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US Politics: Reaching the Tipping Point


DMC

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To add to that, Trump is the only president to never hit 50% since Pew has started polling. Because we have a binding contractual agree to relitigate 2016 at least once a month, I have to say that it's clear more and more everyday that Hillary simply had a horrific end of the campaign strategy. I was listening to this great debate today, and what jumped out the most is how few states she visited. That cannot happen again in 2020. 

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But they've got the judges, Russia, Saudi, voter repression, Faux Noose, etc., gerrymandering, and armed white supremacist militias and deranged individuals to make sure he's 'elected'. They work with utter dedication on all of these every single minute of every single hour of every single day of every single week of every single month.  And THEY LIE.  Plus they HATE.  And they FEAR.

Plus, denial and pusillanimity on 'our' so-called 'side.'

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6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Plus, denial and pusillanimity on 'our' so-called 'side.'

1400 SAT words aside, it is not denial nor a lack of courage to point out the empirical fact that Trump is the weakest incumbent ever running for reelection in terms of approval, at least thus far.

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I'm just staggered that Trump continues to have anything above 20% approval. 24% of Americans identify as Republicans. That means with approval in the 30s a large number of people who aren't Republicans approve of Trump. People say Republicans are whack jobs for supporting Trump, but Trump wouldn't have >30% approval without a whole bunch of other people in the US also being whack jobs.

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5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

24% of Americans identify as Republicans.

Where you getting that number?  According to Gallup, it's actually at 31% Dem, 30% GOP most recently.  Which is a pretty good spread for the GOP based on recent history.  Regardless, those metrics don't include leaners, which makes the Independent option ridiculously inflated.

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10 minutes ago, DMC said:

Where you getting that number?  According to Gallup, it's actually at 31% Dem, 30% GOP most recently.  Which is a pretty good spread for the GOP based on recent history.  Regardless, those metrics don't include leaners, which makes the Independent option ridiculously inflated.

2017 data on Wikipedia. Guilty of picking the top result on a google search. Interestingly the wiki data said 31% Dem, so that's the same for both sources.

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13 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm just staggered that Trump continues to have anything above 20% approval. 24% of Americans identify as Republicans. That means with approval in the 30s a large number of people who aren't Republicans approve of Trump. People say Republicans are whack jobs for supporting Trump, but Trump wouldn't have >30% approval without a whole bunch of other people in the US also being whack jobs.

It's a little more amusing than that. The exit polls from 2016 actually asked people's opinion about the two main candidates. If you scroll down about two thirds of the way down that page, you'll see that his numbers are pretty consistent: 38% had a favorable opinion of him and 60% had an unfavorable one. The amusing part is that of those 60%, 15% (i.e. 9% of the total) voted for Trump anyway.

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Yeah, approval doesn't completely align with voting behavior. A lot of people hold their nose and vote the party line. I imagine a fair number of Hillary voters would have been in the "don't approve" camp for her too. My own US-based extended family in-law are all life long Republicans and they all sheepishly voted for Trump, because Supreme Court. Oddly I don;t think any of the younger members of said in-law family are pro-lifers, so I'm not certain what issue they are concerned about that makes the SC roster a major motivation for how they vote. Gun rights I guess? Uncle Ron was quite the fan of guns.

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Does anyone have Mike Gravel in their top tier of candidates? Anyone? Anyone?

I cant believe there are 23 'legitimate' candidates for the Democratic primaries. Head's spinning a bit, but I am finding it useful to just keep track of my top tier of candidates and ignore all the other stuff (Mayor Pete, Harris, Warren, and Sanders). I cant bring myself to consider Biden, not for the primaries.

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Speaking of the economy being a significant factor in a sitting P_resident getting another 4 years. I see the jobless rate remains at an historic low, but job growth is sluggish. I guess from a spin perspective that's advantage Trump, since being able to say "3.6% unemployment babay" is a nice simple message. And even though technically interest rate cuts (which are being predicted) happen because economies are weakening, most people only care that their mortgage interest will be going down and so their mortgage payments will decrease, which means they feel like their economic situation is improving. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next 12 months how the economy is tracking in the 6 months leading up to the election could be significant.

I'll go ahead and predict that if the narrative on the economy come Sept 2020 is things are good and getting better, Trump will win.

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51 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The exit polls from 2016 actually asked people's opinion about the two main candidates. If you scroll down about two thirds of the way down that page, you'll see that his numbers are pretty consistent: 38% had a favorable opinion of him and 60% had an unfavorable one. The amusing part is that of those 60%, 15% (i.e. 9% of the total) voted for Trump anyway.

It's not my primary field of expertise (although it's certainly a clear second), but in political behavior there is a very significant distinction between a candidate/challenger's favorability ratings and a presidential incumbent's job approval ratings.

22 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I cant believe there are 23 'legitimate' candidates for the Democratic primaries.

That's because there's not.  I'm not worried about the field eventually getting culled.

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4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Speaking of the economy being a significant factor in a sitting P_resident getting another 4 years. I see the jobless rate remains at an historic low, but job growth is sluggish. I guess from a spin perspective that's advantage Trump, since being able to say "3.6% unemployment babay" is a nice simple message. And even though technically interest rate cuts (which are being predicted) happen because economies are weakening, most people only care that their mortgage interest will be going down and so their mortgage payments will decrease, which means they feel like their economic situation is improving. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next 12 months how the economy is tracking in the 6 months leading up to the election could be significant.

I'll go ahead and predict that if the narrative on the economy come Sept 2020 is things are good and getting better, Trump will win.

If you guys don't mind an outsider's perspective (I have lived in the US, NJ mainly and a few months in Huntsville, Al and Chicago, so hopefully not talking complete :bs:), I very much agree with the above.

Clearly, a lot of hard work on the economy (especially getting the banks to clean up their balance sheets) was done in the Obama years, but because the rhetoric from the O Administration sounded (or was spun) as anti-business, team Trump find it easy to claim the low unemployment rate and consistent stock market strength as their own and juiced it up with the tax cuts. As @The Anti-Targ said the rate cut expectations are based on a weakening economy (globally as much as in the US), but that keeps mortgage rates low and supports stocks for a while, allowing Trump to experiment with his trade war tactics for some more time yet. Bullying the Fed is another useful tool to have in the bag, even if it's too early to say how much that has played a role. With the tax cut effects having worn off and business confidence starting to slacken, stepping on the Fed hard mid-year next year to create another stock market ramp up, while delivering a few more 'wins' (some fudged agreement with China, a revised deal with Europe and beat Mexico up again for more optics) and you have decent conditions in place for Trump to keep spinning his story.

The approval rating might have been very low, but has also been phenomenally sticky, right? So a lot of the posturing on Mexico etc is all about keeping the base worked up and on board. In the end it comes to down to a handful of states, where it comes down to who can create a higher turn out, as everybody knows obviously. Admittedly, some former registered Democrats who turned to Trump in '16 in Michigan and Penn have by now (sadly) figured out that the jobs ain't coming back ever and got disillusioned, but if the Dems can't get their voters to turn out in big enough numbers, it's still going to be very, very tight, isn't it?

The one player outside the US that could play a significant role is China, so far they have been dragging their feet and taking the pain to get closer and closer to the end of the 2020 cycle. It might not mean they try to crash the global economy by completely walking away, maybe they're just waiting for Trump to offer the weakest possible (from a US perspective) deal early next year, but it obviously suits them better not to have him around for another 4 years.

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7 hours ago, DMC said:

It's not my primary field of expertise (although it's certainly a clear second), but in political behavior there is a very significant distinction between a candidate/challenger's favorability ratings and a presidential incumbent's job approval ratings.

That's because there's not.  I'm not worried about the field eventually getting culled.

I believe we're on the same page regarding the lack of simple, causal connections between the stats referenced. If we were to chart approval ratings historically they would not be great predictors of election outcome. People overwhelmingly don't favor congress and don't view their representatives fondly and yet it might well be outweighed by nothing more than familiarity. You are correct to suggest systematic bias here as there is a very strong connection between establishment and disapproval. This is not dispositive regarding future elections, at all. You aren't falling into this hole, but to assume that favorability means something disregards the inherently adversarial system of politics. Trying to look at how liked a candidate is and how liked the sitting president is grossly oversimplifies our political process and doesn't yield much in the way of useful information.

We don't vote for how much we like a candidate in a vacuum, it is inherently a process of competition. We just need to settle into imminent dealignment (or at least realignment) within the next 10-15 years. This has been a long time coming, frankly. The root cause is not one candidate, but the process itself and the incredible distrust towards establishment candidates. 

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10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

To add to that, Trump is the only president to never hit 50% since Pew has started polling. Because we have a binding contractual agree to relitigate 2016 at least once a month, I have to say that it's clear more and more everyday that Hillary simply had a horrific end of the campaign strategy. I was listening to this great debate today, and what jumped out the most is how few states she visited. That cannot happen again in 2020. 

I'll simplify this even further. The largest voting bloc in America (white women) absolutely failed to make the difference. The arrogance of assumed victory limited voting turnout to a degree, but white women simply didn't bend D as much as they were thought to. We can talk about new voters, or newly radicalized right wingers all we want and yet the fact remains that white women are the plurality of the American electorate. Hopefully they're a bit upset at the moment. I will also say that the dialogue process of the far left is not especially endearing. That's less a 2016 issue and more an issue to be remedied for 2020.

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20 minutes ago, Demetri said:

I'll simplify this even further. The largest voting bloc in America (white women) absolutely failed to make the difference. The arrogance of assumed victory limited voting turnout to a degree, but white women simply didn't bend D as much as they were thought to. We can talk about new voters, or newly radicalized right wingers all we want and yet the fact remains that white women are the plurality of the American electorate. Hopefully they're a bit upset at the moment. I will also say that the dialogue process of the far left is not especially endearing. That's less a 2016 issue and more an issue to be remedied for 2020.

Lol like this fucking matters.  If you're not going to vote Dem because you don't like the dialogue from the far left how the fuck do you rationalize that?  "Sorry, I really don't want to keep Trump in office but some of his opponents were quite rude, I tell you.  I know, I know, I don't like the kids on cages either but some of those lefties are mean".

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2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Lol like this fucking matters.  If you're not going to vote Dem because you don't like the dialogue from the far left how the fuck do you rationalize that?  "Sorry, I really don't want to keep Trump in office but some of his opponents were quite rude, I tell you.  I know, I know, I don't like the kids on cages either but some of those lefties are mean".

I never suggested that at all. I'm talking about the people who aren't voting a straight ticket. Dems don't win by getting the usual Dems out, they win by reclaiming the white female vote.

Yea, if we're talking about political elections, it absolutely matters. It is just the death throes of the Democratic party as it exists in this day and age. The far left isn't "mean", they're fucking stupid and every bit as stupid as the far right yet more vocal and that expression generally happens on more mainstream outlets (as opposed to secret Nazi meetings.) I worry you misunderstand what motivates people to vote. You can't think Trump's actions are going to influence the vote and not think the average person's facebook feed being filled with pedantic nonsense somehow isn't.

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2 minutes ago, Demetri said:

I never suggested that at all. I'm talking about the people who aren't voting a straight ticket. Dems don't win by getting the usual Dems out, they win by reclaiming the white female vote.

Yea, if we're talking about political elections, it absolutely matters. It is just the death throes of the Democratic party as it exists in this day and age. The far left isn't "mean", they're fucking stupid and every bit as stupid as the far right yet more vocal and that expression generally happens on more mainstream outlets (as opposed to secret Nazi meetings.) I worry you misunderstand what motivates people to vote. You can't think Trump's actions are going to influence the vote and not think the average person's facebook feed being filled with pedantic nonsense somehow isn't.

Alright, I'll bite: What kind of "dialogue process" coming from the far left is going to keep people at home?  

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1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

Alright, I'll bite: What kind of "dialogue process" coming from the far left is going to keep people at home?  

I should have said that I'm speaking primarily from personal experience and discussion with other reasonable folks. I'm from Alabama but highly educated and the majority of my friends are "bright blue dots in a solid red state" folks. But I also have some old friends from childhood who are pretty damn conservative. It is my great joy to get to fight against both super conservatives and super liberals.

The issue is a lack of dialogue process. The amount of times I've had to explain how American free speech works is astounding. Assertions that X demographic shouldn't be entitled to have an opinion on Y issue because that is merely the province of Z is not conducive to discourse nor does it remotely resemble democracy. But the greater issue is that there isn't a dialogue process. Many far left folks I try to engage with don't want a dialogue. They want to post normative things and have it be objective truth and supported by righteous morality. That, by itself, doesn't lend itself well to discourse. That dovetails directly into what I was speaking to, that we don't get rid of Trump by saying "Hey, idiot, this is a true thing. How can you not believe this thing I posted when it is is so true and so moral?" We get folks to buy into the policy and see it as moral themselves. Even here, there is an exclusion to input from well-meaning people which is considered less important than a moral platform. Moral platforms don't succeed by repetition or fervor, but by engagement. This is the lack of process because it discourages engagement and instead draws a "with me or against me" line in the sand with all sorts of moral condemnation ready as rebuke.

More specifically. I was explaining why Georgia rape law is absolutely barbaric. The issue kept coming around to preferential white male treatment. I said, "Hey, we need to overhaul common law conceptions of rape that exist as criminal statutes in the U.S." and I was told that they'd rather "cut the head off of the giant." WTF does that even mean? I propose very specific legislative reform and I was responded to with abstractions about the woes of the criminal justice system. I grant those issues exist and need remedying. But the philosophical point of "Fuck this system, let's kill it ded" trumps practical considerations like "Hey, GA has a fucked up rape law, let's change it!" (Men can't be raped, legally, which seems to not be a source of worry... though it merely reflects how antiquated the law is and reflects its 18th century origins). The post above the article (discussing a family agreed upon plea agreement due to really crazy case facts and a really bad rape law) read "Are you 'afraid' men?" Do you really think that's winning political points? The poster had no idea that the same law that made consent sticky in that issue also says men cannot legally be the victims of rape. But that fact (and proposed reform) was a secondary concern. The identity politics issue came first. 

Another instance in when I discussed with someone how consent can be violated and Cardi B, specifically that force and violation of consent is inherent in drugging someone and the social harm (rape, robbery, to whatever degree) of such a forceful consent violation remains the same whether by physical exertion or by drugs. A far left friend of mine (friend of years, maybe 9 years) blocked me straight away. 

These weren't political points (I don't vote by party and lean left on social issues such as being a loud advocate of gay rights for around 15 years or since I had a cogent opinion. I wasn't saying anything inflammatory. But they didn't want to hear anything beyond what they thought they knew. Right wingers are just as bad, but try less to persuade. The far left forces a pseudo dialogue when what they really want is an echo chamber. It helped elect Trump, frankly. My personal experience is very much personal, but I believe in good faith discourse and try to engage in it. They, however, did not. And without engaging in discourse then we really don't have a discourse process. I could discuss other examples (being called a racist for absolutely no reason, being called a sexist when my then gf taught women's studies at a local college and told me not to take it so personally because it wasn't who I am) or being fearful in discussing my field of study because identity politics- or my demographic- seems to make my opinion null regardless of citations. 

These things aren't discourse. They are a failure of discourse. Let me state here that I hate Trump. I support gay marriage, I support abortion as legal as policy (but have given a son up for adoption as my girlfriend and myself were both 18 at the time), I support marijuana legalization. I support a higher federal minimum. And yet, somehow, the vocal far left folks paint me as a cancer. And that, in my experience, is entirely because of my unwillingness to swallow whole their terrible memes.

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