US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2541
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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farvacola
United States18839 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 05 2020 16:35 KT_Elwood wrote: Actually Clinton got roughly 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016. So he is representing some more dirt in Colorado, but not the 50% of the US-Citizens ........................Trump....................Clinton Popular vote___62,984,828_____65,853,514 Percentage ____46.1% __________48.2% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election Trump got 46% of the vote, and you’re happy that’s not 50%? I’ve got some bad news for you about the tight neighborhood of those percentages. (One might even decide to round to the nearest tens to get a rough approximation of how the country voted) | ||
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brian
United States9633 Posts
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Arghmyliver
United States1077 Posts
On August 05 2020 23:25 Danglars wrote: Trump got 46% of the vote, and you’re happy that’s not 50%? I’ve got some bad news for you about the tight neighborhood of those percentages. (One might even decide to round to the nearest tens to get a rough approximation of how the country voted) Oh what faith your argument has, it could turn the undead! But seriously, we could also decide to round to the nearest hundred and sit here wondering why we have a president at all when everyone got 0% of the vote. Don't be a dumbass. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 05 2020 23:40 brian wrote: I suppose one could argue that nearly every election in recent history was a clean 50/50 split with the occasional 60/40 but i can’t see how that would possibly help any sort of conversation. Under 5% difference so it rounds it away (aka the election was closer to 60-40 than 50-50 + Show Spoiler + looking at the major party candidates, of course Obama (once), Clinton (twice), GHW Bush, Reagan (twice). So 6 times in the last 10 elections? I'd say the science says "nearly every election" is wrong. On August 05 2020 23:58 Arghmyliver wrote: Oh what faith your argument has, it could turn the undead! But seriously, we could also decide to round to the nearest hundred and sit here wondering why we have a president at all when everyone got 0% of the vote. Don't be a dumbass. Don't try to blunder your way through a very close election to announce "50 percent of the (voting) population voted for him" to be wrong. I think it's an easy choice, but some very passionate people on this forum want to play games with a 2% popular vote margin to declare something untrue. And like a bad weed, it keeps coming back. May I quip, maybe it's time to accept the 2016 election results? | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
Now, I don't think they literally meant "I don't believe he's president" for the most part, more that "he doesn't represent me". There's also a lot of outside factors people could blame for his election- Russian interference (ie DNC email dump with Moloch references), Comey's letter which violated all precedent and didn't mention that Trump was also under investigation, Hillary's pneumonia. And they'd all be right. It was a super close election decided by <10k votes in 3 states, so basically any one of those not happening and Trump loses. Trump got quite lucky. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11640 Posts
On August 05 2020 18:05 Acrofales wrote: Wait. Did he say that the US has a lower CFR than Germany? That... surprises me. Actually, I went and looked at the data: https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid USA does have a lower CFR now, but I think that is mainly due to the fact that the case load in Germany now is way down. So their peak in CFR comes from a time from before testing capability was ramped up, and all countries were severely undertesting, meaning CFR is far far far greater than IFR. Meanwhile, now that testing is ramped up, we still overreport severe cases slightly as there will inevitably be infected who don't ever get tested, but right now CFR is only slightly greater than IFR. That means that countries that are now living through peak infection, are identifying far more infected people per severe patient than those who were living through peak infection in April (like, Germany). CFR as an average over time means nothing. The meaningful comparison of CFR is using a window, in which case CFR in Germany is waaaayyyyyyyy down right now (over the last week it is ~1%, as opposed to the total average CFR of over 4%), but because there are comparatively few cases, that doesn't bring the overall average CFR down very much. Anyway, CFR is not a meaningless statistic: it gives you an idea of how well your healthcare system is dealing with the worst cases. However, deaths as a % of the population is obviously a better metric of how the entire system is dealing with the pandemic as a whole. CFR always rises once infections die down, simply because the infected now may be dead later, but CFR counts the dead now vs the infected total now. In the US, about 60% of the total cases are currently active (and may still die), while in Germany the active cases are less than 5% of the total, which means more of the total infected have had the time to die. | ||
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Arghmyliver
United States1077 Posts
On August 06 2020 00:08 Danglars wrote: Under 5% difference so it rounds it away (aka the election was closer to 60-40 than 50-50 + Show Spoiler + looking at the major party candidates, of course Obama (once), Clinton (twice), GHW Bush, Reagan (twice). So 6 times in the last 10 elections? I'd say the science says "nearly every election" is wrong. Don't try to blunder your way through a very close election to announce "50 percent of the (voting) population voted for him" to be wrong. I think it's an easy choice, but some very passionate people on this forum want to play games with a 2% popular vote margin to declare something untrue. And like a bad weed, it keeps coming back. May I quip, maybe it's time to accept the 2016 election results? What do you mean "Blunder your way through a close election" exactly? You know, I voted, but otherwise had little to do with the logistics. Did you mean those passionate people want to "play games with a 2% popular vote margin" like declare that 45 lost the popular vote by 2%? Because that's not "playing games" that's called "describing reality." Here we can "play a game." Every ten seconds, we both put 50 cents into a bowl and then I will take 52 cents out and you take out 48 cents. It's a great game because we both put in 50 cents, and both take out ~50 cents so you won't ever lose money! Are you suggesting we should shut up about how much of an odious heap of skin flaps held together by greed our current president is because many (but not most) of our fellow countrymen voted for him in 2016? If so, then I suggest you stick your suggestion somewhere suggestive. No one is arguing about who won the 2016 election, who got the most electoral votes, who got the most popular votes, etc. It is a FACT that 45 got the most electoral votes and was elected to the office of president based on the current electoral system. It is also a FACT that 45 lost the popular vote. Maybe it's time for you to accept those results. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 06 2020 00:41 Nevuk wrote: There were plenty of "Not my president" signs going around. Trump definitely didn't get anything like acceptance from a large portion of voters, and he lost what little he had gained after he governed the same as he campaigned (remember the days when the media kept hyping the "presidential pivot"?). Now, I don't think they literally meant "I don't believe he's president" for the most part, more that "he doesn't represent me". There's also a lot of outside factors people could blame for his election- Russian interference (ie DNC email dump with Moloch references), Comey's letter which violated all precedent and didn't mention that Trump was also under investigation, Hillary's pneumonia. And they'd all be right. It was a super close election decided by <10k votes in 3 states, so basically any one of those not happening and Trump loses. Trump got quite lucky. I don't want to mislead you about what I meant when I corrected another poster. The social and cultural responses to the election of someone like Trump are real. When I count votes and percentages, it is to remind people that correcting someone on the "50% voted for Trump" is a bad decision. It is a correct approximation of what actually happened, and the exact vote difference does not change it. Similarly, the popular vote result, so far as it represents what the voting public voted for, is not the electoral college. Certainly, bring up that close results in a number of swing states made the outcome of the entire election. I did not respond to some hardcore Trump supporter that pointed to the raw electoral vote difference (Trump won 304 to 227), I responded to someone acting like it wasn't a 50-50 election with a 2% popular vote difference. Comey's misdeeds are good to bring up, though they were made in light of sworn testimony regarding Hillary's operation of a private server in a bathroom closet. The point of misdeed was swearing to alert Congress if anything further came up in a closed investigation, and holding a press conference announcing the results (that's the DOJ AG's office to determine). He has since been exposed on numerous instances of FISA abuse in Inspector General reports and general corruption in the Flynn matter, so it appears he was just overall an unethical guy who never should have risen even close to his final rank in the FBI. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9728 Posts
I have never seen a poll or election where it was deemed necessary to round up to the nearest 10%. The only reason you would want to do that is to delete any small difference in the numbers, and make it look like something happened that didn't happen. I don't even see the point in having the argument now anyway, but if you're going to, its best to just accept the raw numbers instead of arbitrarily changing them to fit what you wish had happened. | ||
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brian
United States9633 Posts
On August 06 2020 00:08 Danglars wrote: Under 5% difference so it rounds it away (aka the election was closer to 60-40 than 50-50 + Show Spoiler + looking at the major party candidates, of course Obama (once), Clinton (twice), GHW Bush, Reagan (twice). So 6 times in the last 10 elections? I'd say the science says "nearly every election" is wrong. Don't try to blunder your way through a very close election to announce "50 percent of the (voting) population voted for him" to be wrong. I think it's an easy choice, but some very passionate people on this forum want to play games with a 2% popular vote margin to declare something untrue. And like a bad weed, it keeps coming back. May I quip, maybe it's time to accept the 2016 election results? of your examples only the 1992 and 1984 elections are 60/40 when rounding to the nearest 10s. Obama 2012: 52.9% Obama 2008: 51.06% Clinton 1996: 49.23 % Bush 1988: 53.37% i could do the rest but i don’t want to. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 06 2020 01:01 Arghmyliver wrote: What do you mean "Blunder your way through a close election" exactly? You know, I voted, but otherwise had little to do with the logistics. Did you mean those passionate people want to "play games with a 2% popular vote margin" like declare that 45 lost the popular vote by 2%? Because that's not "playing games" that's called "describing reality." Here we can "play a game." Every ten seconds, we both put 50 cents into a bowl and then I will take 52 cents out and you take out 48 cents. It's a great game because we both put in 50 cents, and both take out ~50 cents so you won't ever lose money! Are you suggesting we should shut up about how much of an odious heap of skin flaps held together by greed our current president is because many (but not most) of our fellow countrymen voted for him in 2016? If so, then I suggest you stick your suggestion somewhere suggestive. No one is arguing about who won the 2016 election, who got the most electoral votes, who got the most popular votes, etc. It is a FACT that 45 got the most electoral votes and was elected to the office of president based on the current electoral system. It is also a FACT that 45 lost the popular vote. Maybe it's time for you to accept those results. You're getting a little distracted here, so let me recenter. Are you still claiming declaring the election 50% is tantamount to "we could also decide to round to the nearest hundred and sit here wondering why we have a president at all when everyone got 0% of the vote. Don't be a dumbass." I think it's an accurate statement of a very close election result with a margin of 2%. I'm fine with anyone saying Trump lost the election by 3 million votes and 2% of the popular vote. I'm not okay with these handwringers opposed to "50% of the population voted for him" to say (AkTually) "Clinton got roughly 3 million more votes." Yeah, she got 3 million more votes in roughly a 50-50 election. Taking just the votes for the two major party candidates, that's 51% to 49%. If 51% to 49% is a big enough difference to declare "50% voted for Trump" a lie, then perhaps your real gripe is that the other guy said Clinton won by 3 million, when actually it was 2.87 million. Because that's apparently where we're at on approximations, and probably not worth further investment of time unless more than one person and one half-hearted person wants to gripe. | ||
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Broetchenholer
Germany1947 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 06 2020 01:16 brian wrote: of your examples only the 1992 and 1984 elections are 60/40 when rounding to the nearest 10s. Obama 2012: 52.9% Obama 2008: 51.06% Clinton 1996: 49.23 % Bush 1988: 53.37% i could do the rest but i don’t want to. If it has to be 60-40, you have to set the race so the top two sum to be 100% of casted votes. The 50-50 and 60-40 generalizations assume a 2 candidate race, because otherwise the "sum to 100%" means of verbal parlance has to be discarded. People don't say 60-30 or 70-20 as means of declaring there were third++ choices remaining. | ||
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brian
United States9633 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 06 2020 01:14 Jockmcplop wrote: Rounding to the nearest 10% in this case is just a distortion of the stats. I have never seen a poll or election where it was deemed necessary to round up to the nearest 10%. The only reason you would want to do that is to delete any small difference in the numbers, and make it look like something happened that didn't happen. I don't even see the point in having the argument now anyway, but if you're going to, its best to just accept the raw numbers instead of arbitrarily changing them to fit what you wish had happened. I also have zero problems with the statistics behind the claim people make that said 50% of the country was racist, because 46.1% of the voting population picked Trump. It's not a matter of trying to make a claim, it's a matter of talking approximately about a very close election. A 2% of a popular vote margin is a very close margin ... you might say a 50-50 election. I'm thinking people really want me to correct the 3million vote loss to 2.87 million vote loss, because approximations are lies! (Or maybe Jockmcplop yells at Tasteless when he says Stats is up twenty probes, when the actual count is 24 or something) | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 06 2020 01:14 Jockmcplop wrote: Rounding to the nearest 10% in this case is just a distortion of the stats. I have never seen a poll or election where it was deemed necessary to round up to the nearest 10%. The only reason you would want to do that is to delete any small difference in the numbers, and make it look like something happened that didn't happen. I don't even see the point in having the argument now anyway, but if you're going to, its best to just accept the raw numbers instead of arbitrarily changing them to fit what you wish had happened. I also have zero problems with the statistics behind the claim people make that said 50% of the country was racist, because 46.1% of the voting population picked Trump. It's not a matter of trying to make a claim, it's a matter of talking approximately about a very close election. A 2% of a popular vote margin is a very close margin ... you might say a 50-50 election. I'm thinking people really want me to correct the 3million vote loss to 2.87 million vote loss, because approximations are lies! (Or maybe Jockmcplop yells at Tasteless when he says Stats is up twenty probes, when the actual count is 24 or something) On August 06 2020 01:21 brian wrote: it doesn’t have to be, my point was it’s an asinine thing to say or do in the first place. I posted to say the person correcting the "50% voted for Trump" to 46.1% was an asinine thing to say or do. We don't have to use 46.1% to 48.2% every time someone wants to reference the 2016 vote. | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On August 06 2020 01:07 Danglars wrote: Comey's misdeeds are good to bring up, though they were made in light of sworn testimony regarding Hillary's operation of a private server in a bathroom closet. The point of misdeed was swearing to alert Congress if anything further came up in a closed investigation, and holding a press conference announcing the results (that's the DOJ AG's office to determine). He has since been exposed on numerous instances of FISA abuse in Inspector General reports and general corruption in the Flynn matter, so it appears he was just overall an unethical guy who never should have risen even close to his final rank in the FBI. I think we agree on Comey, though differ on the reasons. I believe the FBI announced their recent audit found only minor issues with the FISA process. Of course, we'll never know for sure, since it's a secret court (which is a terrible idea for US citizens). I'm inclined to believe them at least with regards to Carter Page, because have you seen the guy talk? Any interview he gives seems like it would be grounds to still have one on him. He was definitely a bad executive regardless of the FISA thing. He let his people leak endlessly (to both sides), made weird, half assed statements on the private server (I still can't tell if he actually thought she did something wrong - he tried to have it both ways), and his book was only exceeded by Hillary's in level of avoiding blame for events he was involved in. He could have announced the reopening of the investigation significantly earlier than he did. Seemed delusional to think it wouldn't come out. For all that Mueller didn't look great in front of congress, his team was far better organized and led. | ||
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