U.S. Elections 2016: It's Not A Lie, If YOU Believe It

[Shryke]

8 hours ago, TerraPrime said:

People talk about "unforced errors" from Clinton.

 

WTF is this, then?

Dominance Politics

That's what Josh Marshall has been calling it for awhile and he's probably the best actual journalist covering Trump and the election in general. Trump constantly feels the need to dominate others and to assert that via symbols and rhetoric. He played the media (likely with aid from his Breitbart/Fox News campaign staff) to get free campaign ads and press for his new hotel. Then lied to their faces and walked smugly off with their cameras without even pretending to let them do their job. Needless to say, they were displeased.

This is a pretty good description of exactly what went down and why:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/09/how_trump_played_the_media.html

Here, btw, is the Breitbart headline showing exactly what he was purposefully doing:

 

Of course, this so far seems to have blown back on him because the Press have finally had enough for now and are hitting back over this insult. But Trump, well, Trump can't help himself. He couldn't not assert his dominance over them, as he has before, including just yesterday when he left his entire press pool on a bus while he started the rally they were there to cover and then laughed at them during that rally over that fact.

He's a bully and a narcissist. This is Trump.

[Altherion]

Incidentally, here's a Gallup poll from a couple of days ago about Americans' trust in mass media. Only 32% of Americans now trust the media which is easily the lowest in the history of this poll. The biggest drop was among Republicans (who went from 32% to 14%), but in fact even Independents and Democrats reached historic lows. Given that more than twice as many people distrust them as do not, attacking the media may not be a bad idea.

[sologdin]

what a bizarre thing, 'trust' in capitalist journalism as an aggregate.  

[The Marquis de Leech]

Given recent polls, I'm starting to wonder if this would be a viable election map if the election were held today:

http://www.270towin.com/maps/kv9PZ

Note that Trump really does have to thread the needle here, and North Carolina's terrible numbers for Republicans are starting to loom large in the Electoral College calculations. 

[SeanF]

16 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

An interesting fact as per 538 is that if the race is tied, the Democrats no longer have a bank of blue states that will outperform the popular vote. In fact, the EC may be slightly tipped towards Trump, mainly because battleground states have been trending red the last few years. So if Clinton and Trump are essentially tied in national polls, I would be very concerned.....

By the way, this was around the time McCain made the "the fundamentals of the economy are sound" mistake from which he never recovered, so lets hope we arent seeing that for Clinton in reverse.

Trump's vote is efficiently distributed.  He's losing support (compared to Romney) in quite a few Red States that he'll still hold with reduced majorities, but picking it in swing States.

If Obama had won by 1%, he'd only have lost Florida, and if he'd tied, he'd only have lost Ohio, carrying the Electoral College 286-253.  On current polls, if Clinton wins by 1% overall, Trump probably takes Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, giving him 264 EC seats. A tie would probably take him past 270.

[maarsen]

18 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

People that are as rich as Trump claims don't have to try to make money off shitty branded steaks and vodka. There is nothing about Trump that is not a swindle or a lie.

I keep waiting for his Bernie Madoff moment. Once the ball is dropped or his actual income is finally revealed, then the whole facade crashes.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Incidentally, here's a Gallup poll from a couple of days ago about Americans' trust in mass media. Only 32% of Americans now trust the media which is easily the lowest in the history of this poll. The biggest drop was among Republicans (who went from 32% to 14%), but in fact even Independents and Democrats reached historic lows. Given that more than twice as many people distrust them as do not, attacking the media may not be a bad idea.

That's a little like how everyone hates Congress though. Conservatives hate the Media because it's too liberal. Liberals hate the Media because it's not Liberal enough, or because it doesn't give Bernie enough coverage, or because it's biased against Hillary, or because it doesn't stay outraged at Trump. 

[DanteGabriel]

43 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I keep waiting for his Bernie Madoff moment. Once the ball is dropped or his actual income is finally revealed, then the whole facade crashes.

Madoff went to jail because he ripped off rich people. Trump's made a career off using the fortune he inherited from his father to cheat working people out of their money and wages, and gets hailed as a business genius. I guess that's the new American Dream.

[MerenthaClone]

1 minute ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

That's a little like how everyone hates Congress though. Conservatives hate the Media because it's too liberal. Liberals hate the Media because it's not Liberal enough, or because it doesn't give Bernie enough coverage, or because it's biased against Hillary, or because it doesn't stay outraged at Trump. 

Well, it is a little irritating when the media consistently creates false equivalency stories in order to retain conservative readers that, by and large, have already abandoned them.  Its nice to show that this attempt to appear unbiased at all costs, despite reality, is actually not a good market strategy.

[maarsen]

31 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Madoff went to jail because he ripped off rich people. Trump's made a career off using the fortune he inherited from his father to cheat working people out of their money and wages, and gets hailed as a business genius. I guess that's the new American Dream.

A few months ago, our national newspaper, the Globe and Mail,  had an article on the impending bankruptcy of the Trump hotel being built in Toronto. As an aside the article mentioned that no Canadian bank or real estate developer would partner with him as they all considered him a blithering idiot who would only lose any money they lent him. 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

That's a little like how everyone hates Congress though. Conservatives hate the Media because it's too liberal. Liberals hate the Media because it's not Liberal enough, or because it doesn't give Bernie enough coverage, or because it's biased against Hillary, or because it doesn't stay outraged at Trump. 

 

Conservatives don't hate the media because it's too liberal. They've become used to talk radio and Fox News as their own media. For the media to be legitimate, it must both cheer Republicans 100% of the time and call Obama a racist.

Liberals started not trusting the media due to the Iraq War cheerleading. Some liberals think the media is too corporate owned and serves corporate interests as well, but this is small potatoes compared to Iraq. And the media mistrust is far lower than among conservatives.

[maarsen]

4 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

 

Conservatives don't hate the media because it's too liberal. They've become used to talk radio and Fox News as their own media. For the media to be legitimate, it must both cheer Republicans 100% of the time and call Obama a racist.

Liberals started not trusting the media due to the Iraq War cheerleading. Some liberals think the media is too corporate owned and serves corporate interests as well, but this is small potatoes compared to Iraq. And the media mistrust is far lower than among conservatives.

Actually liberals started to distrust the media during the Vietnam War. Watergate brought back some trust but then coverage of the Reagan administration brought back distrust.  

[Fez]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Trump's vote is efficiently distributed.  He's losing support (compared to Romney) in quite a few Red States that he'll still hold with reduced majorities, but picking it in swing States.

If Obama had won by 1%, he'd only have lost Florida, and if he'd tied, he'd only have lost Ohio, carrying the Electoral College 286-253.  On current polls, if Clinton wins by 1% overall, Trump probably takes Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, giving him 264 EC seats. A tie would probably take him past 270.

I don't think its quite as bad as that yet. I think a tied national race probably looks more like this. In a tie, and likely even a small Clinton lead, Trump looks like he'll take Ohio, Iowa, and ME-2. But Colorado, Virginia, and New Hampshire are clearly left of the national average this time; as is the rest of the Midwest (although by less than it used to be). I also think the Nevada polling is off again this year. I can believe that Trump is doing better there than Romney or McCain did, but we have too much evidence over the past several elections of Nevada polls consistently underestimating Hispanic turnout and therefore understating Democratic support. I think in a tied national vote, Clinton still takes Nevada.

As for keeping North Carolina and Florida toss-ups in this scenario, maybe that's just being optimistic (although Clinton still wins without them here). But I think North Carolina is left of the national average this time due to reverse coattails; McCroy is so unpopular that he's dragging Trump down. And I've noticed that despite Clinton overall losing support quite a lot recently, Florida polls haven't really changed. Its still all small Clinton leads or small Trump leads, which is basically what its been the entire time. 

In this scenario, Clinton could still lose Nevada or New Hampshire (and not get either the Florida or North Carolina toss-ups) and still win, but not both; and she couldn't lose Wisconsin either. I think Wisconsin still goes Democratic in a tied race, but barely.

I suspect and hope that this is all academic though, and that this past week was Trump's high water mark. We'll see though.

[Shryke]

Just generally, talking about the race, I think there's two things that need to be considered that don't really show up in public polling.

First is ground game. Clinton has a ton, Trump so far appears to have essentially none. Now maybe the common wisdom about this won't apply to Trump or the GOP (who benefit from low turnout anyway) but it's certainly a factor of some sort in how well polling numbers will translate into votes.

The other thing is to consider what Clinton's campaign is focusing their efforts on because internal polls are almost always considered to be better then the public ones and where Clinton actually spends time and money is generally indicative of what those polls are telling them about the state of the race is various places. So, like hypothetically, if Clinton were ignoring Ohio and pouring money into North Carolina one could infer that her campaign's internal polling said Ohio was locked in and NC was vulnerable, even though the public polls might say otherwise.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

 Some liberals think the media is too corporate owned and serves corporate interests as well, but this is small potatoes compared to Iraq. And the media mistrust is far lower than among conservatives.

 The media is largely corporate owned. I don't think political leaning should play into that at all. It's a simple fact. Remember the dearth of stories on CNN about The Dark Knight when that movie came out? Time Warner is the parent company of CNN, and that movie was a Time Warner vehicle.  That's just a tiny example of why corporate owned media is a bad idea.  

[maarsen]

Orson Welles made Citizen Kane about Randolph Hearst and Hearst used his newspaper chain to try and destroy Welles.  Everything old is new again.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

17 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Orson Welles made Citizen Kane about Randolph Hearst and Hearst used his newspaper chain to try and destroy Welles.  Everything old is new again.

Yeah, it's nothing new, but I do think it's more widespread. Now you have like what, 6-8 mega Randolph Hearsts?  And these Hearsts don't just own the newspapers, they own the TV and radio stations, and the movie studios, and the Internet Providers. They more or less have a stanglehold on every form of media. 

On a related note, they recently had a screening of Citizen Kane at Hearst Castle, so I suppose you could say that Welles won in the long run. 

  http://variety.com/2015/film/news/citizen-kane-screened-for-first-time-at-hearst-castle-1201452394/

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Shryke said:

The other thing is to consider what Clinton's campaign is focusing their efforts on because internal polls are almost always considered to be better then the public ones and where Clinton actually spends time and money is generally indicative of what those polls are telling them about the state of the race is various places.

You would hope so. On the other hand, if the internals are off, you get Mitt Romney.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

The media is largely corporate owned. I don't think political leaning should play into that at all. It's a simple fact. Remember the dearth of stories on CNN about The Dark Knight when that movie came out? Time Warner is the parent company of CNN, and that movie was a Time Warner vehicle.  That's just a tiny example of why corporate owned media is a bad idea.

Yeah, I wasn't really making a moral judgement on it. Just saying this is one reason liberals mistrust the media. However, I strongly dislike how the media doesn't focus much on working class issues. I think overall the media is much like plutocrat donors, socially liberal and economically conservative.

However, I would consider cutting myself off from all media excessive. I think many liberals watch media with a jaundiced eye is all and use multiple sources. Where as a conservative's disgust with media is greater and also results in them fleeing to 100% friendly conservative media.

Bernie Sanders often talked about not trusting media due to the corporate nature of it.

[maarsen]

16 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, it's nothing new, but I do think it's more widespread. Now you have like what, 6-8 mega Randolph Hearsts?  And these Hearsts don't just own the newspapers, they own the TV and radio stations, and the movie studios, and the Internet Providers. They more or less have a stanglehold on every form of media. 

On a related note, they recently had a screening of Citizen Kane at Hearst Castle, so I suppose you could say that Welles won in the long run. 

  http://variety.com/2015/film/news/citizen-kane-screened-for-first-time-at-hearst-castle-1201452394/

Any bets on the long term reputation of Trump?