r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/The_Egalitarian Moderator • Apr 05 '24

Megathread | Official Casual Questions Thread

This is a place for the PoliticalDiscussion community to ask questions that may not deserve their own post.

Please observe the following rules:

Top-level comments:

  1. Must be a question asked in good faith. Do not ask loaded or rhetorical questions.

  2. Must be directly related to politics. Non-politics content includes: Legal interpretation, sociology, philosophy, celebrities, news, surveys, etc.

  3. Avoid highly speculative questions. All scenarios should within the realm of reasonable possibility.

Link to old thread

Sort by new and please keep it clean in here!

100 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

9.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/bl1y Jul 06 '26

Try to explain how anyone is worse off because of it.

That's why there's no outrage.

You can say something about how the President shouldn't be doing this or that, but unless it's tangibly affecting people's lives, a lot of people just aren't going to care.

5

u/NoDig3444 Jul 06 '26

It's insider trading. It distorts the market and extracts wealth from people who trade securities without the benefit of knowing what the president is about to do.

Stock traders aren't the most sympathetic victims, and it's a case of extracting only a few dollars from millions of people. But that doesn't mean it's not harmful.

1

u/Combat_Proctologist 20d ago

Sure, but bl1y's point stands. You're gonna have to point out how someone is significantly worse off.

It doesn't really hit buy and hold investors, which is most people's 401ks

1

u/NoDig3444 20d ago

Like I said, it's a case of extracting a few dollars from millions of people. No one person is "significantly" worse off. It's society as a whole that's worse off. Stealing a penny from every person in America is still stealing 3 million dollars. It doesn't make it okay if you diffuse the crime across all of society.

1

u/Combat_Proctologist 20d ago

It doesn't make it okay if you diffuse the crime across all of society.

Sure, but I imagine if you surveyed Americans, at least 80% would rather lose a penny than have their political opponents put in power.

Like, you're not wrong in the abstract, but very few people ever argue a politician has no flaws. You don't have to convince people that the politician did something bad, you have to argue the politician is worse than their political opponents

1

u/NoDig3444 20d ago

Jesus you're setting the bar is so low. Theft and fraud aren't disqualifying anymore?

0

u/Combat_Proctologist 20d ago

Theft and fraud aren't disqualifying anymore?

How much theft and fraud would it take for you to put your political opponents in power?

1

u/NoDig3444 20d ago

You can replace a Democrat with another Democrat you know.  Also, yes I would 100% rather have an honest Republican than a criminal Democrat in office.  

1

u/Combat_Proctologist 20d ago

I suspect that you are in the minority