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On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls.
The polls are supposed to be estimates, you can trust them to a degree. The Shy Tory factor can't be bigger than a few percent.
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On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. There certainly is a group of 'independents' who are just shy/ashamed Republicans who don't want to come out for Trump but what interests me most about this is how a 'life long democrat' could look at 2016 Trump and think 'this is the guy for the job', let alone 2020 Trump.
What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump?
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On September 07 2020 02:22 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. You're right in that we can't have confidence in polls. The shy tory effect is really well known. There are a few different explanations, from moralism coming from the left, to many conservatives simply having 'grown out' of leftism and feeling a bit sheepish about admitting that their deeply held views are no longer so deeply held.
Another explanation I've read elsewhere is that the Shy Tories aren't actually lying in the polls. They don't take them in the first place because they don't trust the pollsters. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are the ones who are making the polls inaccurate by refusing to participate in them.
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On September 07 2020 02:47 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. You're right in that we can't have confidence in polls. The shy tory effect is really well known. There are a few different explanations, from moralism coming from the left, to many conservatives simply having 'grown out' of leftism and feeling a bit sheepish about admitting that their deeply held views are no longer so deeply held. Another explanation I've read elsewhere is that the Shy Tories aren't actually lying in the polls. They don't take them in the first place because they don't trust the pollsters. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are the ones who are making the polls inaccurate by refusing to participate in them.
Polls aren't even that inaccurate and are as accurate as they have ever been (historically).
It's pundits that really start to screw up these predictions by misinterpreting polls.
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On September 07 2020 01:15 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 00:59 Zambrah wrote:On September 07 2020 00:06 JimmiC wrote:On September 06 2020 17:40 Zambrah wrote:On September 06 2020 13:19 JimmiC wrote:
Pretty sure the Dems know that the left of Bernie vote is not coming their way and makes up a super tiny amount of the voting public. Communism is so unpopular in the USA it is the first attack the Reps use. If you want Trump out you are glad the Biden is sticking to the middle since that is what won him, by a lot, the Dem nomination. Doesn't the Dem nomination involve a shit ton of states that will literally never go Blue no matter what though? The Dem nomination doesnt seem to me like it speaks to picking the ideal candidate for the general election, after all, who gives a flying fuck what people in Alabama think about the Democrat's candidate when their state will NEVER flip red to blue? Thinking his chances in the general are stronger since he won the nomination is the kind of argument that let Biden's centrism look so appealing and its obvious by the amount of doubt about him floating around that the argument doesn't seem to be some golden ticket against Trump. If Democrats are having to worry so much about the margins and seem to be unable to afford alienating their progressive constituents maybe having Biden swing to the right so damn much because it won him the nomination isn't ACTUALLY a good thing for a general election when Democrats want an energized voting base thats excited to get out and vote for them. Maybe, my thought is that if Bernie couldn't energize enough of his base to beat Biden, I doubt he could do it for Trump. Biden is going to lose some of the progressives, Bernie would have lost most of the moderates. With two parties there is basically no one who can fit everyone or even close. On September 06 2020 20:27 Gahlo wrote:On September 06 2020 13:19 JimmiC wrote:
Pretty sure the Dems know that the left of Bernie vote is not coming their way and makes up a super tiny amount of the voting public. Communism is so unpopular in the USA it is the first attack the Reps use. If you want Trump out you are glad the Biden is sticking to the middle since that is what won him, by a lot, the Dem nomination. Doesn't matter when they paint everybody on the Democratic party with socialism regardless of their policies. Yeah it is like a swear word to them. But I think outside of their base most independents they are fighting over will not believe it on Biden but some would for Bernie when they played a bunch of clips using the terms. On September 06 2020 17:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 06 2020 13:19 JimmiC wrote:
Pretty sure the Dems know that the left of Bernie vote is not coming their way and makes up a super tiny amount of the voting public. Communism is so unpopular in the USA it is the first attack the Reps use. If you want Trump out you are glad the Biden is sticking to the middle since that is what won him, by a lot, the Dem nomination. Communism is hugely unpopular everywhere. But to be honest, there is some margin even between Sanders and the marxist leninist rubbish that the most extreme leftists advocate. I think many regular left wing parties in Europe that are not communists for the least could be considered on the left of Sanders. I think he would be a regular social democrat in Northern Europe. The "Revolution" rhetoric is just a marketing trick to get hardcore leftists on board, even though there is not much hardcore leftism in his program. I think that backfired, unfortunately. I think Bernie ran a pretty good campaign and in a 4 party system he could do quite well. Just there was not was not enough in his Camp in the USA. If it bounces left post Trump and millennial's and younger keep trending left I think there is a chance a social democrat could win the dems and what is now moderate dem could flip to the reps. It is too bad Bernie is so old I think each time he lost (especially in 16 when it was dirty) and then took it with such grace he gained standing in the party. He will have a powerful endorsement going forward. I cant disagree with this enough, American elections arent about moderates theyre about driving turnout, Trump especially, since people are going to have hard and fast opinions about whether or not theyll vote for him. This election wanted a candidate to really energize people to get out there and VOTE. Democrats win when people vote, when you have a candidate like Biden that is in so many ways a blue version of Trump you're not going to get people who WANT to vote for him, youre relying on people voting AGAINST Trump. Let me know how that worked out the last time it was the approach the DNC used. Anyways, "moderates" are a dumb thing in the US, we don't have people who love to swing between candidates so freely. Drive turnout. Give the people what they want so they feel compelled to go out there and make it happen. I hope to god that if Trump wins we stop hearing this, "Americans want moderates!" for the rest of eternity as a justification for why Progressives cant be trusted to win elections. I guess my question is then, why didn't Bernie win the nomination? He had the money, the ground swell and so on. I think it is that young people just don't vote enough, which is also true of the general election. I mean all you need to do is get enough votes and progressive is in. This is not Russia where opposing candidates get poisoned or China where they end up in jail for not supporting the party. The big issue in the US is the type of people from a economic and education level that tend to vote left in other countries are voting Trump. The question might be how do you convince them instead of the moderates.
Id argue that Bernie lost because of a concentrated narrative of "centrism is the only safe way to beat Trump" alongside every centrist dropping out in a concerted effort to push Biden to the top.
I think you underestimate what pushing a narrative in the US can achieve. This election is undoubtedly about Trump, when you have the full party apparatus of the DNC rallying behind one candidate super hard (and they undoubtedly have a HUGE interest in preventing progressives from advancing in their party) and declaring him "Our only chance to beat Trump!" by saying frankly idiotic shit like "Look, everyone likes what Bernie wants to do, but hes a SOCIALIST, and we all know that the Republicans will attack him as a socialist!" as if Biden isn't going to eat every ounce of Republican namecalling that Bernie would.
Anyways, I still think this idea that you need to convince anyone of anything in the US is flawed. Half of the people in the US dont vote in presidential elections, instead of trying to be so milquetoast centrist or republican lite that you piss off your guaranteed voters in order to try and court voters that are basically guaranteed voters of your enemies seems dumb when you could instead try and get more people to want to vote. Noone is going to be convincing anyone of anything in this country unless its driving someone further into the depths of their own side of the political spectrum, imo.
EDIT: Let me put it this way, do you think any amount of discourse you have with Danglars is going to get him to vote for a Democrat? He's not even a raging Trump nut and I doubt anything you say to him will turn him into a Democrat at any point in the future.
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It wasnt a 1v1 though, because Warren never dropped out, and she was a sizable presence even if she wasnt winning any states.
You should chase the Progressive vote more because Progressives WANT to be involved in politics but we aren't nearly as willing to suck shit as Democrats and Republicans traditional bases. The party bases arent something thats going to shift. If youre old in the US and have a party preference youre probably going to be voting for them hell or high water, thats not a demographic that people should be chasing, they're rock fucking steady. Why are people so obsessed with trying to move these boulders when they could throw a few bones out there and have stuff come to them?
And Biden isnt even chasing the middle hes chasing Republicans at this point, the middle in the US is this mythological election swinger as though some massive voting bloc exists that is swinging between parties election to election. People are either going to tolerate Trump or they aren't, this is an election that is far from suited to playing the centrist angle. You have a populace that generally has strong opinions about Trump, you want to inspire the ones who have negative opinions of Trump to get out there and vote instead of trying to convince the people who like Trump to like Biden.
If Democrats valued winning over stroking corporate dick they'd start embracing Progressivism because the old people are 1. going to be dying at some point in the near future, and 2. are already going to convince themselves they like the Democrat whoever it is.
If Biden can't beat Trump handily I hope you'll reevaluate where Americans are when it comes to who they vote for, because I sincerely think you overestimate how thoughtful the majority of American voters are about who they cast their vote for.
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Not only do I think progressive policies are better, more Americans than not think a lot of the core tenets of progressivism are better, a progressive platform is hugely popular, people love worker protections, universal healthcare, etc. These are only progressive fantasies because the rich shitheads who basically run the country don't want their bottom line touched.
The DNC doesnt want our vote because their corporate overlords dont want Progressivism. I mean, by your own standards, Bernie put up a fierce fight in the primary, are you saying that alienating all of his voters is fine as long as they swing some moderates to Biden? How does a group of voters saying, "WE WONT VOTE FOR YOU IF YOU DONT BE MORE PROGRESSIVE" make it less likely for someone to chase those votes? This is a group of people who are saying, "WE WILL VOTE FOR YOU IF YOU DO THE THING!" the only thing that should signal is "hey if we do this then we'll get these people's votes." How is that different from any other voting bloc that basically does the same thing? The only people who aren't going to be saying things like that are people whose votes are nigh unswayable because theyre attached to a party.
This is another argument that I hate, that because Progressives have to have their vote earned that their votes should be ignored, as if ignoring a group of potential voters is somehow good strategy.
Its definitely not better in almost every way for Progressives if Biden wins, because then the dumb electability idiocy will go on and on and the sooner the media has to stop pushing that bullshit to justify preventing anything from changing in the US the better. I'd argue a Biden win makes the fight for Progressivism in the Democrat party much harder.
Also Warren didnt drop out for Super Tuesday and that was basically when everything was decided. She was the spanner in the Progressive works, Im not saying if she dropped Bernie wins, he still probably loses, but trying to claim it was ever really Bernie vs. Biden 1v1 is just completely false.
On an ending to my rambling inanities, have you heard that the wealth inequality in America is worse now than it was in France just before the French Revolution? You may despise GH but theres plenty of reason why America needs to look beyond electoralism and start considering it's founding revolutionary spirit. While GH may disavow violent uprisings I'm waiting for the day we cart out the guillotines and serve up some billionaire tartare. 
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On September 07 2020 03:00 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:47 Sent. wrote:On September 07 2020 02:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. You're right in that we can't have confidence in polls. The shy tory effect is really well known. There are a few different explanations, from moralism coming from the left, to many conservatives simply having 'grown out' of leftism and feeling a bit sheepish about admitting that their deeply held views are no longer so deeply held. Another explanation I've read elsewhere is that the Shy Tories aren't actually lying in the polls. They don't take them in the first place because they don't trust the pollsters. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are the ones who are making the polls inaccurate by refusing to participate in them. Polls aren't even that inaccurate and are as accurate as they have ever been (historically). It's pundits that really start to screw up these predictions by misinterpreting polls.
Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. Polling has gone from being something that gets looked at but not focused on to something that people build their entire brand and career around loosely analyzing and presenting to the public. With the rise of aggregators like fivethirtyeight, etc. we've seen polls become something highly focused on but also something that are both simplified in a way that reduces the meaning of individual polls and causes a great deal of information to be lost. Most people just look at the big graphs on 538 and go "yay" when the graphs change the way they want and panic when they don't.
We saw this type of stuff happen a lot in the last Canadian election. There was a daily polling firm that was frequently used by news organizations. Often if there was a non-trivial change in their polls we would see people losing their minds over the whole thing when in reality the poll's sample was significantly different demographic-wise compared to previous ones. When the poll had way more old white people sampled the Cons did better and vice versa. The same thing can seen in the polls for this US election, but unfortunately with the rise of aggregators, this type of nuance can get missed. All people see now is "Chart goes up, chart goes down".
We also are seeing a lot of what I would consider statistical malpractice by pundits and news organizations. CNN has been particularly guilty of this. They don't even try to hide their cherrypicking of data anymore. A week or two back they ran two different analysis articles in which one was about how close the race was and one about Biden's continual lead in the polls. The first article's only polling citation was a several week-old CNN/SSRS poll that, at the time, was an obvious outlier, but the poll's numbers agreed with the narrative the author was trying to establish. This was despite almost every other poll, including other CNN polls, disagreeing with the results of that CNN/SSRS poll. In the second article they cited the polling average and more average-looking polls to push the narrative that Biden was comfortably leading polls and seemed to have a lead over Trump. Unfortunately CNN isn't the only one guilty of this and it seems to be quite commonplace these days, especially in editorial sections.
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On September 07 2020 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. There certainly is a group of 'independents' who are just shy/ashamed Republicans who don't want to come out for Trump but what interests me most about this is how a 'life long democrat' could look at 2016 Trump and think 'this is the guy for the job', let alone 2020 Trump. What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump?
Jus to put this in the most straightforward way possible: Have you been paying attention to how each party has changed in the last decade? Maybe not very intentional, but this post comes off as highly skeptical that there is such a thing as a "Trump Democrat" when we can see entire regions and populations that have altered their voting patterns over the years, some of them drastically in 2016. Also recall that in 2016 Trump was seen as the most moderate GOP candidate in years (and he was certainly the one closest to the Democrats many times when he spoke). Meanwhile, progressive whining aside, the Democrat party has moved left on almost every issue even from Obama. It's why even "moderate" Joe Biden doesn't sound like his 1970s, 80s, 90s, or 00s self. He moves with the partly and they have moved left.
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He doesn't call for violent uprising. He points out that the current system is broken to the point that anything but will just be ignored and the status quo will keep chugging along. It's the same as any conversation aimed at racism/sexism/privilege, etc and discomfort. Making people uncomfortable in those conversations is not the goal, it's just that people get so entrenched where they are that it's unfortunately impossible to avoid. People need to be actively uncomfortable and dissatisfied with current affairs to actively change them when the system is so unresponsive to peoples' needs.
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Northern Ireland26765 Posts
On September 07 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. There certainly is a group of 'independents' who are just shy/ashamed Republicans who don't want to come out for Trump but what interests me most about this is how a 'life long democrat' could look at 2016 Trump and think 'this is the guy for the job', let alone 2020 Trump. What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump? Jus to put this in the most straightforward way possible: Have you been paying attention to how each party has changed in the last decade? Maybe not very intentional, but this post comes off as highly skeptical that there is such a thing as a "Trump Democrat" when we can see entire regions and populations that have altered their voting patterns over the years, some of them drastically in 2016. Also recall that in 2016 Trump was seen as the most moderate GOP candidate in years (and he was certainly the one closest to the Democrats many times when he spoke). Meanwhile, progressive whining aside, the Democrat party has moved left on almost every issue even from Obama. It's why even "moderate" Joe Biden doesn't sound like his 1970s, 80s, 90s, or 00s self. He moves with the partly and they have moved left.
In 2020 I would be pretty skeptical.
2016 I guess, although even then he was a bit of a strange outlier and difficult for some to piece together. His whole ostensible platform was a bit of a departure in a fair few areas, his past utterances on say same-sex marriage were a bit ahead of even his Dem opponents, so I do recall some commentary on him being socially liberal in certain areas.
On the other hand you got plenty of glimpses of the Trumpian playbook to playing to the gallery and scapegoating various marginalised peoples. Or picking Pence as a VP which kind of wipes out him being on the right side of that issue back in the day. Which made people rather worried about him even when he was seen as a no-hoper to actually win.
It’s hard to remember exactly what the kind of consensus was back through time like that, my recollection was not that he was seen as one of the most moderate GOP candidates in a few cycles, but that he had some moderate tendencies amidst a lot of really worrying tendencies. Perhaps a moderate candidate with extremism as a methodology.
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On September 07 2020 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. There certainly is a group of 'independents' who are just shy/ashamed Republicans who don't want to come out for Trump but what interests me most about this is how a 'life long democrat' could look at 2016 Trump and think 'this is the guy for the job', let alone 2020 Trump. What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump?
What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump?
You overestimate the average voter. Democrats which went to college,care about global warming and such,they would (almost) never vote trump. But that is less then 10% of the population and less then 20% of the people who vote democratic.
You cant compare the average democratic voter with a person who would vote say "d,66" in the netherlands (which i guess would come closest to the high educated liberal democrats and with the democratic platform in general). The average democratic voter is pretty much a "pvda" or "cda" voter,many of who have become disapointed with politics in general. At one point they dont buy the rethoric of their own party anymore and they switch to the other side.
Its kinda interesting,in one way trump is even more atractive for those voters then a "moderate" establishment republican who would probably never have been able to win those votes
Zambrah wrote: (appoligies for bad quoting).
"because I sincerely think you overestimate how thoughtful the majority of American voters are about who they cast their vote for."
Yes pretty much this,people vote mostly based on feelings. This is even far more so the case in the usa then it is in europe.
"On an ending to my rambling inanities, have you heard that the wealth inequality in America is worse now than it was in France just before the French Revolution? "
Its close to breaking point,the max a democratic society is willing to accept (non democratic societys can handle inequality which is quiet a bit higher). You could argue it kinda is already past breaking point.
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Northern Ireland26765 Posts
On September 07 2020 05:07 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 04:49 NewSunshine wrote:
He doesn't call for violent uprising. He points out that the current system is broken to the point that anything but will just be ignored and the status quo will keep chugging along. It's the same as any conversation aimed at racism/sexism/privilege, etc and discomfort. Making people uncomfortable in those conversations is not the goal, it's just that people get so entrenched where they are that it's unfortunately impossible to avoid. People need to be actively uncomfortable and dissatisfied with current affairs to actively change them when the system is so unresponsive to peoples' needs. While I agree with your take, I don't believe that is GH's based on why he thinks guns should continue to be the way they are in the USA. There is really no difference between wanting and thinking it is 100% the only way. Once you think the latter you are going to end up with the former. I also think the progressives would have more success if they could tailor their message, uncomfortable or not, towards the middle American worker. Globally this is where progressives have had a ton of success. And with many of them gravitating to a populist/complete break from the norm, Trump they are clearly not feeling that the traditional parties speak to them.
How do you do that though? I mean what part of existing progressive pet policies are especially alienating to that segment of society?
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On September 07 2020 05:15 Wombat_NornIron wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 04:30 Introvert wrote:On September 07 2020 02:37 Gorsameth wrote:On September 07 2020 02:13 reborn8u2 wrote:On September 06 2020 20:03 iamthedave wrote:On September 06 2020 14:49 StalkerTL wrote:
For better or worse, the polls themselves suggest a pretty clear Biden lead that isn't really shifting unless you're taking into account pollsters that use a large amount of online methods such as using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. A lot of those same polls have extremely odd results, such as that Atlas Intel poll suggesting 48% of white Americans support Biden (that would be the largest white support for any Democratic candidate since LBJ) and 30% black support Trump (that would be a ~20 point improvement vs the 2018 midterm elections).
The polling itself, ignoring online heavy pollsters who put out polls in the immediate aftermath of the RNC and DNC, has shown a very consistent Biden lead of 6-10 points. Its a referendum on Trump's presidency and his method of governance has in him in the media every single day of the 4 years. There's just not many undecideds this election because there's no way you can avoid hearing about Trump, whether through the media or through social media.
There's a lot of garbage happening all around America to delegitimize the election, such as the Trump Administration doing their very best efforts to cripple the USPS so mail voting may come in later than sooner. So obviously Biden can lose pretty easily. But the polling wouldn't suggest this at all and obviously can't take into account things like voter suppression and the voting behaviour during the coronavirus.
I don't believe third parties are going to spoil the election for either side. Name recognition of the Greens and Libertarian candidate is close to non-existent in polling and more importantly there's few undecideds compared to 2016 where both Trump and Clinton were polling in the low 40s (and even the 30s in some states!). If there was ever a sign that Clinton was in trouble, it was the sheer number of undecideds and her inability to poll higher than something like 45%.
Compare that to the consistent low-mid 40s for Trump and Biden consistently hitting 50. Even the single Kanye presidential poll I've seen suggests he has little pull and if he does have any pull he probably pulls more Trump voters than Democratic voters (not surprising, his campaign has been extremely evangelical). Didn't 100% of the polls in 2016 show a clear Hilary lead though? I thought after 2016 we all admitted that polling doesn't work because of how the data is collected (either the sample size isn't good enough or the questions are too simplistic). Just want to share my Boss's experience with polling. A bit of background, he is in his early 50's and was a lifelong democrat until Trump. As he put's it, he was a "Blue dog" democrat. He's been following and interested in politics his whole life, he literally studies all the local/state politics as well, we've had a lot of state constitution changes on the ballot in the last few years (he can talk about those alone for hours). Even as a teenager he couldn't wait to turn 18 so he could vote. He's always been very outspoken about his views/values. He's taken hundreds of polls in his life, but no more. When he decided in 2016 he was voting for Trump, he took 2 polls just before the election (over the phone). After that experience he says "I'll never take another poll again". He says that as soon as he stated he intended to vote for Trump the person giving the poll on the phone became extremely condescending and flat out rude. The other thing that really pissed him off was how loaded the questions were. He says there was no way for him to voice his opinions because all of the questions and answers were worded in such a way that there were no responses he could make that showed his opinion. He says he's now a "shy tory" en.wikipedia.org , and if you told him 10 years ago he'd be where he is now he would have "called you an idiot". With so many calling Trump supporters racists and nazi's, who can blame him for no longer sharing his politics. He says he would never even put a Trump bumper sticker on his car or wear a maga hat, for fear of vandalism, or violence. I think there are a lot of people who are in the same mindset. There has been a lot of suppression, vandalism, and violence against Trump supporters in the last 4 years. If you have been following mainstream media, you probably don't realize how bad the problem is, they don't give it any attention. The media as well as most major online platforms have been very one sided in what and how they cover stories, and have been flat out censoring conservative voices for years now. I don't think we can have any confidence in the polls. There certainly is a group of 'independents' who are just shy/ashamed Republicans who don't want to come out for Trump but what interests me most about this is how a 'life long democrat' could look at 2016 Trump and think 'this is the guy for the job', let alone 2020 Trump. What sort of political values and beliefs that match with Democrats for decades matches up with Trump? Jus to put this in the most straightforward way possible: Have you been paying attention to how each party has changed in the last decade? Maybe not very intentional, but this post comes off as highly skeptical that there is such a thing as a "Trump Democrat" when we can see entire regions and populations that have altered their voting patterns over the years, some of them drastically in 2016. Also recall that in 2016 Trump was seen as the most moderate GOP candidate in years (and he was certainly the one closest to the Democrats many times when he spoke). Meanwhile, progressive whining aside, the Democrat party has moved left on almost every issue even from Obama. It's why even "moderate" Joe Biden doesn't sound like his 1970s, 80s, 90s, or 00s self. He moves with the partly and they have moved left. In 2020 I would be pretty skeptical. 2016 I guess, although even then he was a bit of a strange outlier and difficult for some to piece together. His whole ostensible platform was a bit of a departure in a fair few areas, his past utterances on say same-sex marriage were a bit ahead of even his Dem opponents, so I do recall some commentary on him being socially liberal in certain areas. On the other hand you got plenty of glimpses of the Trumpian playbook to playing to the gallery and scapegoating various marginalised peoples. Or picking Pence as a VP which kind of wipes out him being on the right side of that issue back in the day. Which made people rather worried about him even when he was seen as a no-hoper to actually win. It’s hard to remember exactly what the kind of consensus was back through time like that, my recollection was not that he was seen as one of the most moderate GOP candidates in a few cycles, but that he had some moderate tendencies amidst a lot of really worrying tendencies. Perhaps a moderate candidate with extremism as a methodology.
Like many, you focus far too much on the political game aspect of this, e.g. "the Trumpian playbook."
Not that I'm going to scrap it up, but polling back then had him perceived as more of a moderate.
Trump did in fact sign a more-or-less mainline Republican tax law (which, if you want another example of how parties change, see how the Democrats are currently trying to reinstate the biggest tax break for the well off that the bill eliminated). However, he has been relatively consistent in his overall messages on trade, Social Security, foreign policy, immigration, abortion, and other issues. Trump is not a typical Republican. He has promised to not touch Social Security, has been restrained in his use of force overseas, has sold out far less often on immigration, isn't afraid to talk up his pro-life stances, has acted on trade, etc. I think the people who hoped he would tone down his rhetoric in office are disappointed, but I'm not sure how many people who actually supported his ideas are really that bummed out. (And for me at least, it's a welcome surprise).
Point being, the inability to see how there could be such a thing as a "Trump Democrat" comes off as far-too-common left wing arrogance and ignorance. The question "how could people possibly support Trump" is clearly offered only as a sardonic and dismissive quip instead of a question genuinely asked.
But then again, apparently it's hard for many to even understand how someone could think that burning down buildings is bad, so maybe there is even more work to do.
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On September 07 2020 05:24 Wombat_NornIron wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2020 05:07 JimmiC wrote:On September 07 2020 04:49 NewSunshine wrote:
He doesn't call for violent uprising. He points out that the current system is broken to the point that anything but will just be ignored and the status quo will keep chugging along. It's the same as any conversation aimed at racism/sexism/privilege, etc and discomfort. Making people uncomfortable in those conversations is not the goal, it's just that people get so entrenched where they are that it's unfortunately impossible to avoid. People need to be actively uncomfortable and dissatisfied with current affairs to actively change them when the system is so unresponsive to peoples' needs. While I agree with your take, I don't believe that is GH's based on why he thinks guns should continue to be the way they are in the USA. There is really no difference between wanting and thinking it is 100% the only way. Once you think the latter you are going to end up with the former. I also think the progressives would have more success if they could tailor their message, uncomfortable or not, towards the middle American worker. Globally this is where progressives have had a ton of success. And with many of them gravitating to a populist/complete break from the norm, Trump they are clearly not feeling that the traditional parties speak to them. How do you do that though? I mean what part of existing progressive pet policies are especially alienating to that segment of society?
Mostly policies when it comes to climate change as well as some aspects of identity politics.
Most people they care mostly about what will happen to them,this goes even more so if those people themselves are struggling. They want attention mostly for their own problems and not the problems of someone else.
Climate change people care about as long as it doesnt cost them their job (coal workers) or comes with a lot of extra costs to them (some sort of climate tax or whatever). For many people its a distant problem that has no effect on their daily live (even though you can see the impact of climate change more and more,it still is a very low process in general).
People care about fairness in general and all people beeing treated equally,but for many people caring about those things (as well as climate change) is a bit of a luxery they only afford themselves if they dont have to struggle.
But when people stuggle a lot themselves then many people are not all that interested anymore in hearing about the struggle of other groups or long term problems like climate change. They then feel their problems are beeing ignored and they want the focus to be on their own struggles instead.
Its kinda sad but i think that is how it does work for many people.
The best practical change for the progressives is indeed to tailor their message to the middle american worker and the wories and concerns of the middle american worker,something that sanders did manage to do very well.
This would then have the consequence of lowering the priority of some of their "pet policies" like climate change.
Just to be clear,i am not saying the progressives should (or shouldnt do this). Everyone should make up for themselves what they want to do and if the progressives want to keep the focus on their "pet" policies then by all means they should go ahead. But i dont think that aproach will ever lead to broad succes.
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On September 07 2020 04:49 NewSunshine wrote:
He doesn't call for violent uprising. He points out that the current system is broken to the point that anything but will just be ignored and the status quo will keep chugging along. It's the same as any conversation aimed at racism/sexism/privilege, etc and discomfort. Making people uncomfortable in those conversations is not the goal, it's just that people get so entrenched where they are that it's unfortunately impossible to avoid. People need to be actively uncomfortable and dissatisfied with current affairs to actively change them when the system is so unresponsive to peoples' needs.
Don't bother wasting your time trying to explain this to him. He is clearly incapable of processing it.
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EPT
