Thank you for engaging and bringing these thought provoking questions.

I read your response twice.

The first time I read your response as saying that both Bushes, Clinton, and Obama were also guilty of treason as I had defined it.

The reason I originally read your response that way is because you highlighted my definition of treason and then literally said that all those presidents had done the same thing.

A thing to note is that people use multiple definitions of treason. There’s a legal definition that I wasn’t using. There’s a colloquial version which makes sense to me and which I defined in my post and which you highlighted. That version requires a foreign power. And there’s a different colloquial version, which I think is also valid, which is focused on betraying the trust of your country, but doesn’t require the involvement of a foreign power.

In any case, on my first reading of your response, where you and I agree that we are using my definition of treason as highlighted, then the answer is no, I wasn’t aware that those presidents had done the same thing. I would be very interested in listening to you make that case. In politics, most people are not good listeners — but I am often looking to understand other well reasoned views. So you can count on me to listen at least.

On a second reading, I read an alternative meaning in your post that you were pointing out that past presidents have also been corrupt.

The straightforward answer to your questions on this second interpretation is, yes, I am aware of and critical of past presidents, with the exception of George HW.

For Clinton this was after the fact, that he’d supported mass incarceration in exchange for maintaining political power. I basically have the same problem with Obama and then additionally have a serious problem with the lack of controls placed on Wall Street. I was posting about Wall Street in 2012 and marching for Black Lives Matter during the Obama administration.

Regarding Wall Street, I almost lost a profitable, debt free business in the 2008 crash because it’s impossible to truly be independent of Wall Street. My business had no direct ties, but all of our customers were paralyzed in the crash and we went three months without signing a single new contract.

Larry Lessig has the framing that a corrupting system produces corrupt behavior whether the people are corrupt or not. That makes it easier for me to call out people I would vote for. So with Wall Street, it’s the system of Wall Street donors produces corrupt decisions.

The Wall Street issue is one that would have been top of mind for me if HRC had won. The Democratic Platforms (Republicans too, actually) had the policy changes I wanted, but of course, that doesn’t mean they would happen.

For George W. Bush, by impact, he was much worse than Trump has been, both in terms of financial damage and lives lost. But none of these people are currently president, so their flaws hold less interest to me today.

For George HW. I’m just ignorant. My family voted against him. But I don’t have any articulated reason why he was a bad president.

So, yes, absolutely, I have been and would be vocal no matter who was president. You could see that too in the post I was responding to, written in August of last year, when I was expecting the country to elect HRC.

Then, finally, regarding my “Silicon-elitist liberal coastal bubble.” An outside observer would probably be better able to validate that statement, but since you’re talking to me:

• I live in New York, not Silicon Valley.
• I work in coaching, not tech. On an average week, I don’t have a single conversation with a traditional tech worker (developer or designer). Instead, I talk to coaches, copy editors, personal development authors, other editors.
• I am elitist, but not as you describe it. Supporting people with the ambition to be elite is my job, hobby and passion. But none of that requires looking down on people with other ambitions (family, leisure, safety, etc). You’re being a jerk by throwing the pejorative at me without doing any research or bringing a citation. That part of your response is lazy — and really a waste of your time. You won’t burst anyone’s bubble that way.

Best,

Tony