US Politics: A small step from going viral to going postal

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

26 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Just saw a headline from The Hill something to the effect of "Joe Lieberman endorses Susan Collins" which is absolutely hilarious because who gives a shit?!?!

I'm sure it was just below the headline that the Kardashian show is ending. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Joe Liberman? The former Gore running-mate turned Libertarian douchebag Joe Lieberman?

I mean, Joe who gives a fuck Lieberman? As if Collins needed more reasons not to vote for her.

Anyway, didn't come here for the walk on yesteryear's have been, and could've been of US politics, likesay Joe irrelevant Lieberman. But for a question regarding the mail-in voting.

I mean, doesn't that strategy have one giant hole we hadn't addressed, yet. I mean, a reasonable assumption is, that the Corona health crisis will be getting worse come October. So the orange one ranting about early voting, and relying on voters showing up in November on the back of a further turn to the worse of corona doesn't strike me as the most rational of ideas in history.

But then again, let's just talk about the irrelevance of Joe Lieberman.

[S John]

22 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So the orange one ranting about early voting, and relying on voters showing up in November on the back of a further turn to the worse of corona doesn't strike me as the most rational of ideas in history.

 

Have you seen any of the videos of some of Trumps recent campaign events?  Minimal social distancing and nowhere near full compliance on masks. 

Trump supporters don’t give a fuck about braving Covid. There may be a handful of his supporters here and there dissuaded by standing in line in person on Election Day, but Trump is banking (correctly, in my opinion) that depressed voter turnout due to a resurgence of Covid is far more likely to hurt Biden than Trump. That’s why he’s blasting mail in voting, he’s likely to win the in person votes, so he’s casting doubt on the other methods of voting.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, S John said:

Have you seen any of the videos of some of Trumps recent campaign events?  Minimal social distancing and nowhere near full compliance on masks. 

Trump supporters don’t give a fuck about braving Covid. There may be a handful of his supporters here and there dissuaded by standing in line in person on Election Day, but Trump is banking (correctly, in my opinion) that depressed voter turnout due to a resurgence of Covid is far more likely to hurt Biden than Trump. That’s why he’s blasting mail in voting, he’s likely to win the in person votes, so he’s casting doubt on the other methods of voting.

It would seem that Trump supporters are also big Kirk Cousins fans.

Also, it may not hurt Biden more if Trump supporters are going full YOLO and get sick and can’t vote.

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, S John said:

Have you seen any of the videos of some of Trumps recent campaign events?  Minimal social distancing and nowhere near full compliance on masks. 

Trump supporters don’t give a fuck about braving Covid. There may be a handful of his supporters here and there dissuaded by standing in line in person on Election Day, but Trump is banking (correctly, in my opinion) that depressed voter turnout due to a resurgence of Covid is far more likely to hurt Biden than Trump. That’s why he’s blasting mail in voting, he’s likely to win the in person votes, so he’s casting doubt on the other methods of voting.

People who attend Trump rallies are a very small percentage of everyone who might be a Trump supporter, whether you measure that as people who voted for him in 2016 or those who "approve" of his performance today. So I don't think you can necessarily extrapolate from campaign events to the conclusion that only a "handful" of his supporters might be concerned about Covid-19 on election day, especially if the infection rate happens to be on the upswing then. It's possible that in some places the fact that Trump supporters may not be asking for absentee ballots now may really hurt his turnout in communities where Covid-19 turns out to be raging the first week in November compared to what it is now. 

[Fragile Bird]

It is amazing to see how wrong we were about Trump earlier this year.

”He doesn’t believe in science!” “Why doesn’t he listen to the experts!”

The Woodward tapes show he heard all the science, he tells Woodward Covid-19 is bad, 5x worse than a bad flu, he talks about it ‘floating in the air’.

He wasn’t as stupid as everyone was saying. He’s just a liar.

We weren’t wrong about that.

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, Ormond said:

People who attend Trump rallies are a very small percentage of everyone who might be a Trump supporter, whether you measure that as people who voted for him in 2016 or those who "approve" of his performance today. So I don't think you can necessarily extrapolate from campaign events to the conclusion that only a "handful" of his supporters might be concerned about Covid-19 on election day, especially if the infection rate happens to be on the upswing then. It's possible that in some places the fact that Trump supporters may not be asking for absentee ballots now may really hurt his turnout in communities where Covid-19 turns out to be raging the first week in November compared to what it is now. 

One other scary thing about voting generally is that people might feel it's their duty/right/obligation to go vote even if they're sick.  So the number of potentially infected people at the voting booth is probably a lot higher than the grocery store or something, where you could get someone else to go in your place.  I wouldn't even be surprised if there are news stories about people who have already tested positive, missed the deadline to vote absentee, and are determined to vote anyway.  I don't think poll workers can stop them, legally. 

[Kalbear]

In SF: 

 

 

[HoodedCrow]

Gosh, I didn’t know to factor in football preferences to politics, duh:) Chin up,Tywin! (trying to be encouraging).

A lot of people wanted to believe nonsense about Hillary because she’s all uppity and smart. It seems A guy like Trump knows how to put women and minorities in their place, If there are lies and assaults or criminal negligence and they like it, I’ve heard. Did you see some of Trumps background people? Some of the rally people( I’ve heard have been hired or scored tickets) look like bobble heads, and then some expressions change when he’s deep into the scam.

 

 

 

 

[S John]

30 minutes ago, Ormond said:

People who attend Trump rallies are a very small percentage of everyone who might be a Trump supporter, whether you measure that as people who voted for him in 2016 or those who "approve" of his performance today. So I don't think you can necessarily extrapolate from campaign events to the conclusion that only a "handful" of his supporters might be concerned about Covid-19 on election day, especially if the infection rate happens to be on the upswing then. It's possible that in some places the fact that Trump supporters may not be asking for absentee ballots now may really hurt his turnout in communities where Covid-19 turns out to be raging the first week in November compared to what it is now. 

Maybe, but I am pretty comfortable with that extrapolation at least insofar as I think Trump’s calculus that depressed turnout due to Covid is more likely to help than hurt him is probably true.

[Mindwalker]

52 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

It is amazing to see how wrong we were about Trump earlier this year.

”He doesn’t believe in science!” “Why doesn’t he listen to the experts!”

The Woodward tapes show he heard all the science, he tells Woodward Covid-19 is bad, 5x worse than a bad flu, he talks about it ‘floating in the air’.

He wasn’t as stupid as everyone was saying. He’s just a liar.

We weren’t wrong about that.

He IS as stupid. He was stupid enough to talk endlessly to a reporter (one of the Watergate guys no less), open up to him, and let him tape him.

My problem is that he is often so stupid, I forget that doesn't mean he isn't evil. He is both.

[Guy Kilmore]

21 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

He IS as stupid. He was stupid enough to talk endlessly to a reporter (one of the Watergate guys no less), open up to him, and let him tape him.

My problem is that he is often so stupid, I forget that doesn't mean he isn't evil. He is both.

Don't confuse not caring as being stupid.

[Fragile Bird]

25 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

He IS as stupid. He was stupid enough to talk endlessly to a reporter (one of the Watergate guys no less), open up to him, and let him tape him.

My problem is that he is often so stupid, I forget that doesn't mean he isn't evil. He is both.

And I was going to say, don’t confuse stupid with an overwhelming need to prove how smart he is. There was no need to hide what he knew from Woodward, just from the American people.

Hell, now he’s blaming Woodward for deaths of thousands of Americans, because if it was so important why didn’t he tell everyone?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

And I was going to say, don’t confuse stupid with an overwhelming need to prove how smart he is. There was no need to hide what he knew from Woodward, just from the American people.

Hell, now he’s blaming Woodward for deaths of thousands of Americans, because if it was so important why didn’t he tell everyone?

I didn’t think he could come up with something dumber than “The rioting is happening in Biden’s America.”

And yes, Trump is stupid, because he agreed to do all these interviews because he wanted to respond to Woodward’s previous book that painted Trump in a poor light and Woodward played him like a fiddle. Trump is a liar. He’s also someone who craves approval. Being both of those things doesn’t mean he can’t also be a complete idiot.

[Mindwalker]

I'll just agree to disagree here.

[Larry of the Lawn]

The Woodward revelations are shocking!

I think it's irresponsible of Woodward to sit on this, but then again since Watergate the presidency is more armored than ever from checks and balances and is accountable to no one.

I guess Woodward has been in the book selling business more than the journalism business for a long while now anyway.  

Short of video of Trump injecting cocktails of bleach and coronavirus directly into nursing home patients I don't think anyone is going to change their minds on the pandemic or how it's been handled.  

Can't see any of this mattering in the slightest, electorally, beyond keeping Bidennoutnof the spotlight for a bit, which is probably a good thing.  

 

[Gaston de Foix]

19 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The Woodward revelations are shocking!

I think it's irresponsible of Woodward to sit on this, but then again since Watergate the presidency is more armored than ever from checks and balances and is accountable to no one.

I guess Woodward has been in the book selling business more than the journalism business for a long while now anyway.  

I'm sure Woodward kept the big reveals for his book for ancillary reasons but in his defense I think a lot of people spoke to him on the basis of his representations that he was writing a book and not a journalism piece. 

If he had rushed to print with his revelations it would (i) possibly have saved some lives; (ii) caused all cooperation from Trump and the WH to cease immediately.  I think he had a duty to report Trump's explanation for his happy talk around COVID as soon as he learnt about it so the American public could be well-informed.

 Szalai nails those who cooperated with him while serving in the Trump admin in her review in the Times. 

 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, HoodedCrow said:

Gosh, I didn’t know to factor in football preferences to politics, duh:) Chin up,Tywin! (trying to be encouraging).

Sports actually are sometimes pretty relevant to politics; when people's teams win it can make them feel generally better about how life is going and make them more likely to vote for the incumbent (assuming the election is shortly after the win).

I've seen some pretty convincing arguments that the only reason John Bel Edwards won re-election in the run-off for Louisiana governor on November 16, 2019 was because LSU beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa on November 7. Edwards got 51.3% of the vote; whereas in the jungle primary on October 12 he had only gotten 46.6%. Edwards meet the team when they got back to Louisiana and talked about how great they were pretty much that whole week.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

35 minutes ago, Fez said:

Sports actually are sometimes pretty relevant to politics; when people's teams win it can make them feel generally better about how life is going and make them more likely to vote for the incumbent (assuming the election is shortly after the win).

I've seen some pretty convincing arguments that the only reason John Bel Edwards won re-election in the run-off for Louisiana governor on November 16, 2019 was because LSU beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa on November 7. Edwards got 51.3% of the vote; whereas in the jungle primary on October 12 he had only gotten 46.6%. Edwards meet the team when they got back to Louisiana and talked about how great they were pretty much that whole week.

This is why I brought up the Big Ten. Their teams are all over several swing states and Republicans will claim all the credit if the games return before the elections.

[DMC]

55 minutes ago, Fez said:

Sports actually are sometimes pretty relevant to politics; when people's teams win it can make them feel generally better about how life is going and make them more likely to vote for the incumbent (assuming the election is shortly after the win).

I've seen some pretty convincing arguments that the only reason John Bel Edwards won re-election in the run-off for Louisiana governor on November 16, 2019 was because LSU beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa on November 7. Edwards got 51.3% of the vote; whereas in the jungle primary on October 12 he had only gotten 46.6%. Edwards meet the team when they got back to Louisiana and talked about how great they were pretty much that whole week.

I've never seen any empirical work making such a claim.  In the Bel Edwards case, in 2015 his share went up from 39.9% in the primary to 56.1% while LSU lost its third game in a row the day of the runoff.  Would that have been higher if LSA had won?  Lower?  Or is the difference in Bel Edwards' share likely due to his 2015 runoff opponent, David Vitter, being much less liked than his 2019 runoff opponent, Eddie Rispone?  This reminds me of the spurious "Redskins rule" (if the Redskins won their last home game before the election, then the incumbent's party would win the presidency) that thankfully doesn't get mentioned anymore since it stopped happening.

One way sports teams are mentioned in poly sci research is to help explain polarization/negative partisanship.  Partisan ID has become more and more like being on/rooting for a team, where other factors (e.g. ideology, personal appeal) and sources of identity (e.g. race, religion) no longer approach the importance of simply party ID.