That amount of tax towards them
is too much. It risks bankrupting entire economies, but there's soooo much
money to be had. Every year from now on they can delay the inevitable debt
collapse and avoid asset/property/wealth taxes they get 3% of all wealth on
the planet. Every year. Real leftists, of course, are proposing that income
taxes be abolished and replaced by a) wealth tax b) import tax c) asset taxes)

------
orionblastar
The Democratic party needs new leaders. Trump was voted for because he is not
Clinton and promised to undo what Obama had done.

Obama promised but didn't keep the promises to help the poor, shelter the
homeless, fix city or state issues like the Flint lead water crisis going on
since 2014 and the water is still undrinkable.

Look they got record numbers in BLM and women march protests if they can
organize large groups of people like that and go out to vote in two years they
can make Congress a Democrat majority again.

Trump won on many factors, but the big reason was that people for Hillary did
not even go out and vote. So find a way to get more Democrat supporters to go
out and vote and make a difference.

------
grzm
This has been recommended a number of times today:
[https://www.indivisibleguide.com](https://www.indivisibleguide.com)

------
douche
Be a not-terrible human being and roll with the punches. Realize that your
agenda might not appeal to all of the other people in your nation. Try to
understand the people who do not share your worldview and why that is.

------
DenisM
Set up recurring donations to the charities fighting a good fight - ACLU, EFF,
Planned Parenthood, you name it. Make sure your friends do likewise.

If you feel anxious, go volunteer. Doing something physically will calm you
down and support the cause at the same time.

------
guest0467
Volunteer for campaigns of candidates that are running counter to Trump's
policies. There's ALOT that goes into campaigns and not just in the weeks
leading up to an election. Plus, ring the phone off the hook of your
congressman.

------
Neliquat
The best way is to be rational. Hate, disgust, etc have no place in a
reasonable argument, only facts. If you argue based on feelings alone, you are
not going to advance your cause. This post is case in point.

------
grzm
Read Jonathan Haidt's _The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by
Politics and Religion_

------
basicplus2
Vote

~~~
pduan
What an useless and asshole-ish response. I did vote and that ship sailed Nov.
8th. I'm obviously looking for ways to fight this _now_.

~~~
grzm
Sincerely, you're asking for ideas, and there are other opportunities to vote
besides the past presidential elections. If you don't find that suggestion
helpful or think it was offered in bad faith, just ignore it. Getting heated
or snippy isn't going to do much to encourage others to submit ideas.

Edit to add: And being able to not react reflexively to every perceived slight
is itself a good suggestion as it's going to make you more effective in
dealing with a lot of the polarization that's out there.

~~~
pduan
It's not being snippy or heated. I would love to know what else I can do
between now and 2018 and 2020.

Voting is the bare minimum we can do and I don't really need to post a HN
thread to figure that out.

