If by correct you mean, inconsistent with the American tradition of the rule of law and commitment to equal protection of the law, and the emergence of an authoritarian kleptocracy that picks winners and losers. Then yes. Correct.
Which has been obvious trend the last few decades and is now being done openly and shamelessly like a tinpot dicator. Largely through a new populist protectionism ideology that is popular on social media. Which makes it much more public and well documented.
Usually companies do this stuff quietly with lots of small new rules via Congress creating barriers to entry or through national security angles like the Chips act which funneled money and tax breaks to huge weathy companies, or Boeing, or the car industry, etc.
Anthropic and OpenAI went hard in the paint pushing for AI safety and it backfired into hurting their companies rather than protecting their interests.
I’ve been critical of crony capitalism consistently on HN for a decade now. Many people just haven’t been paying attention because nobody cares to follow this stuff unless there’s a useful political angle.
If I bring a house cat to a party and you bring a tiger we could both be accused of bringing a pet to the party without asking. But only one of the pets will crush your throat and then eat your face.
I would love to see any examples of democrats being crony capitalist of the same degree as the current administration. They are selling pardons, hosting crypto dinners where the seating arrangement is based on how many coins you bought, seizing the equity of private companies like intel and the revenue of corporations in exchange for lifting export restrictions like to nvidia, holding up M&A transactions for rivals and approving transactions for allies, ignoring laws passed by congress (like the ban on TikTok) to let allies buy the assets.
I am not a favor of state capture by the capitalist class. But democrats are house cats.
>I would love to see any examples of democrats being crony capitalist of the same degree
No you wouldn't. You've established a subjective measure to the discussion by which you can refuse to acknowledge any example provided.
How about Biden leaving a bunch of equipment in Afghanistan so his weapons manufacturing buddies could get new manufacturing contracts?
How about Biden using the EPA to shut down eco friendly products in favor of his buddies' company's spill remediation that doesn't work nearly as well?
Oh well, those individually aren't "to the same degree" even if there are many more of them that cumulatively add up to a greater degree.
There are countless examples of this, as lots of others have pointed out to you across this thread. You're just choosing to walk them all back into a corner of "but it's not as bad because <insert additional criterion>."
Your opinion as given is entirely based around Trump, not government.
It's simple fanaticism. You've chosen a football team. Nothing will convince you that their quarterback sucks because he was just having a bad day every game of the season.
You can quickly stop doing this. Go research the counterpoints and see if you aren't being selective. It will require some honesty with yourself to do so. Most people find that very difficult.
