Trump's Genius with Rural & Exurban USA- 538 Similar Misunderstandings of Politics on the Left

Lerxst1992

In 2015 and prior Donald Trump figured out that rural and exurban voters in Montana Nebraska Texas were no different than rural and exurban voters in Pennsylvania Florida Wisconsin Michigan Iowa Ohio etc.

Trump figured out presidential politics on a level beyond others and to this day "experts" struggle to figure out his success, even in the wake of his defeat.

He crafted his message and his entire political machine to resonate with rural and exurban voters. This is how he was able to turn the Electoral College into a massive advantage when he loses popular votes by millions.

Those who believe that the Electoral College can have 40,000 independent outcomes significantly misunderstand politics in the United States of America.

The scoring in the electoral college is not similar to predicting athletic competitions. The Electoral College is a representation of 538 connected outcomes where  votes correlate to others hundreds and thousands of miles away.  Electoral votes are not like predicting outcomes in a slate of football games, or hockey games or baseball games or golf tournaments.

The electoral college is correlated because of significant similarities amongst rural and exurban voters around the country,  and how trump figured out how to secure their loyalty and ignore the messaging of outsiders.

Until democrats figure out how to make inroads 30 miles outside of cities, Electoral College and senate contests will be a difficult road. As a loyal Democrat, I see this as alarming.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/03/05/ahead-of-the-2020-election-rural-voters-do-not-view-any-of-the-democratic-candidates-favorably/

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/460718-trump-wins-60-percent-approval-in-rural-areas-of-key-states

Ledbetterman10

Genius? 

rgambs

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

Ledbetterman10

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

rgambs

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

static111

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

brianlux

So Trump is a genius and because he is "upper class" he has class.  Got it.

The middle class is dumb and has no class (not even middle class).  Got it.

That leaves the lower class.  Lets see, Daniel Suelo, Rembrandt, Nikola Tesla, Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent van Gogh, Charles Baudelaire, Johannes Gutenberg.  Yeah, I'm hanging with the poor.  My kind of people.  

rgambs

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

None of them!  Do you even live in America?? Have you looked around at all?
 This country is a fucking cesspool, filled with morons who can't help but trip over their own self-interest.

Most of us who post here are not idiots and have some class, and we've insulated ourselves with people similar to us, so it's easy to forget what a raving pack of lunatics we are as a whole.  

CM189191

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

static111

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

Halifax2TheMax

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

static111

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

That’s not my disagreement. I’m not nor have I ever claimed both sides are the same.  The problem is the Democrats basically becoming the legislative wing of the Republican Party and only using their power to govern the Republican Party.  Instead of using power to meaningfully drag things back to the left, for the last 40 or so years they have basically used their times in power at best to keep things from going further right.  Meanwhile when there are Dems that try to raise a voice about this they get shouted down and told that it will harm the party.  Harm the party worse than taking the moderate centrist path of letting the right drag the narrative further and further to the right?  How anyone thinks that this is a reason to ridicule and have a good laugh at the expense of the middle/working class/ working poor is beyond me.   Now if you want to have the real argument about how white men in general are classless and dumb  and largely responsible for this rightward drift that is an argument worth making.  But assuming to blame and single out workers as being a problem is as Elon musk would say dumb!

CM189191

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

That’s not my disagreement. I’m not nor have I ever claimed both sides are the same.  The problem is the Democrats basically becoming the legislative wing of the Republican Party and only using their power to govern the Republican Party.  Instead of using power to meaningfully drag things back to the left, for the last 40 or so years they have basically used their times in power at best to keep things from going further right.  Meanwhile when there are Dems that try to raise a voice about this they get shouted down and told that it will harm the party.  Harm the party worse than taking the moderate centrist path of letting the right drag the narrative further and further to the right?  How anyone thinks that this is a reason to ridicule and have a good laugh at the expense of the middle/working class/ working poor is beyond me.   Now if you want to have the real argument about how white men in general are classless and dumb  and largely responsible for this rightward drift that is an argument worth making.  But assuming to blame and single out workers as being a problem is as Elon musk would say dumb!

The problems you are describing are a result of the problems with representation in the system.  Not problems with the Democrats.  

Now we have 5 Supreme Court Justices who have been appointed by Republican Presidents who lost the popular vote.  That's a big imbalance of power that doesn't represent the actual makeup of the US.  That's not the fault of the Democratic party.  The system is broken.  

Fix the system first, then maybe you have a chance of shifting the narrative further to the left. 

mickeyrat

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

That’s not my disagreement. I’m not nor have I ever claimed both sides are the same.  The problem is the Democrats basically becoming the legislative wing of the Republican Party and only using their power to govern the Republican Party.  Instead of using power to meaningfully drag things back to the left, for the last 40 or so years they have basically used their times in power at best to keep things from going further right.  Meanwhile when there are Dems that try to raise a voice about this they get shouted down and told that it will harm the party.  Harm the party worse than taking the moderate centrist path of letting the right drag the narrative further and further to the right?  How anyone thinks that this is a reason to ridicule and have a good laugh at the expense of the middle/working class/ working poor is beyond me.   Now if you want to have the real argument about how white men in general are classless and dumb  and largely responsible for this rightward drift that is an argument worth making.  But assuming to blame and single out workers as being a problem is as Elon musk would say dumb!

The problems you are describing are a result of the problems with representation in the system.  Not problems with the Democrats.  

Now we have 5 Supreme Court Justices who have been appointed by Republican Presidents who lost the popular vote.  That's a big imbalance of power that doesn't represent the actual makeup of the US.  That's not the fault of the Democratic party.  The system is broken.  

Fix the system first, then maybe you have a chance of shifting the narrative further to the left. 

I blame the Koch Brothers and greedy politicians in general.

Halifax2TheMax

View in browser|nytimes.com

 

November 13, 2020

  By David Leonhardt

Good morning. It’s another record day for virus cases. Obama’s memoir gets a glowing review. And we look at why the polls were wrong.

 

Election night in San Francisco.Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Fool us once …

The polls were wrong again, and much of America wants to know why.

Dozens of pre-election polls suggested that Joe Biden would beat President Trump by a wide margin, but the race instead came down to one or two percentage points in a handful of states. Polls also indicated that Democrats would do much better than they did in congressional races.

So what happened? Here are six key points:

1. In the last few years, Republican voters seem to have become less willing to respond to polls. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, given Trump’s attacks on the media, science and other institutions.

2. This phenomenon isn’t simply about working-class whites. Pollsters were careful to include more of these voters in their samples than four years ago, when the polls also missed, but it didn’t solve the problem. One likely reason: Even within demographic groups — say, independent, older, middle-income white women — people who responded to polls this year leaned more Democratic than people who did not.

3. It’s also not just about Trump. Polls missed in several Senate races even more than in the presidential race, which means they did an especially poor job of finding people who voted for Biden at the top and a Republican lower down the ballot.

4. Most of the easy solutions are probably not real solutions. Since Election Day, some campaign operatives have claimed their private polls were more accurate than the public polls. That seems more false than true. Biden, Trump and both parties campaigned as if their own polls matched the public polls, focusing on some states that were not really competitive and abandoning others that were close.

5. Polls have still been more accurate over the last four years than they were for most of the 20th century. As pollsters get more information about this year’s election and what went wrong, they will try to fix the problems, much as they did in the past. A new challenge: In the smartphone age, poll response rates are far lower than they used to be.

6. We journalists can do a better job of conveying the uncertainty in polls. Polls will never be perfect. Capturing the opinions of a large, diverse country is too difficult. And in today’s closely divided U.S., small polling errors can make underdogs look like favorites and vice versa. All of us — journalists, campaign strategists and the many Americans who have become obsessed with politics — shouldn’t forget this. We just got another reminder.

 

By The New York Times

For more: I’ve written a longer Times story about this year’s polling errors and the history of the industry.

And my colleague Nate Cohn, who knows more about this subject than almost anybody, points out that a significant chunk of the error involved Hispanic voters. Nate has also discussed polling on episodes of “The Daily” and “The Argument” podcasts.

Elsewhere: Sarah Isgur of The Dispatch says the problem isn’t about Trump voters who lie about their preference. Charles Franklin of Marquette University suggests the pandemic may have affected turnout in surprising ways. Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, notes that polls in many states will still be “incredibly close” to the final result.

THE LATEST NEWS

THE ELECTION

• Biden narrowly won Arizona. The victory brings him to 290 electoral votes.

• More Republicans and their allies have begun acknowledging Biden’s victory, including Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, the veteran party operative Karl Rove and the editorial board of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, a newspaper owned by the family of the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

• Several more Republican senators — including Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham and John Thune — said Trump should let Biden receive classified intelligence briefings.

• Trump privately pressed advisers about the possibility of Republican state legislatures appointing electors to vote for him in the Electoral College, bypassing voters’ wishes. But it was not a detailed conversation. “He knows it’s over,” one adviser said.

• Federal, state and local election officials said the election “was the most secure in American history” and that there was “no evidence” of any compromised voting systems.

• China congratulated Biden after days of silence, signaling a start to its relations with the incoming administration.

brianlux

Halifax2TheMax said:

View in browser|nytimes.com

 

November 13, 2020

  By David Leonhardt

Good morning. It’s another record day for virus cases. Obama’s memoir gets a glowing review. And we look at why the polls were wrong.

 

Election night in San Francisco.Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Fool us once …

The polls were wrong again, and much of America wants to know why.

Dozens of pre-election polls suggested that Joe Biden would beat President Trump by a wide margin, but the race instead came down to one or two percentage points in a handful of states. Polls also indicated that Democrats would do much better than they did in congressional races.

So what happened? Here are six key points:

1. In the last few years, Republican voters seem to have become less willing to respond to polls. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, given Trump’s attacks on the media, science and other institutions.

2. This phenomenon isn’t simply about working-class whites. Pollsters were careful to include more of these voters in their samples than four years ago, when the polls also missed, but it didn’t solve the problem. One likely reason: Even within demographic groups — say, independent, older, middle-income white women — people who responded to polls this year leaned more Democratic than people who did not.

3. It’s also not just about Trump. Polls missed in several Senate races even more than in the presidential race, which means they did an especially poor job of finding people who voted for Biden at the top and a Republican lower down the ballot.

4. Most of the easy solutions are probably not real solutions. Since Election Day, some campaign operatives have claimed their private polls were more accurate than the public polls. That seems more false than true. Biden, Trump and both parties campaigned as if their own polls matched the public polls, focusing on some states that were not really competitive and abandoning others that were close.

5. Polls have still been more accurate over the last four years than they were for most of the 20th century. As pollsters get more information about this year’s election and what went wrong, they will try to fix the problems, much as they did in the past. A new challenge: In the smartphone age, poll response rates are far lower than they used to be.

6. We journalists can do a better job of conveying the uncertainty in polls. Polls will never be perfect. Capturing the opinions of a large, diverse country is too difficult. And in today’s closely divided U.S., small polling errors can make underdogs look like favorites and vice versa. All of us — journalists, campaign strategists and the many Americans who have become obsessed with politics — shouldn’t forget this. We just got another reminder.

 

By The New York Times

For more: I’ve written a longer Times story about this year’s polling errors and the history of the industry.

And my colleague Nate Cohn, who knows more about this subject than almost anybody, points out that a significant chunk of the error involved Hispanic voters. Nate has also discussed polling on episodes of “The Daily” and “The Argument” podcasts.

Elsewhere: Sarah Isgur of The Dispatch says the problem isn’t about Trump voters who lie about their preference. Charles Franklin of Marquette University suggests the pandemic may have affected turnout in surprising ways. Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, notes that polls in many states will still be “incredibly close” to the final result.

THE LATEST NEWS

THE ELECTION

• Biden narrowly won Arizona. The victory brings him to 290 electoral votes.

• More Republicans and their allies have begun acknowledging Biden’s victory, including Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, the veteran party operative Karl Rove and the editorial board of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, a newspaper owned by the family of the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.

• Several more Republican senators — including Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham and John Thune — said Trump should let Biden receive classified intelligence briefings.

• Trump privately pressed advisers about the possibility of Republican state legislatures appointing electors to vote for him in the Electoral College, bypassing voters’ wishes. But it was not a detailed conversation. “He knows it’s over,” one adviser said.

• Federal, state and local election officials said the election “was the most secure in American history” and that there was “no evidence” of any compromised voting systems.

• China congratulated Biden after days of silence, signaling a start to its relations with the incoming administration.

It's unsettling how close the race was.

Good for China!  Russia next?  Haha, fat chance.

static111

mickeyrat said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

That’s not my disagreement. I’m not nor have I ever claimed both sides are the same.  The problem is the Democrats basically becoming the legislative wing of the Republican Party and only using their power to govern the Republican Party.  Instead of using power to meaningfully drag things back to the left, for the last 40 or so years they have basically used their times in power at best to keep things from going further right.  Meanwhile when there are Dems that try to raise a voice about this they get shouted down and told that it will harm the party.  Harm the party worse than taking the moderate centrist path of letting the right drag the narrative further and further to the right?  How anyone thinks that this is a reason to ridicule and have a good laugh at the expense of the middle/working class/ working poor is beyond me.   Now if you want to have the real argument about how white men in general are classless and dumb  and largely responsible for this rightward drift that is an argument worth making.  But assuming to blame and single out workers as being a problem is as Elon musk would say dumb!

The problems you are describing are a result of the problems with representation in the system.  Not problems with the Democrats.  

Now we have 5 Supreme Court Justices who have been appointed by Republican Presidents who lost the popular vote.  That's a big imbalance of power that doesn't represent the actual makeup of the US.  That's not the fault of the Democratic party.  The system is broken.  

Fix the system first, then maybe you have a chance of shifting the narrative further to the left. 

I blame the Koch Brothers and greedy politicians in general.

For sure. Isn’t it only one Koch Brother at this point? I hate the idea of having to wait for time to solve these problems.  I wish there were more workable solutions.  Hopefully Dems win Georgia and Biden plays dirty the first two years and gets us back to a middle ground that we can actually work from.

The Juggler

Strikes me as odd that a "genius" would twice lose the popular vote, this time by double what he did last time.

Also odd that a "genius" manages to lose Georgia for the republicans for the first time in three decades and Arizona for the first time in 24 years. He also played a significant factor in Arizona losing both republican senate seats for the first time in almost 70 years. Takes a special kind of "genius" to pull off that trifecta! 

Also odd that a "genius" would become the only president in recent memory to not be able to galvanize the majority of the country around him during a time of national crisis. Literally any other president's approval ratings would've soared, at the very least in this day and age, into the mid to high 50's last spring.

Also odd that a "genius" would think he could easily define the way he wanted Biden, who the country has known and generally liked for decades, the same way he defined HRC, who the country knew and generally disliked for decades. 

And if you want to give this "genius" credit for tapping into the rural vote, fine. But then you also have to acknowledge the colossal mistake of not even attempting to win over anyone who didn't vote for him in '16 until it was too late. What "genius" do you know of would think it's a good idea to tell suburban "housewives" that Joe Biden will destroy their neighborhoods? This "genius" you speak of, seemed to be under the impression that he was campaigning in 1955 instead of 2020. Low and behold, here he is almost two weeks after the election suffering a slow and painful death at the hands of the mail in votes cast by the same suburban and urban voters he disregarded. Irony is fucking delicious. 


At the end of the day, Biden won this by a considerable amount, as predicted. Donald Trump is not, in fact, a "genius". He's far from it. He's a political moron, albeit with incredible timing, who got lucky in 2016. Had he been running against just about anyone other than HRC, he certainly would've lost. He is, and has always been, a transactional salesman. It has worked to his advantage in certain instances. But he's got the shortest view in the room, always had. That is no political  "genius," folks.

**
The problem here is not that Trump is a "genius," it's that democrats are just bad at politics. They've always been worse than republican's at messaging. There is nothing new about this. Anyone could've seen Trump labeling the entire party as socialists once AOC and her squad became such headliners a few years ago. Thinking the term "Defund the Police" would play well with anyone not on the far left is fucking joke. AOC is the new Nancy Pelosi boogeywoman for republicans. Get used to it, democrats. No matter where you live, you will be inundated with commercials every political cycle featuring her. The sooner democrats realize that the dems who flipped the house for them in '18 (after the "genius'" shrewd political move of attempting to scare the country with tales of immigrant caravans failed miserably) should be face of their party, the sooner they'll regain the senate. 

Thank GOD Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket. 

Godspeed. 

HughFreakingDillon

trump is a fucking moron. he has shown that time and again. 

CM189191

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

CM189191 said:

static111 said:

rgambs said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

rgambs said:

I don't think the author understands the word "genius" 🤣
Pandering to the lowest common denominator and discovering that the LCD is a staggering portion of the population isn't genius...if it was, then the Kardashians would be the most genius humans walking the Earth 🤦‍♂️

I don’t think it’s that either. The middle class feels abandoned by the Democrats that used to champion them. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand (Alfred’s quote in The Dark Knight as to why the mob turned to the Joker). Joking aside, I think the middle class to a degree, and middle America in particular, just don’t identify with the Democratic Party, and sided with a guy that the Dems hate and who hates them back. Andrew Yang made a similar point on CNN on election night. Here’s Yang: https://youtu.be/wr_ZwRgbXlY

The middle class is dumb and without class.  

And this is the problem of the Democrat party right here⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

The part that never gets said out loud.  Because the middle class are the ones that have been running the show and setting the narrative for so long. Give me a break.   Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up, by the hands of both parties, but hey the middle class is dumb and without class, so it must be their fault 🤦‍♂️.  Is it just the middle class that is dumb and with out class or does it stretch to the working poor that have even less sway than the middle class? Which class has “class” and is intelligent?

"Schools have been defunded, manufacturing and jobs sent overseas in the name of capitalism, cost of housing and college going up"
Conservatives did this.  Don't you dare 'both sides' this shit.  Conservatives gutted the middle class.  

Democrats didn't abandon the middle class, they are just living in the reality that the middle class doesn't exist anymore.  Due to the wealth disparity that Conservatives created, there are only the haves and have nots.  

Democrats have shifted their view to support the have nots: continuing to support education, union workers, affordable housing and health care. 

Part of the problem is: the have nots still view themselves as middle class.  They can't admit to themselves they've been robbed blind and have nothing left.  Instead of rightly blaming Conservatives, they'd rather blame anyone and everyone else for having the audacity to ask for basic human rights like education housing and health care.

So yeah, the middle class is dumb and without class.

No democrat votes for deregulation or NAFTA then? Sure that sounds about right. In an alternate reality.  Both sides are not the same, agreed, republicans and conservatives are much worse, but let’s not pretend the democrats have no blame for the last 40 years of running the country into the ground. Criticizing the real problems and short falls of the Democrat party isn’t both sidesing anything.  It’s just like the Democrats living in the reality that the middle class doesn’t exist anymore. I’m living with the reality that the democrat party is a corporate donor based party and not pretending that big money doesn’t get more say.

I don’t know about you but I did much better under 8 years of Clinton and 8 years of Obama than I did, and I’d argue most did though they won’t admit it, under 24 years of Reagan, Bush, Bush, Team Trump Treason Tax Cheat. So 16 years of dems was way better personally than 24 years of repubs in a myriad of ways. 

That’s not my disagreement. I’m not nor have I ever claimed both sides are the same.  The problem is the Democrats basically becoming the legislative wing of the Republican Party and only using their power to govern the Republican Party.  Instead of using power to meaningfully drag things back to the left, for the last 40 or so years they have basically used their times in power at best to keep things from going further right.  Meanwhile when there are Dems that try to raise a voice about this they get shouted down and told that it will harm the party.  Harm the party worse than taking the moderate centrist path of letting the right drag the narrative further and further to the right?  How anyone thinks that this is a reason to ridicule and have a good laugh at the expense of the middle/working class/ working poor is beyond me.   Now if you want to have the real argument about how white men in general are classless and dumb  and largely responsible for this rightward drift that is an argument worth making.  But assuming to blame and single out workers as being a problem is as Elon musk would say dumb!

The problems you are describing are a result of the problems with representation in the system.  Not problems with the Democrats.  

Now we have 5 Supreme Court Justices who have been appointed by Republican Presidents who lost the popular vote.  That's a big imbalance of power that doesn't represent the actual makeup of the US.  That's not the fault of the Democratic party.  The system is broken.  

Fix the system first, then maybe you have a chance of shifting the narrative further to the left. 

...been thinking about this post (from 2020) a lot lately....

Lerxst1992

Well…now it’s six, and if the Dems lose this year, we could very well see the gop pressure Thomas and alito to retire, so they lock up those two seats for another 35 years. Since we’ve learned on the last four years those two justices are basically extensions of the gop.

 

If that occurs, it’s very possible the USSC doesn’t swing to the liberals during the lifetimes of every Pearl Jam member.