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There is some massive cope/bias in this topic (pretty much an echo chamber when you take the whole Overton window into consideration). Trump IS the incumbent. Props to posters like simberto and greenhorizons for keeping it real.
I am interested to hear anecdotes from anyone living in the US.
I've lived in NYC, the democratic citadel of the US, my entire life, and I'm still here. I've never seen this level of nationalism (which I more or less assume = Trump) in the NYC area in my life. That Blue Lives Matter flag widespread in certain neighborhoods, pro-Trump gatherings in NYC itself, American flags raised in residential, MAGA gear here and there (never saw any in 2016). Then whenever i go to the suburbs or the greater Tri state area all I see are straight up MAGA/Trump stuff. On the 4th of July, all I saw from my balcony was endless fireworks across my borough, which I've never seen in my life - personal fireworks are banned here and I assume this was done in response to the widespread BLM/Antifa activity in the city at the time.
basically - I see a TON of open trump support, even in a place like NYC (and especially in the suburbs of NYC), whenever I go out and about. I don't even remember seeing this much support for a particular democratic candidate.
Of course this is anecdotal and could simply be a NYC-area phenomenon, since the democrats have turned this city into shambles between COVID 19 and the riots/looting. Or it could be the silent people from 2016 are now emboldened. Wondering what you guys are seeing around the country.
edit: I also know several essentially lifelong democrats who are going to vote for trump. I only know one 2016 trump voter who is no longer going to vote for trump (he's not voting for biden either though)
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On October 12 2020 19:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 18:26 Gorsameth wrote:
Clinton wasn't a challenger tho, there was no incumbent because Obama had finished his 2 terms. So when you talk about Biden as the best polling of any challenger there is no reason to look at Clinton as a comparison. Other than it's the only other presidential election for which we have easy access to 538 model's predictions. Also they mentioned her campaign in the article: Which is what I'm talking about with Biden having much better polling but basically the same chances of Clinton at this point in 2016. Show nested quote +Even if every undecided or current third party voter went to Trump now, he'd still be down about 5 to 6 points nationally. That's never been the case with an incumbent since 1936 at this point. That's a notable advantage that seems to not give him a significant edge over their prediction of Hillary's chances at this point (which was 85% chance to win). So I have media and posters telling me Biden's chances to win are much better than Hillary at this point and the best predictive model for US elections telling me that works out to ~1% more likely to win at this stage of the election. For some reason being curious about that is making people's brain melt it seems.
It is because they changed their model to include instability between 2016 and 2020. The model almost certainly overrated Clinton in early October and is probably underrating Biden. The two key parts added were that large polling movements have to stay in place for at least a couple weeks to matter and that the number of undecided voters contributes to uncertainty. Both would have made Hillary have lower odds, and the first is making Biden have worse odds than Hillary with better numbers.
It could be viewed that they made their model a bit more conservative to avoid future blow back.
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On October 12 2020 19:26 BerserkSword wrote:
There is some massive cope/bias in this topic (pretty much an echo chamber when you take the whole Overton window into consideration). Trump IS the incumbent. Props to posters like simberto and greenhorizons for keeping it real.
I am interested to hear anecdotes from anyone living in the US.
I've lived in NYC, the democratic citadel of the US, my entire life, and I'm still here. I've never seen this level of nationalism (which I more or less assume = Trump) in the NYC area in my life. That Blue Lives Matter flag widespread in certain neighborhoods, pro-Trump gatherings in NYC itself, American flags raised in residential, MAGA gear here and there (never saw any in 2016). Then whenever i go to the suburbs or the greater Tri state area all I see are straight up MAGA/Trump stuff. On the 4th of July, all I saw from my balcony was endless fireworks across my borough, which I've never seen in my life - personal fireworks are banned here and I assume this was done in response to the widespread BLM/Antifa activity in the city at the time.
basically - I see a TON of open trump support, even in a place like NYC (and especially in the suburbs of NYC), whenever I go out and about. I don't even remember seeing this much support for a particular democratic candidate.
Of course this is anecdotal and could simply be a NYC-area phenomenon, since the democrats have turned this city into shambles between COVID 19 and the riots/looting. Or it could be the silent people from 2016 are now emboldened. Wondering what you guys are seeing around the country.
edit: I also know several essentially lifelong democrats who are going to vote for trump. I only know one 2016 trump voter who is no longer going to vote for trump (he's not voting for biden either though)
I don't think anyone denies that Trump base is very enthusiastic about him (go figure). The thing is, a LOT of people are also extremely enthusiastic about getting his ass out of the white house and any kind if responsibility.
I know quite a few americans. I can tell you they are ALL extremely passionate about getting rid of that clown and all passionately worried about the very, ver dark path their country has taken in the last four years.
Also I don't think this thread is an echochamber. It's just it represents a spectrum that is over half european, and every european that is not fringe-level of far right hates Trump guts. To give you a perspective, his approval rating in Germany is 13%. I have in my whole life talked politics irl with a grand total of two people who supported him, and one was actually far left with a GH-esque worldview.
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and every european that is not fringe-level of far right hates Trump guts.
Well that's just not true.
I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters.
This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate.
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On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote:Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate.
He did qualify his exaggerated statement with an actual statistic of 13%, the point being that a vocal minority is still a minority. Being super loud and enthusiastic doesn't mean you get multiple votes in the election.
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If we want to be going full Maureen Dowd here, I can start talking about the yard signs in Cincinnati and the surrounding rural areas. The rural areas are covered with Trump signs (I just drove out to an apple orchard over the weekend), while Cincinnati has almost none.
In 2012 pretty much every yard had either an Obama or Romney sign. In 2016 it was about 10-15%. Now, it's barely 2-3% I think (there are 3 houses on my entire block with signs. 2 Biden, 1 Trump).
So the willingness to publicly display enthusiasm for candidates is much lower than 2012, at least in this part of Ohio (southwest - it's a GOP stronghold, outside of downtown Cincinnati).
The thing is that this doesn't mean that enthusiasm is down - I personally wouldn't put up a sign because there's been so much talk of violence from Trump's allies if he loses and indications from Trump himself (about no peaceful transition of power).
If we're talking scientifically, Trump's somewhat more popular than in 2016 (~38% to ~42% in polls), and Biden is much more popular than Hillary was in 2016 (~43% to ~52%). (2020 numbers from 538's topline predictions)
Biden is still hated by republicans, but not as much by independents.
Shy Trump voters probably exist, but they're accounted for in poll aggreggators like 538, because 538 accepts polls from pollsters that believe in that premise (Rasmussen and a couple others iirc). Shy Biden voters could outnumber shy Trump voters. There's no real indication that anonymous surveys are finding notable differences from non-anonymous (ie robocalls and online are within 1% of live interviewer polls, which indicates no shy effect).
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Northern Ireland26799 Posts
On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote:Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate.
The only metric you could use to declare this thread as an echo chamber is pro or anti-Trump. In this instance I don’t see that as a bad thing particularly.
There’s as much distance between a GH and the Dems, if not a good bit more than the two Presidential candidates to pick one example.
The term echo chamber has some snappiness and I like it linguistically but it’s grossly overused, as many of these neologisms are.
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On October 12 2020 16:47 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 16:22 Shingi11 wrote:Here is good article on why Biden is in such a stronger position then Clinton. And you have to go back quite while to find someone that is in a stronger position then him. There is still 3 weeks though and as we have seen with Clinton it is possible to throw a strong lead. The missteps that Biden would have to make to throw the lead that he has built would have to be so massive though that they are just hard to imagine. Edit Also the early voting treads that we are seeing should be horrifying to republicans, they are looking at bloodbath of epic portions if trends keep up. The fact they are having to fight so hard to suppress the vote in texas of all places should tell you all you need. I think Biden should be and is in a better position than Clinton was. Part of what spurred all that was my curiosity as to why that doesn't appear to be the case reflected in 538's prediction model. Clinton peaked at a 85% chance on October 17th. As late as October 26th Clinton had a 83% chance to win compared to Biden's 86% right now (the best chance he's seen to date). Something significant is at play to make both "Joe Biden's polling better than any challenger since 1936" and "He has 1% better chance at this stage of the election compared to Hillary in 2016 according to the best prediction model." simultaneously true. Presumably if we could see the "Polls only" version from 2016 it would give Biden a significantly bigger advantage. Whatever is doing the work to take the polls only chance of winning to what the polls plus model is currently showing would seem to be a bigger story to me than has been let on (from 538 anyway) thus far. Or his polling/other advantages aren't as strong for his actual electoral chances as they would traditionally lead us to believe. Or Hillary's chances to win at this point in 2016 were overestimated by their model (so Biden is more likely to win than Hillary in 2016 at this point, but because a more accurate number for Hillary in 2016 would have been lower). or some combination of the above
Alright, I think that with this I better understand the concern. For reference, since it looks like a lot of guesswork has been had with chances for victory, I'll link both 538 prediction charts:
2016 Election Forecast
2020 Election Forecast
So Biden, at his peak, is doing about as good as Clinton at her peak, and both peaks are right about now. Biden has notionally better polling data, which would suggest that he should be higher on the list.
Of course, the national polling advantage that Biden has (and Clinton had) is larger than the more important swing state advantage, so it's prudent to look at that as well. His swing state lead seems about what Clinton's was at her peak: six states that represent a "firewall" that would require a large shift to all go Republican. What happened was that five of them did, along with one that was assumed not to be in play (Michigan? Wisconsin? was definitely one of the two), due to a correlated shift in Trump's favor in a lot of them. When Biden was at around 65% probability of winning, such a shift looked also like a potentially likely outcome.
Quantitatively, the margins look comparable. Qualitatively, we've all of course noted several factors that suggest that Biden is more likely to win than Clinton. So I guess it's worth asking the questions: what gives?
Maybe, as Nevuk notes, the key factor is that they decided to be more conservative in their predictions (I doubt this is the key factor, since the polling data itself is very similar). Maybe some key factors such as undecided voters or overall election volatility don't play as much of a role as we seem to think it should (but some of these factors definitely inform the model). Maybe polling is just not as accurate as we think (there's definitely some evidence of this being the case). Or maybe it's a weakness in the prediction approach itself.
I personally lean towards that latter explanation. The 538 model is decidedly quite Bayesian in its prediction methodology, which makes sense given sparsity in data but is also going to be very volatile based on new data that isn't very much like old data. It does raise the question: if the model can go from 86% Clinton to 70% Clinton in a week, to a Trump win the next week, how useful is this prediction approach, really? It's certainly an important question from a philosophical perspective, since the very same question (regarding Bayesian prediction) is asked within the field of statistics in general.
I think it still is. In 2012 Nate Silver / 538 predicted the exact right outcome, and that was only partially luck. In 2016, they predicted "Trump has a chance" when everyone else said "Trump has little to no chance." There have been times when they've been significantly off-base, but the track record suggests there's more predictive power here than just blind luck.
So, back to the question at hand: should Biden have a bigger probability of victory here? I suppose that, purely by the numbers, I'm not sure he should. But by the factors not included in the poll-based extrapolations - most notably the lack of volatility - I think there's good reason to think that a 2016 style upset is a lot less likely.
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On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote:Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate.
I mean, seriously, it goes from advocates of marxism leninism to people like Danglar or Nettles that are probably right of Marine Le Pen, with everything in between, from Drone who is firmly at the left of his country's social democracy to someone like Kwark.
It has advocates of The Revolution and pragmatists, it has libertarians and hardcore communists.
If you think that's an echo chamber just because it doesn't have 50% people supporting a guy who is insanely unpopular outside the US, you just have no idea what the term echo chamber even means. Go check r/conservative.
As for Trump popularity worldwide:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/01/08/trump-ratings-remain-low-around-globe-while-views-of-u-s-stay-mostly-favorable/
You get to numbers like 20% in France, which is less than the people who vote Marine Le Pen. The only countries were Trump has a positive approval rating are countries like Poland which is a bastion of catholic ultra-conservatism.
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Northern Ireland26799 Posts
If a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, what is their equivalent of an echo chamber?
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Just a bunch more ducks? If a duck quacks, all other ducks start quacking, too, because clearly there is a reason to quack. So a flock of ducks is basically like an echo chamber to ducks.
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Northern Ireland26799 Posts
Maybe a recording studio of ducks?
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On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote:Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate.
If you find a european that agree with most of Trump's talking point, i'll show you an extremist.
I'm sure that most people in that thread would also be against kim jong un. Is it an echo chamber ? Or is kim jong un just reallyyy bad ?
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Yeah. I think that because of what happened in the GOP in the last ten years, american people just see Trump as "the right". Thing is, from a european perspective, Trump represents a rather virulent version of (far) right wing populism that has little to do with "normal" right wing.
In France, the equivalent to Trump is Marine Le Pen, not Les Republicains (right) or En Marche (centre right). Both french traditional right wing parties have much more to do with Biden than Trump, actually. Marine Le Pen represents 20% of the voters and is seen as a fascist by most french people.
So from a european perspective, if 50% of posters in this thread supported Trump, the populist right would be HUGELY over represented.
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On October 12 2020 22:27 WombaT wrote:
If a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, what is their equivalent of an echo chamber?
Same thing, since a duck's quack actually does echo.
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On October 12 2020 22:44 Erasme wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote: and every european that is not fringe-level of far right hates Trump guts. Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate. If you find a european that agree with most of Trump's talking point, i'll show you an extremist. I'm sure that most people in that thread would also be against kim jong un. Is it an echo chamber ? Or is kim jong un just reallyyy bad ?
And i think that even among those which might agree with Trumps talking points, which are already a small-ish minority, you will find even fewer who actually like Trump. Which makes this whole thing so strange. It is utterly inexplicable to me why that man is in any way relevant in US politics. I have a hard time coming up with a less likeable person, and a person more obviously unqualified for any relevant political position. Having Trump as the mayor in a city with less than thousand inhabitants already sounds bad. Having him be president is just absurd.
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On October 12 2020 22:53 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 22:44 Erasme wrote:On October 12 2020 21:37 Laurens wrote: and every european that is not fringe-level of far right hates Trump guts. Well that's just not true. I think Phoenixvoid (top of previous page) and BerserkSword (top of this page) make some valid points about this thread and its posters. This thread had more conservative posters in 2016 but they've either been banned or stopped posting. To say that it is an echo chamber right now seems pretty accurate. If you find a european that agree with most of Trump's talking point, i'll show you an extremist. I'm sure that most people in that thread would also be against kim jong un. Is it an echo chamber ? Or is kim jong un just reallyyy bad ? And i think that even among those which might agree with Trumps talking points, which are already a small-ish minority, you will find even fewer who actually like Trump. Which makes this whole thing so strange. It is utterly inexplicable to me why that man is in any way relevant in US politics. I have a hard time coming up with a less likeable person, and a person more obviously unqualified for any relevant political position. Having Trump as the mayor in a city with less than thousand inhabitants already sounds bad. Having him be president is just absurd.
Yes, there is little doubt his presidency will be remembered as a massive WTF moment by future generations.
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Northern Ireland26799 Posts
On October 12 2020 22:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 22:27 WombaT wrote:
If a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, what is their equivalent of an echo chamber?
Same thing, since a duck's quack actually does echo.
Fake news. Nah I do know this but I had a lame joke in my brain and I was damned if I wasn’t going to seize the chance to interject.
@Simberto you’re far too ambitious talking of mayorship. My litmus test/reframing on Trump is ‘would you think he would make a good candidate to be your direct superior in the workplace?’
There is a point to it, I’ve had strange responses like ‘Well no, but I think he makes a good President’.
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On October 12 2020 23:19 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 22:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 12 2020 22:27 WombaT wrote:
If a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, what is their equivalent of an echo chamber?
Same thing, since a duck's quack actually does echo. Fake news. Nah I do know this but I had a lame joke in my brain and I was damned if I wasn’t going to seize the chance to interject. @Simberto you’re far too ambitious talking of mayorship. My litmus test/reframing on Trump is ‘would you think he would make a good candidate to be your direct superior in the workplace?’ There is a point to it, I’ve had strange responses like ‘Well no, but I think he makes a good President’.
Hm. Or "Would you be okay with Trump being alone in your house while you are somewhere else?"
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Northern Ireland26799 Posts
On October 12 2020 23:23 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2020 23:19 WombaT wrote:On October 12 2020 22:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 12 2020 22:27 WombaT wrote:
If a duck’s quack doesn’t echo, what is their equivalent of an echo chamber?
Same thing, since a duck's quack actually does echo. Fake news. Nah I do know this but I had a lame joke in my brain and I was damned if I wasn’t going to seize the chance to interject. @Simberto you’re far too ambitious talking of mayorship. My litmus test/reframing on Trump is ‘would you think he would make a good candidate to be your direct superior in the workplace?’ There is a point to it, I’ve had strange responses like ‘Well no, but I think he makes a good President’. Hm. Or "Would you be okay with Trump being alone in your house while you are somewhere else?"
I’ve also gone with ‘what would you do if Trump was a guest of a friend in your normal group of bar buddies’ in the past.
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EPT
