
Peter Thiel Is Bullish on Bitcoin, the Heartland and Trump - prostoalex
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-15/peter-thiel-is-bullish-on-bitcoin-the-heartland-and-trump
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zombieprocesses
Considering that Trump owes his presidency to the midwest/rust belt, it
doesn't take a genius to see that the heartland will see improving conditions
going forward. Trump will almost certainly advance policies that will benefit
the heartland as that's his only chance of winning in 2020.

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dragonwriter
Your argument assumes that Trump has both the knowledge to determine what
policies would result in positive net change in the heartland and the power to
get then in place. Even with the same party in control of Congress,
President's don't always get what they want, and moreover politicians are
quite often _wrong_ in their assessment of what policies will produce the
results they prefer.

And that’s even before considering that politicians often have interests in
policy other than reelection, and reelection is often secondary and
instrumental to those signs rather than primary over them.

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saint_fiasco
They don't have to be right in the assessment, they just have to make it look
like they tried real hard and any failures are not their fault.

For example steel tariffs are meant to benefit Trump voters (at the expense of
the rest of the country). If it turns out they don't actually benefit Trump
voters, he still gets points for being the only one willing to try.

It's similar to the security theater that the government uses to fight
terrorism. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work, because being seen trying and
failing gives more points than not doing anything.

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dragonwriter
> They don't have to be right in the assessment

They do to support the prediction that “it doesn't take a genius to see that
the heartland will see improving conditions going forward”, based on Trump's
political need for heartland votes.

I agree with you that things don't actually have to get better for Trump to
get votes if he can sell it as something else blocking his efforts, but that
just further undermines the claim I was responding to.

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saint_fiasco
I understood that comment with an emphasis on "see" improved conditions. As
in, the change might only be in perception.

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melling
Thiel, like many people, doesn’t like Hillary. I think I heard him say
something about “Trump still being better than Hillary “

Someone should distill out what his reasoning is. It might be China, American
competiveness, ... I’m not sure. But he has the pulse on something that others
believe.

What are the policy changes that he wants?

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daxorid
[edit] Point made, I suppose.

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Mononokay
I replied, although I might not be the _exact_ perspective they're looking
for.

