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  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    I don't know where people are getting this idea Trump can't win. Yes, it's virtually impossible for him to lose the popular vote by less than 3-5 million. But he could lose Pennsylvania and Michigan and pull it out by 100 votes in Wisconsin and that's still ballgame. Florida and Ohio aren't flipping this time. Democrats HAVE to take back MI and PA and then flip NC, AZ or WI back. Democrats have gained solid holds in CO, NM, NV and VA, but I don't view FL and OH as being competitive. Which means the election is gonna likely come down to the five states I mentioned above.

    The plus side to this doom and gloom is that Democrats are (at this point), almost certain to nominate a male who can play in the Rustbelt outside the cities. Biden has been doing it all his life, and Bernie will talk like Trump did in 2016 without being completely full of shit about it because he actually has beliefs and cares about jobs in those areas (whereas Trump was able to get away paying lip service). Can he do it again?? What does the stock market mean to farmers who have gone out of business due to tariffs?? Will people recognize that, gee whiz, the factory didn't, in fact, come back like he promised. Who knows. But I am not in the camp that says he loses going away. I'd say he has a 60/40 shot of winning. And no, impeachment has nothing to do with it. No recent polling bears that out.

    Well if he loses Michigan by one vote you can thank me!

    If Trump loses Michigan by one vote I'll personally make my way there and pay for your meal at the most expensive steak house in Detroit.
    Balrog99Grond0
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    A budding Bromance!

    https://heavy.com/news/2020/01/tom-steyer-bernie-sanders/

    Just trying to lighten things up a bit... B)
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited January 2020
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    Actually, I plan on going to a place LIKE this in Minneapolis later this year. My uncle has always said you need to try a $100 steak at least once, because you can tell where the money goes. My aunt gave my sister and I an IOU for later this year for Christmas that we were all going to go down and tour Paisley Park (Prince's estate) and I suggested that we might as well take the opportunity to do this as well.
    Balrog99
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    Actually, I plan on going to a place LIKE this in Minneapolis later this year. My uncle has always said you need to try a $100 steak at least once, because you can tell where the money goes. My aunt gave my sister and I an IOU for later this year for Christmas that we were all going to go down and tour Paisley Park (Prince's estate) and I suggested that we might as well take the opportunity to do this as well.

    Is it bad that I'd rather expensive, high quality, meat like that go into a burger instead?
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    Actually, I plan on going to a place LIKE this in Minneapolis later this year. My uncle has always said you need to try a $100 steak at least once, because you can tell where the money goes. My aunt gave my sister and I an IOU for later this year for Christmas that we were all going to go down and tour Paisley Park (Prince's estate) and I suggested that we might as well take the opportunity to do this as well.

    Is it bad that I'd rather expensive, high quality, meat like that go into a burger instead?

    Sorta, since the texture of the meat is one of the things that skyrocket the price.
    Balrog99
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited January 2020
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    This is all a big sham to cover up the fact that the Democrats have nobody that can beat Trump. Even Michael Moore is saying it now (especially if Biden wins the nomination).

    BTW: Sleepy Joe wants this to go longer for sure. Keeps his major opponents tied up on Capitol Hill...

    Right. The 51% of respondents to a CNN poll that the president should be impeached and removed from office disagree.

    Democrats are still the odds on favorites to win the WH in 2020. Trump is historically unpopular. Biden wins by such a large margin that he’d probably get the senate to or close to 50/50.

    Honestly - the idea that Trump is unbeatable is absurd.

    The number of mitigating circumstances that Trump needed to win is not repeatable (hard to win 3 times in a row. Historically unpopular opponent. Won independents).

    Trump’s opponent will be more popular then him this time. He’s underwater with independents. Democrats have been out of the WH for 4 years, so the “change” candidate will be a D.

    Trump’s only benefit is incumbency - which we have seen to mean less and less in recent elections.

    51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences.

    If your confidence comes from political polling in the Year of our Lord 2020, you're gonna have a bad time. This same argument backfired big time in 2016 when everything was showing a Trump failure. Not just the media, but the betting markets, sometimes had Clinton with an over 80% change of victory, sometimes close to 98%.

    My theory on this is pretty simple. Since we live in a time where you are incredibly demonized, harassed, made out to be less than human, can lose your job and social status, for going against progressive orthodoxy, a sizable number of people won't admit their views to some random person or journalist who calls them, maybe not even to their friends, and will simply take it to the voting booth. Know several such cases.

    People are just scared to say what they really think, and that is not unreasonable in this climate. Nobody wants to have to deal with the shrieking hordes of modern day Pharisees who see you as Satan incarnate for not going full in on the latest fad they started caring about in the past few years.

    Of course, it could also be just biased polling, but I think the answer is more mundane.

    The only person that I think has a good chance to win is Sanders, and he may end up getting the nomination.
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited January 2020


    Lol, isn't it great how things like this get "discovered" once a person becomes a political threat? Amazing how that works.

    I hate the dishonesty of political media with the intensity of a thousand suns.

    Just say the opposition research factory had it in their stash and waited for the right time to release it. Don't try to play me like I'm stupid and this is some random thing that got "discovered" out of nowhere
    Balrog99smeagolheartThacoBell
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    edited January 2020
    Balrog99 wrote: »

    This is all a big sham to cover up the fact that the Democrats have nobody that can beat Trump. Even Michael Moore is saying it now (especially if Biden wins the nomination).

    BTW: Sleepy Joe wants this to go longer for sure. Keeps his major opponents tied up on Capitol Hill...

    Right. The 51% of respondents to a CNN poll that the president should be impeached and removed from office disagree.

    Democrats are still the odds on favorites to win the WH in 2020. Trump is historically unpopular. Biden wins by such a large margin that he’d probably get the senate to or close to 50/50.

    Honestly - the idea that Trump is unbeatable is absurd.

    The number of mitigating circumstances that Trump needed to win is not repeatable (hard to win 3 times in a row. Historically unpopular opponent. Won independents).

    Trump’s opponent will be more popular then him this time. He’s underwater with independents. Democrats have been out of the WH for 4 years, so the “change” candidate will be a D.

    Trump’s only benefit is incumbency - which we have seen to mean less and less in recent elections.

    51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences.

    If your confidence comes from political polling in the Year of our Lord 2020, you're gonna have a bad time. This same argument backfired big time in 2016 when everything was showing a Trump failure. Not just the media, but the betting markets, sometimes had Clinton with an over 80% change of victory, sometimes close to 98%.

    My theory on this is pretty simple. Since we live in a time where you are incredibly demonized, harassed, made out to be less than human, can lose your job and social status, for going against progressive orthodoxy, a sizable number of people won't admit their views to some random person or journalist who calls them, maybe not even to their friends, and will simply take it to the voting booth. Know several such cases.

    People are just scared to say what they really think, and that is not unreasonable in this climate. Nobody wants to have to deal with the shrieking hordes of modern day Pharisees who see you as Satan incarnate for not going full in on the latest fad they started caring about in the past few years.

    Of course, it could also be just biased polling, but I think the answer is more mundane.

    The only person that I think has a good chance to win is Sanders, and he may end up getting the nomination.


    Once more, for the people in the back:

    Polling was as good in 2016 as it has ever historically been. This can be literally empirically demonstrated. The idea that polling is somehow suddenly "bad" is an absolute farce, and not supported by raw data.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

    The pundits were horribly wrong about 2016, but not the polls. Not for nothing, but your whole take just now was more bad punditry (reading the data and coming to the wrong conclusions).

    51% of people want Donald Trump to be removed from office. Think about that. If Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote in 2016, she would be president (A reminder in case you have forgotten, She won 48% of the vote. If she wins 51%, and he still only wins 46%, I'll give you two guesses who would in the White House right now, but you only need one).


    Another one of your theories is that we should blame progressives for things like a white supremacist massacring Latinos at a Texas Wal-mart. Consider me unconvinced.
    ThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811


    Lol, isn't it great how things like this get "discovered" once a person becomes a political threat? Amazing how that works.

    I hate the dishonesty of political media with the intensity of a thousand suns.

    Just say the opposition research factory had it in their stash and waited for the right time to release it. Don't try to play me like I'm stupid and this is some random thing that got "discovered" out of nowhere

    From the 70s?
    40 freaking years ago? Give me a break.
    ThacoBell
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited January 2020


    Once more, for the people in the back:

    Polling was as good in 2016 as it has ever historically been. This can be literally empirically demonstrated. The idea that polling is somehow suddenly "bad" is an absolute farce, and not supported by raw data.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

    The pundits were horribly wrong about 2016, but not the polls. Not for nothing, but your whole take just now was more bad punditry (reading the data and coming to the wrong conclusions).

    51% of people want Donald Trump to be removed from office. Think about that. If Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote in 2016, she would be president (A reminder in case you have forgotten, She won 48% of the vote. If she wins 51%, and he still only wins 46%, I'll give you two guesses who would in the White House right now, but you only need one).

    Nope, polling was awful, and this article is merely the excuses of the embarrassed. Your source, Five Thirty Eight, were one of the worst examples of inaccurate nonsense, giving Trump less than a 20% chance to win. If anyone needs to make a case against observable reality to justify their own existence, it's Five Thirty Eight.

    I'm not even sure if I should consider them a valid source on this question, really, given the conflicts of interest involved here. It would directly hurt their own credibility and income stream to say anything other than "the polls are accurate and all is well".

    He hands me justification for my entire argument, in fact, because his argument is that polls have always been this bad, and little has changed. Polls in 2016 being far off the mark, sample sizes biased towards the left, state level polling being awful, swing state polling being awful, response rates in recent years being lower than they were before, he concedes it all.

    In fact, based on his own numbers, this is the least accurate polling of any political election that I've been paying attention to in my lifetime. His main argument is just that how bad they were compared to previous examples is a little overblown.

    Polls always being bad, but a little worse now, doesn't give me confidence that they are very accurate.

    He also potentially validates my theory given that he mentions the decline of response rates. People inclined to vote in a controversial manner likely just won't take the poll.

    Another one of your theories is that we should blame progressives for things like a white supremacist massacring Latinos at a Texas Wal-mart. Consider me unconvinced.

    That just sounds like nonsense, and not even close to anything I said. It's just buzzwords and progressive narrative pushing and I have no interest in it. I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning, followed by a bear mauling my charred corpse, and throwing me into a pit of sharks, than I do being killed by "white supremacists".

    They are not even in the top 100 dangers in this country. This is just fear mongering, and we see far too much of it nowadays.
    Grond0
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    deltago wrote: »


    Lol, isn't it great how things like this get "discovered" once a person becomes a political threat? Amazing how that works.

    I hate the dishonesty of political media with the intensity of a thousand suns.

    Just say the opposition research factory had it in their stash and waited for the right time to release it. Don't try to play me like I'm stupid and this is some random thing that got "discovered" out of nowhere

    From the 70s?
    40 freaking years ago? Give me a break.

    Shameless, isn't it? Sanders has to be one of the most clean people in politics if this is all they got.
    smeagolheart
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659


    Once more, for the people in the back:

    Polling was as good in 2016 as it has ever historically been. This can be literally empirically demonstrated. The idea that polling is somehow suddenly "bad" is an absolute farce, and not supported by raw data.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

    The pundits were horribly wrong about 2016, but not the polls. Not for nothing, but your whole take just now was more bad punditry (reading the data and coming to the wrong conclusions).

    51% of people want Donald Trump to be removed from office. Think about that. If Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote in 2016, she would be president (A reminder in case you have forgotten, She won 48% of the vote. If she wins 51%, and he still only wins 46%, I'll give you two guesses who would in the White House right now, but you only need one).

    Nope, polling was awful, and this article is merely the excuses of the embarrassed. Your source, Five Thirty Eight, were one of the worst examples of inaccurate nonsense, giving Trump less than a 20% chance to win. If anyone needs to make a case against observable reality to justify their own existence, it's Five Thirty Eight.

    I'm not even sure if I should consider them a valid source on this question, really, given the conflicts of interest involved here. It would directly hurt their own credibility and income stream to say anything other than "the polls are accurate and all is well".

    He hands me justification for my entire argument, in fact, because his argument is that polls have always been this bad, and little has changed. Polls in 2016 being far off the mark, sample sizes biased towards the left, state level polling being awful, swing state polling being awful, response rates in recent years being lower than they were before, he concedes it all.

    In fact, based on his own numbers, this is the least accurate polling of any political election that I've been paying attention to in my lifetime. His main argument is just that how bad they were compared to previous examples is a little overblown.

    Polls always being bad, but a little worse now, doesn't give me confidence that they are very accurate.

    He also potentially validates my theory given that he mentions the decline of response rates. People inclined to vote in a controversial manner likely just won't take the poll.

    Another one of your theories is that we should blame progressives for things like a white supremacist massacring Latinos at a Texas Wal-mart. Consider me unconvinced.

    That just sounds like nonsense, and not even close to anything I said. It's just buzzwords and progressive narrative pushing and I have no interest in it. I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning, followed by a bear mauling my charred corpse, and throwing me into a pit of sharks, than I do being killed by "white supremacists".

    They are not even in the top 100 dangers in this country. This is just fear mongering, and we see far too much of it nowadays.



    We've arrived at the part of the argument when you decide that you dont like certain sources, and wont consider those you dont think are "valid".

    Probabilities. They gave Trump about a 30% chance to win in 2016. He won. That doesnt mean they were wrong. That's not how probabilities work. It means that if the election was run 100 times, they would expect Trump to win approximately 30 times.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/

    Fun fact - The "horrible polls" were less than 2 points off in the end. That swing towards Trump narrowly handed him a win because of 3 swing states he won by less than 100,000 votes in total.

    Also - here's another reason why your argument doesnt fit: 538 isnt a pollster! They dont do polls! They aggregate polls and model outcomes based on those polls and slew of additional economic and demographic data. It wouldnt matter to 538's reputation if the polls were "bad". The only thing that bears on 538's reputation is their forecasting/modeling.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/

    I think the most interesting part of this is how you accept certain parts of the article but reject others. You find validation in the response rate blurb, but decided to ignore that the polling data was shown to be pretty useful - (and by the way, this article was written before the 2018 midterm. Guess how good the polls were for that? - Very good. 538 put out a model on the number of House seat pickups the Democrats would get, and guess how accurate that model was? Also very good).

    Grond0ThacoBellronaldo
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    Another one of your theories is that we should blame progressives for things like a white supremacist massacring Latinos at a Texas Wal-mart. Consider me unconvinced.
    That was not @WarChiefZeke--that was a different user, who does not need to be named.

    @WarChiefZeke: When you suggest that people lose their jobs for not supporting progressive orthodoxy, I have to disagree about the scale of that sort of trend. I am reminded of a statistic about the trans community: one in every five of us has actually lost a job specifically for being transgender. One in five of us has been denied housing for bring trans. One in five of us has been denied healthcare for being trans.

    The inaccuracy is that one of those is actually one in four; not just one in five--I'm afraid I don't remember which one, but I believe it was the right to work; not the right to sleep under a roof or receive healthcare, that was denied at the higher rate. It is not progressive orthodoxy that is taking away hundreds of thousands of jobs from hardworking people.
    BallpointManThacoBell
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    Warchiefzeke’s point, and I agree with him, is that people will mask their true feelings to avoid mob ridicule. They’ll do it by refusing to participate or just flat out telling the person conducting the poll what it is they think they want to hear.

    There may not be statistical evidence to back up the perception of it, but that doesn’t matter to one’s mind. The perception itself is enough to warrant a guarded approach when it comes to talking about politics, especially in this divisive time.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited January 2020
    How is one anonymous person on a telephone call in any way correlate with mob ridicule?? If someone is THAT wary of telling someone the truth of who they support to someone they will never meet, who, in fact, might as well be a robot for all the interaction they will ever have them, then perhaps we're dealing with inner guilt, not this amorphous concept that if you tell a pollster calling from some random location in the US, all of a sudden your entire neighborhood will turn on you and your job will be at risk. What paranoid nonsense. I've done polling before. No one gives two shits about the real-life identity of the person on the other end of the line. You're just trying to complete a damn call one out of every ten times. Professional pollsters are not hiring people who are hell-bent on exposing Trump supporters to the world. That's not how real-life works.
    ThacoBell
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    I've done polling before. No one gives two shits about the real-life identity of the person on the other end of the line. You're just trying to complete a damn call one out of every ten times. Professional pollsters are not hiring people who are hell-bent on exposing Trump supporters to the world. That's not how real-life works.

    This is why I have a hard time believing polling is as accurate as it used to be. You're already skewing towards one diminishing subset, those who answer their damned phones when an unknown number calls. I don't answer any number I don't recognize and I'd bet I'm in the majority now. Let's do a quick search...

    https://medium.com/@dawnpapple_7117/millennials-are-upset-about-the-presidential-poll-results-but-wont-answer-their-phones-for-45264e6b6631
  • smeagolheartsmeagolheart Member Posts: 7,963
    This type of thing is pathetic and also very dangerous. A lot of soft in the head grandmas and grandpas watch Fox News. They believe it's News and not the propaganda that it obviously is. The crap they are hearing is lies lies lies "Republican good, Democrat bad".

  • QuickbladeQuickblade Member Posts: 957
    edited January 2020


    Once more, for the people in the back:

    Polling was as good in 2016 as it has ever historically been. This can be literally empirically demonstrated. The idea that polling is somehow suddenly "bad" is an absolute farce, and not supported by raw data.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

    The pundits were horribly wrong about 2016, but not the polls. Not for nothing, but your whole take just now was more bad punditry (reading the data and coming to the wrong conclusions).

    51% of people want Donald Trump to be removed from office. Think about that. If Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote in 2016, she would be president (A reminder in case you have forgotten, She won 48% of the vote. If she wins 51%, and he still only wins 46%, I'll give you two guesses who would in the White House right now, but you only need one).

    Nope, polling was awful, and this article is merely the excuses of the embarrassed. Your source, Five Thirty Eight, were one of the worst examples of inaccurate nonsense, giving Trump less than a 20% chance to win. If anyone needs to make a case against observable reality to justify their own existence, it's Five Thirty Eight.

    I'm not even sure if I should consider them a valid source on this question, really, given the conflicts of interest involved here. It would directly hurt their own credibility and income stream to say anything other than "the polls are accurate and all is well".

    He hands me justification for my entire argument, in fact, because his argument is that polls have always been this bad, and little has changed. Polls in 2016 being far off the mark, sample sizes biased towards the left, state level polling being awful, swing state polling being awful, response rates in recent years being lower than they were before, he concedes it all.

    In fact, based on his own numbers, this is the least accurate polling of any political election that I've been paying attention to in my lifetime. His main argument is just that how bad they were compared to previous examples is a little overblown.

    Polls always being bad, but a little worse now, doesn't give me confidence that they are very accurate.

    He also potentially validates my theory given that he mentions the decline of response rates. People inclined to vote in a controversial manner likely just won't take the poll.

    Oh come off of it. A 1 in 5 chance of winning is perfectly reasonable when Trump won his electoral victory by a COMBINED 120,638 votes in 3 states and 2 districts, from a voting pool of 14,586,008 votes in those areas. The biggest was Pennsylvania's 44,292 out of over 6 million.

    That is less than 1% margin. Typical polls do not have the precision from sample size to determine that.
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    I've done polling before. No one gives two shits about the real-life identity of the person on the other end of the line. You're just trying to complete a damn call one out of every ten times. Professional pollsters are not hiring people who are hell-bent on exposing Trump supporters to the world. That's not how real-life works.

    This is why I have a hard time believing polling is as accurate as it used to be. You're already skewing towards one diminishing subset, those who answer their damned phones when an unknown number calls. I don't answer any number I don't recognize and I'd bet I'm in the majority now. Let's do a quick search...

    https://medium.com/@dawnpapple_7117/millennials-are-upset-about-the-presidential-poll-results-but-wont-answer-their-phones-for-45264e6b6631

    I've responded to poll calls, when I get them on my house phone. They come across as 'something survey' on CallerID.

    Why does a cell phone have contacts and EVERYTHING else is a big UNKNOWN? Maybe we should have CallderID for smartphones.
    ThacoBell
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,366
    Quickblade wrote: »


    Once more, for the people in the back:

    Polling was as good in 2016 as it has ever historically been. This can be literally empirically demonstrated. The idea that polling is somehow suddenly "bad" is an absolute farce, and not supported by raw data.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

    The pundits were horribly wrong about 2016, but not the polls. Not for nothing, but your whole take just now was more bad punditry (reading the data and coming to the wrong conclusions).

    51% of people want Donald Trump to be removed from office. Think about that. If Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote in 2016, she would be president (A reminder in case you have forgotten, She won 48% of the vote. If she wins 51%, and he still only wins 46%, I'll give you two guesses who would in the White House right now, but you only need one).

    Nope, polling was awful, and this article is merely the excuses of the embarrassed. Your source, Five Thirty Eight, were one of the worst examples of inaccurate nonsense, giving Trump less than a 20% chance to win. If anyone needs to make a case against observable reality to justify their own existence, it's Five Thirty Eight.

    I'm not even sure if I should consider them a valid source on this question, really, given the conflicts of interest involved here. It would directly hurt their own credibility and income stream to say anything other than "the polls are accurate and all is well".

    He hands me justification for my entire argument, in fact, because his argument is that polls have always been this bad, and little has changed. Polls in 2016 being far off the mark, sample sizes biased towards the left, state level polling being awful, swing state polling being awful, response rates in recent years being lower than they were before, he concedes it all.

    In fact, based on his own numbers, this is the least accurate polling of any political election that I've been paying attention to in my lifetime. His main argument is just that how bad they were compared to previous examples is a little overblown.

    Polls always being bad, but a little worse now, doesn't give me confidence that they are very accurate.

    He also potentially validates my theory given that he mentions the decline of response rates. People inclined to vote in a controversial manner likely just won't take the poll.

    Oh come off of it. A 1 in 5 chance of winning is perfectly reasonable when Trump won his electoral victory by a COMBINED 120,638 votes in 3 states and 2 districts, from a voting pool of 14,586,008 votes in those areas. The biggest was Pennsylvania's 44,292 out of over 6 million.

    That is less than 1% margin. Typical polls do not have the precision from sample size to determine that.
    Balrog99 wrote: »
    jjstraka34 wrote: »
    I've done polling before. No one gives two shits about the real-life identity of the person on the other end of the line. You're just trying to complete a damn call one out of every ten times. Professional pollsters are not hiring people who are hell-bent on exposing Trump supporters to the world. That's not how real-life works.

    This is why I have a hard time believing polling is as accurate as it used to be. You're already skewing towards one diminishing subset, those who answer their damned phones when an unknown number calls. I don't answer any number I don't recognize and I'd bet I'm in the majority now. Let's do a quick search...

    https://medium.com/@dawnpapple_7117/millennials-are-upset-about-the-presidential-poll-results-but-wont-answer-their-phones-for-45264e6b6631

    I've responded to poll calls, when I get them on my house phone. They come across as 'something survey' on CallerID.

    Why does a cell phone have contacts and EVERYTHING else is a big UNKNOWN? Maybe we should have CallderID for smartphones.

    Maybe have a subset of phone numbers set aside for polling. That way any call using those numbers would be automatically id'd as a poll. Of course, you'd have to somehow prevent scammers from disguising their actual phone numbers with any of those numbers though (seriously, why is that even allowed???)...
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    The polling in 2016 was basically spot-on nationally. 538 had Clinton at close to 80 or 90% for awhile. That changed the moment the Comey letter hit. And it dropped to 70%. People act like if you hit 51% in this metric, you're a shoe-in. 70% basically means you have a 2 out of 3 chance of winning. If you were choosing one of 3 ping-pong balls out of a hat, two white, one black, who would pick the black one and be SHOCKED that it happened?? I would hope no one.
    ThacoBellAyiekie
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @WarChiefZeke "51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences."

    Is it though? The Democratic/Republican split in the US is not 50/50. As of late 2017, it was more like 44/37. So a 51% figure shows a significant dip into both sides.
    BallpointMansemiticgoddess
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @WarChiefZeke "51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences."

    Is it though? The Democratic/Republican split in the US is not 50/50. As of late 2017, it was more like 44/37. So a 51% figure shows a significant dip into both sides.

    Agreed. The other useful point here is that the voters who are suggesting Trump should be both impeached and convicted are going to be very, very unlikely to vote for Trump in 2020. One of Trump's saving graces in 2016 is that there was a percentage of the US electorate that disliked both him *and* Clinton, and he won that vote by a wide margin for a variety of reasons that have been referenced in this thread before. It's hard to imagine someone who wanted Trump removed, but also dislikes the Democrat candidate would vote to keep Trump in 2020.

    My biggest reservation about that polling information is that I couldnt source if it was Registered Voters, Likely Voters, or All Adults. I think It was RV, if only because CNN released a bunch of polls that same day for the Democratic primary that were all RV based, and it wouldnt make a lot of sense for them to change metrics on the fly while the poll is in the field.
    ThacoBell
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited January 2020
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @WarChiefZeke "51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences."

    Is it though? The Democratic/Republican split in the US is not 50/50. As of late 2017, it was more like 44/37. So a 51% figure shows a significant dip into both sides.

    Fair enough, but most polls in the U.S aren't a 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats either, they usually lean Democrat, so that's worth keeping in mind. People who lean left will almost always be over represented in political polls, mostly due to self selection in my opinion, with conservatives less likely to choose to participate.

    Ironically, after I just got done bashing them, I'm gonna use Five Thirty Eight as my example here, since they have a handy chart of polls from a wide variety of sources to choose from and the political leanings of the participants.

    As you can see, all but two polls regarding impeachment have more democrats than Republicans participating.

    For the smaller ones it doesn't seem to be a huge deal, but the bigger ones seem to have a larger, more significant disparity.

    And there's not really a big dip into the conservative side, the rate seems to be a steady 8-12%. There is a couple outlier polls that shows above 20% but they are largely outnumbered so I wonder how representative they are


    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

    For my own part, though I would never vote for the person again, for my own reasons unrelated to this forums dislike of him, I wouldn't support it. Mostly because I find it a serious thing, and this is trivial and vindictive rather than serious.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    ThacoBell wrote: »
    @WarChiefZeke "51% is a terrible figure if your goal is to show that this isn't a partisan hit job. That number has not moved up or down more than a few percentage points this whole time, and I bet even that can be attributed to sample size differences."

    Is it though? The Democratic/Republican split in the US is not 50/50. As of late 2017, it was more like 44/37. So a 51% figure shows a significant dip into both sides.

    Fair enough, but most polls in the U.S aren't a 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats either, they usually lean Democrat, so that's worth keeping in mind. People who lean left will almost always be over represented in political polls, mostly due to self selection in my opinion, with conservatives less likely to choose to participate.

    Ironically, after I just got done bashing them, I'm gonna use Five Thirty Eight as my example here, since they have a handy chart of polls from a wide variety of sources to choose from and the political leanings of the participants.

    As you can see, all but two polls regarding impeachment have more democrats than Republicans participating.

    For the smaller ones it doesn't seem to be a huge deal, but the bigger ones seem to have a larger, more significant disparity.

    And there's not really a big dip into the conservative side, the rate seems to be a steady 8-12%. There is a couple outlier polls that shows above 20% but they are largely outnumbered so I wonder how representative they are


    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/?ex_cid=rrpromo

    For my own part, though I would never vote for the person again, for my own reasons unrelated to this forums dislike of him, I wouldn't support it. Mostly because I find it a serious thing, and this is trivial and vindictive rather than serious.

    Could the lean towards democrats in the poll be because their are more of them than Republicans in the country?

    It’s like doing a!n even split based off of ethnicity. Having a poll of 33% white, 33% black and 33% Asian in the states would not be a true reflective of the population.
    semiticgoddessThacoBell
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    edited January 2020
    semiticgod wrote: »
    Another one of your theories is that we should blame progressives for things like a white supremacist massacring Latinos at a Texas Wal-mart. Consider me unconvinced.
    That was not @WarChiefZeke--that was a different user, who does not need to be named.

    @WarChiefZeke: When you suggest that people lose their jobs for not supporting progressive orthodoxy, I have to disagree about the scale of that sort of trend. I am reminded of a statistic about the trans community: one in every five of us has actually lost a job specifically for being transgender. One in five of us has been denied housing for bring trans. One in five of us has been denied healthcare for being trans.

    The inaccuracy is that one of those is actually one in four; not just one in five--I'm afraid I don't remember which one, but I believe it was the right to work; not the right to sleep under a roof or receive healthcare, that was denied at the higher rate. It is not progressive orthodoxy that is taking away hundreds of thousands of jobs from hardworking people.

    To be honest, and maybe it's because I don't live in the deep South or something, I have a hard time conceiving of the fact that people lose jobs for being trans. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's not something I can find easy to imagine. Most corporations have anti discrimination policies and low level jobs often don't care if you are a noticable drug addict or felon. Needless to say I don't support it. I did once, admittedly, toy with the idea that the smallest of buisness owners may do so as an extension of their own moral principles, but I concedes the inherent contradictions in that right after.

    And neither to I oppose basic services to anyone, as you know, I'm more with Andrew Yang on economics and believe in, at least attempting, either some form of universal basic income, or other welfare policy that takes care of basic necessities for everyone. I think we should invest heavily in that.

    But I also believe in states and community rights, and I really can't say I like the idea of forcing some christian town to enact pro-gay laws if that's not what they support. They deserve some level of autonomy. I'm still wondering where the acceptable line is to draw here, between the community and individual, but certainly it doesn't go as far as denying economic opportunities to people.

    To be perfectly honest, I don't think much about these issues, because they don't affect me, but it is refreshing to do so and clarify a position on it
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    edited January 2020
    @WarChiefZeke: Anti-discrimination policies are only as strong as the people who enforce them. Employers have a great deal of unchecked power in the United States, and while sometimes trans people have been able to fight against discrimination by drawing on company policy, the reality is that if a trans person is fired for being trans, you're probably not going to see a bunch of people rally to their defense. You're going to see a lot of people shrug their shoulders. That's the typical response to these things.

    I think you're overestimating how many people genuinely care if we live or die.

    A few weeks ago I ran into some New York Times article about a transgender issue and one of the top comments was a woman saying that she had met trans people and 95% of them were rapists. The only thing notable about that comment was that it was highly popular among a prominent, majority-liberal audience. I've long since lost track of how many times I've heard people portray trans folks as crazy, violent, totalitarian, or perverted. In some places, people get criticized for those stereotypes. In others, folks agree with them. And in most places, no one cares. The stereotype goes unchallenged.

    People believe those stereotypes. And people act on their beliefs.

    Imagine that your boss woke up tomorrow with the powerful suspicion that you were a mentally ill child rapist. How would that impact your future at that company?
    smeagolheartThacoBell
  • Grond0Grond0 Member Posts: 7,305
    For my own part, though I would never vote for the person again, for my own reasons unrelated to this forums dislike of him, I wouldn't support it. Mostly because I find it a serious thing, and this is trivial and vindictive rather than serious.

    @WarChiefZeke let's look at what impeachment is and whether it should be used in this case in a bit more detail.

    I think the first issue should be to consider the nature of impeachment. The US constitutional provisions on that derive directly from the English parliamentary procedure. Although rarely used, the provisions in England were not just invoked in cases of crime - corruption and abuse of power was often the cause. The Federalist papers show that the framers of the constitution had in mind that this should be the case in the US as well (which is why the language used of high crimes and misdemeanors is taken from the English provisions - see for instance the comment from Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65 that impeachable offenses arise from "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust."

    Given that background, does it seem reasonable that impeachment should be available as a remedy for serious abuse of power, even if such abuse is not a crime? Although the typical remedy for such abuse may be for the President to be thrown out at the next election, that may not always be the appropriate means of dealing with abuse. There would be a problem with that for instance if a President were conspiring with a foreign power or attempting to corruptly influence an election. The abuse could also have such serious consequences that waiting years for an election would be unreasonable.

    If impeachment is available as a remedy for serious abuse of power, what could constitute such abuse? In the case now under trial, Trump is accused of withholding $400m from Ukraine and applying other pressure in the attempt to coerce them to aid his election chances. Let's assume that he is in fact guilty of that. Does that constitute serious abuse? To me it clearly does for a number of reasons:
    - the sums involved, the use of personal envoys outside the normal diplomatic channels and the degree of secrecy enforced on communications all indicate this was a serious and major effort to influence another country. There's nothing unusual about that so far of course, but influencing them not to support US policy, but to support a personal Presidential objective does seem highly unusual.
    - because of its origins, the US as a country is even more sensitive to the potential for foreign interference than most countries. This was a direct attempt to invoke foreign interference that can't possibly be laughed off as just intended as a joke.
    - the Ukraine ambassador was removed for not supporting this effort. While I'm not arguing Trump did not have the power to fire her, I am arguing that it was a serious abuse of his power to do so for this purpose.
    - under the Constitution, Congress provides the authority to spend money - not the President. Trump was therefore not just abusing his own power, but undercutting that of Congress (let's ignore the complicating factor that those actions are also probably illegal).

    From your earlier words it sounds like you're not arguing Trump is not guilty of abusing his power, but that the abuse is too trivial to be concerned about. Can you give a bit more insight into why you consider this issue trivial?
  • WarChiefZekeWarChiefZeke Member Posts: 2,651
    semiticgod wrote: »
    @WarChiefZeke: Anti-discrimination policies are only as strong as the people who enforce them. Employers have a great deal of unchecked power in the United States, and while sometimes trans people have been able to fight against discrimination by drawing on company policy, the reality is that if a trans person is fired for being trans, you're probably not going to see a bunch of people rally to their defense. You're going to see a lot of people shrug their shoulders. That's the typical response to these things.

    I think you're overestimating how many people genuinely care if we live or die.

    A few weeks ago I ran into some New York Times article about a transgender issue and one of the top comments was a woman saying that she had met trans people and 95% of them were rapists. The only thing notable about that comment was that it was highly popular among a prominent, majority-liberal audience. I've long since lost track of how many times I've heard people portray trans folks as crazy, violent, totalitarian, or perverted. In some places, people get criticized for those stereotypes. In others, folks agree with them. And in most places, no one cares. The stereotype goes unchallenged.

    People believe those stereotypes. And people act on their beliefs.

    Imagine that your boss woke up tomorrow with the powerful suspicion that you were a mentally ill child rapist. How would that impact your future at that company?

    I certainly see your point, and more than a bit of parallels between how we feel about our respective "interest" groups. Although I am vocal mostly about how people of my own identity are treated i'm not so insensitive as to not see how you share the same concern.

    At the very least, rest assured I don't support any of it and will be vocal about it.

    I tend to only hand around people on the dissident right (I don't know what to call right wingers who deviate from the mold since alt right is so poisoned) who are pro trans and LGBT issues so my perspective on their overall acceptance to be skewed.

    But yeah, ive heard of and seen the left wing TERFs and the like so I know anti trans bias exists there too.
    Grond0semiticgoddess
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Worker protection laws working assumes 3 things, which rarely ever converge:

    1.) That workers are aware or made aware of what their rights are. And no, the barely discernible posters in the break room don't count.

    2.) That if they ARE aware of their rights, they have the monetary means to fight for them legally.

    3.) That the employer fears the punishment enough to even care. Losing you business or freedom would make them think twice. Insignificant monetary fines won't.
    ThacoBell
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