Please don't post angry rants about divisive topics to HN. They lead to flamewars and make higher-quality discussion impossible. You've more or less ruined this thread by tossing a Molotov cocktail into it.

Instead of inflammatory generic comments, please post neutral specific ones. Good HN comments either engage the specifics of an article or go on an interesting—i.e. not pre-worn—tangent. Partisan battle is the opposite of what we want.

Apologies, I let my dislike of the man get out of hand, won't happen again.

Ugh, dang, I think you do a superb job of moderating HN, but please have some sensibility for those of us in the UK.

This guy, Dominic Cummings, is the equivalent of one of Trump's most rabid advisors. In his previous role (advisor to Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education) he demoralised the entire teaching profession. I know that sounds hyperbolic but it's absolutely true - check out the TES or any other specialist press.

He has now, absolutely mendaciously (again, check out the expert commentary on the £350m bus claim), swung us out of an economic union on which lots of HN readers' livelihoods depend - including my own. Already, every time we go abroad, the ATM reminds us that we are getting less for our earnings than we did a year ago. Already multinationals are closing warehouses and cancelling the contracts that keep us able to pay the mortgage at the end of the month. People reading this post are losing their jobs because of this guy's sixth-form philosophy.

It hasnt happened in the US yet. Come back to this post in a year's time and tell me everything's ok under President Trump. I honestly hope it will be. But please have some tolerance for those of us who are losing out from 2016's wave of populism.

It's a procedural point, not a political one. Comments like the one above provoke inflamed responses from people who disagree with them, and vice versa, creating a cycle. Each time a provocation lands, the person who gets smacked (not really, of course, but that's what it feels like) feels justified in smacking back harder. On any divisive topic it's guaranteed that quite a few users will feel that way, so the threads are doomed unless we all contain ourselves in the first place.

This isn't a bad restriction to impose, because ranty provocative comments are nearly always less substantive, and we want substantive comments here anyhow.

What has any of that got to due with the poster not meeting the expected level of discourse? Just because you are personally upset it does not mean that histrionic and aggressive posting is suitable.

so in your world, anyone who is genuinely aggrieved or genuinely angry gets a free pass to violate this site's civility rules. in that world, hacker news would have long since burned to the ground.

He covers your type of attitude very well in this excellent piece. You are doing yourself no service in holding this view steadfast. You will learn nothing and only be patting yourself on the back for having the right-on opinion that is likely dominant in your social group.

As is covered in great depth, touching on some interesting HN relevant topics like complexity theory, this was a huge campaign with many moving parts, motivations, draws and repellents.

Telling yourself it is simple as "those who don't hold my opinion were only persuaded by lies as they are stupid" is a virus that holds you back from understanding and amplifies and reinforces your prejudices.

Massive amount of very interesting info in this article that covers a wide range of strategy and persuasion topics.

edit: re-reading your post made me realise you have almost definitely have not read the article if you believe the press were on their side

"believe the press were on their side"

Well, the Sun seems to believe they were critical to the Brexit vote and they are the largest circulation newspaper in the UK:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1338543/our-paper-led-the-figh...

Nothing cements reader loyalty like proclaiming you won the battle for them. Here is a selection of the papers that were fighting for remain.

The Economist, Financial Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, The Observer, The Independent, The Scotsman, The Times, Daily Mirror, London Evening Standard, British Medical Journal, Daily Mirror, Daily Record, The National, Sunday Mail, Sunday Mirror.

Someone would have to have an extremely convincing argument to persuade the majority that the media were not almost totally for Remain (including the BBC).

Ok, now do that by circulation. The Independent, much though I loved it, had a fraction of the readership of the Mail or Sun.

I believe that the majority of mainstream papers were for remain. I have not analysed readership and reader crossover and so this could be a flaw. Completely happy to be corrected on this.

Lets say for argument it was 50/50. I could definitely understand why people might have the (in this example, incorrect) perception that the majority of newspapers were for remain. As papers are seen as part of the establishment, and the non-newspaper establishment was so heavily remain, it could easily bias your perception of coverage.

"So facts don't matter only what the presented image of what the "majority" thinks?"

Facts do matter, I just believe that the majority have this view of Brexit news coverage for a variety of understandable reasons.

"As papers are seen as part of the establishment"

Papers like the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail pretty much epitomize the UK "establishment" and they've been hostile to the EU/EEC for decades.

   Massive amount of very interesting info

Agreed. The most interesting account of the Brexit vote I've read, and one of the most insightful of how modern politics works.

I read the first couple hundred words, then skipped through the rest (at increasing speed, it really is ridiculously long, 40 printed pages if I'm counting right), found this gem:

I will go into the problems of the EU another time. I will just make one important point here.

I thought very strongly that 1) a return to 1930s protectionism would be disastrous, 2) the fastest route to this is continuing with no democratic control over immigration or human rights policies for terrorists and other serious criminals, therefore 3) the best practical policy is to reduce (for a while) unskilled immigration and increase high skills immigration particularly those with very hard skills in maths, physics and computer science, 4) this requires getting out of the EU, 5) hopefully it will prod the rest of Europe to limit immigration and therefore limit the extremist forces that otherwise will try to rip down free trade.

I guess I'll have to read (or more likely, skip through) that "another time" post, because to me that just sounds incoherent. Maybe it makes more sense for people familiar with the current (conservative) British narrative.

Sounds coherent to me. The argument is that controlling immigration now (which requires leaving EU) will stave off a future, even greater anti-immigration backlash which could add protectionism thrown in for good measure. So Brexit would prevent a protectionist like Trump from ruling Britain. The main counterpoints to this argument are that Brexit itself is quite harmful to free trade already (we'll see what happens in the next year), or skepticism that an even worse backlash would ever happen later.

This would have made sense if people would have voted against immigration per se. In reality they didn't -- very few people actually get offended by a sight of someone with a different colour skin so badly that they want them away at once.

What people actually voted against is losing their livelihoods -- jobs, communities, families -- to a steady march of progress. That loss is real, but make no mistake, no politician can stop it by signing any sort of trade treaties, limiting immigration to any extent, or outlawing EU Directive 89/686/EEC.

So the sad reality of Brexit is that the people who voted leave will see no change. Immigration may be restricted as a result of the vote, but it won't save them from anything because the moving force potentially causing what you call "a greater anti-immigration backlash" has immigration as just one of its many symptoms, and not a root cause.

"..to a steady march of progress. That loss is real, but make no mistake, no politician can stop it by signing any sort of trade treaties, limiting immigration to any extent, or outlawing EU Directive 89/686/EEC."

I used to believe the same, that globalisation in its current form is an absolute inevitability. That any efforts to react and adapt to it would always be counter-productive and fail to this invisible force. We have had this drilled into us ad nauseam.

I am starting to doubt that this is the case. I see no reason why the future has already been determined at this point and that we must accept it, resigning ourselves to believe change is an absolute impossibility. Are interventions for the better 100% likely to fail? Why? Is largely due to the nature of macro-economics and free trade? Are there no mechanisms possible present or future that can address these effectively and to the majorities' satisfaction?

I do not intend this to come across as a hostile response, I am genuinely interested in everyones thoughts on this.

"...symptoms, and not a root cause"

What do you believe is the root cause?

> What people actually voted against is losing their livelihoods -- jobs, communities, families -- to a steady march of progress. That loss is real, but make no mistake, no politician can stop it by signing any sort of trade treaties, limiting immigration to any extent, or outlawing EU Directive 89/686/EEC.

That may be true, that no politician can stop it, but at the moment (at least here in Australia, which seems to have the same trend as UK and America) no politician will acknowledge it. We've had three recessions in 10 years that have been "hidden" by immigration. The economy has grown but everyone's relative share has shrunk.

That's a decent argument to say immigration wasn't a real concern (that was the second counter point I mentioned). Although it does seem like a fair bit of Leavers voted because of migration (at least according to polls).

So he is worried that an anti-immigration backlash will limit free trade, and because of that he wants to limit immigration and the best way to do that is to join forces with (other) anti-immigration politicians in a project to leave the EU?

It still sounds incoherent to me. Leaving one of the biggest single market places is not a free trade move. Post-Brexit Britain is not a place where anti-immigration forces have less political power. If it made British Trump less likely (and I don't think it did) then not because of appeasement of British nationalists but because it served as a wake-up call for the rest.

Well one could argue that Brexit will still preserve free trade (indeed the government wants to preserve that). And UKIP seems to be imploding, so it's plausible that Brexit could have neutralized them.

> Well one could argue that Brexit will still preserve free trade (indeed the government wants to preserve that).

The government says they want it, but that doesn't mean that there is any reasonable basis tomexpext that it will happen.

Why, arguments for both sides could've been made easily. You absolutely can make a case for both leaving or staying. It's just that neither side of the referendum bothered to do this before the vote.

True. But i'd contend that the side arguing for changing the status quo has a higher burden of persuasion. This seems especially true given (a) the degree to which even a well-managed Brexit would have unpredictable economic implications, and (b) the way that that a racist minority managed to conflate their cause with a potentially more reasonable one.

I will make no argument relative to your opinion, but I do want to point out that many on both sides of the issue hold to this very same opinion of the opposition.

I think he means the people who misled voters, rather than the voters themselves.

Edit: I think you're right about reaching out, btw.

The problem as I see it is less how the people voted(/debated) either way, and more of the establishment's arrogant disdain for the people that disagree with them.

"Those pesky proles wouldn't actually vote Leave, and even if a few do there's no way it will be a majority, so we can stay the course with the EU because that's all we are offering and they are gonna have to take it either way." - my mental image of center-left politicians.

Exact same attitude annointed Clinton with the nomination.

Honestly, who needs to reach out? Did the Republicans get in the nice situation they find themselves in now by reaching out? If the Democrats learn from the Republicans they should wait for the pendulum to swing and meanwhile be as loud, vehement, and derisive as they can. Lay the groundwork for people think voting against the Republicans is a matter of life and death. Shit, trump might do that himself. I just hope it's only perception.

> Lay the groundwork for people think voting against the Republicans is a matter of life and death.

Liberals already tried that this election, it's still impossible to go a day without a MSM outlet saying Trump is literally Hitler and that America is now a fascist state. It's probably not wise to eschew diplomacy when the GOP is as powerful at all levels of government from local to national as they have been in 80 years.

>Liberals already tried that this election, it's still impossible to go a day without a MSM outlet saying Trump is literally Hitler and that America is now a fascist state.

I think your definition of mainstream media is overly broad.

Or I spend too much time on Twitter :)

>Honestly, who needs to reach out? Did the Republicans get in the nice situation they find themselves in now by reaching out?

Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. Trump flipped a lot of counties that went for Obama twice. I recommend you follow his example. Find some people on the other side who should be persuadable, and get to persuadin'.

Emotion won't win you a debate. Or convince anyone. As a matter of fact, precisely this 'should be fucking ashamed'-culture is what enabled Brexit and Trump in a large part. Learn and correct course.

But 2016 showed us that manipulating people's emotions can win you an election. If a lazy tactic puts you on the losing side of a debate but the winning side of an election, that's worth being concerned about.

I think it's lazy to claim people voted because they were "manipulated". Many voted because they profoundly dislike the status quo.

But with so many lies being told about the status quo (drumming up fear of immigrants being one example) it's hard to say what rejecting the status quo even means.

Sure, if I love guns and I'm being told daily through talk radio that Obama wants to take all of them, I'm going to be upset and vulnerable to making an emotional decision.

Word-for-word how I feel about another similar vote this year.

And that sort of rhetoric is exactly why you lost that vote. Learn from it.

Probably that isn't the reason why. Probably it's mostly because Obama was a second term Democrat that the Republican won, as depressing as that may be.

I totally disagree with the comment you're replying to, but totally agree with yours. The difference is that afaic attributing the election results to a matter of the opposition's attitude is a form of looking the other way.

Only because Trump's supporters were spread out in the right places. Hillary won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes so I would not brag about anything if I were you. That large opposition force that surpasses all Trump supporters will not go away. Comments like yours will only piss them off much more and if Trump fucks it up even people that voted for him will turn on him on a dime. This is not over my Trump supporter.

If the Republicans overreach there will be a backlash.

>Hillary won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes

And if the Presidential election was based on the popular vote, that would mean something. It doesn't work that way, and everyone knew beforehand it didn't work that way, and everyone involved, most definitely including the Clinton campaign, was happy to praise the Electoral College to the skies when they thought it would tilt the results in their favor. So, as the kids say, let it go. This line does not help you.

>That large opposition force that surpasses all Trump supporters will not go away.

That's nice, but as long as it's concentrated in a tiny strip along the coasts it will continue to be ineffective. I recommend that instead of attacking the other side you start working on converting them to your side. That's one of the reasons Trump won: he flipped a lot of counties that voted for Obama twice. You can do that right back to him, if you're willing to swallow your pride and talk to people instead of sneering at them.

>This is not over my Trump supporter.

I voted for Evan McMullin, dude.

>If the Republicans overreach there will be a backlash.

If only certain people had realized that Democratic overreach could cause backlashes, too, then your party might not be a smoking hole in the ground right now.