All of this is a strawman. I said nothing about the other side of the aisle, and they get no excuses either. But whataboutism is not a valid argument nor an excuse for this current administration's behavior.

> significant drawdown under Trump

Dude is literally going full empire mode right now with our neighboring allies. And he also got very close to starting a war with Iran on his way out of his last term. And now he is continuing to support the same genocide as his predecessors, and siding with Russia over the Ukraine conflict. He is an absolute clown and an illegitimate tyrant.

> Has the US government been out of control for decades? Sure. Is Trump doing something uniquely bad? I've yet to see it.

Status quo has never been a legitimate excuse for tyranny.

> All of this is a strawman. I said nothing about the other side of the aisle, and they get no excuses either. But whataboutism is not a valid argument nor an excuse for this current administration's behavior.

If your position is that Trump is doing something crazy then you absolutely need to show how what he's doing is different from baseline. And if you're suggesting people should have voted against him, which tends to be implicit in conversations about the president, then the alternative they would be voting for is absolutely relevant.

I don't need to bother when the man himself will be the first to proclaim to you that he's done more in his first 100 days of this term than any prior president. He can't shut up about it.

> And if you're suggesting people should have voted against him, which tends to be implicit in conversations about the president

I'm not suggesting anything other than what I explicitly stated, and this kind of predisposition, bias, whatever you'd like to call it, is the entire issue of this conversation with you. At each turn, you pile on another straw man, telling me how I must be thinking instead of earnestly finding out exactly what I have to say. There is no value in such an exchange.

> At each turn, you pile on another straw man, telling me how I must be thinking instead of earnestly finding out exactly what I have to say.

You stepped into my conversation with someone else. The statement I called out was:

"For 10 years now, we’ve been hearing how hysterical the predictions about Trump’s actions are. And then he does them. And goal posts are moved, frogs are boiled, whatever analogy you prefer."

If that's not a statement you want to defend then there is indeed no value in your participation.

> You stepped into my conversation with someone else

This is hacker news, that's the point of threaded conversation. I presented fine counterpoints to your arguments, and you failed to effectively engage them, instead moving to straw man arguments. There is a reason your post was flagged to death. This is the end of our conversation.

> I presented fine counterpoints to your arguments, and you failed to effectively engage them, instead moving to straw man arguments.

That's some fine projection there. You made fine counterpoints to a strawman position that I never took.

> There is a reason your post was flagged to death.

Yes, TDS.

> This is the end of our conversation.

I'll take that as an admission of defeat.

> You made fine counterpoints to a strawman position that I never took.

I must be blind, because I can still see your comments.

Discussions are not about winning or losing, that is a toxic mentality to have. You need to review the HN guidelines. Good bye.

Lol. Every time.