Everything Is Great and Amazing

The Original BJ
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by The Original BJ »

Bog wrote:It is just so damned hard to not get re-elected when you're the incumbent, whatever the hell the reason. I mean we're looking at Hoover and Carter as far as elected dudes who ran a 1 on 1 race to actually lose in at least 120 years? The former there had a total national catastrophe to run with as well.
Not sure what you mean by a 1 on 1 race, but Ford and Bush '41 also lost their re-election campaigns. So in the last 40 years, 3 incumbents lost re-election, 4 won it. And arguably Trump is already running with a total national catastrophe -- himself!

One thing I have to keep reminding myself is that, in electoral terms, Trump won by 78,000 votes in 3 states, which means not ONE Trump voter has to vote Democrat in 2020 to flip the White House. He can maintain 100% of his voters -- something I have doubts he'll do regardless -- and the Democrats can still win simply by motivating enough non-voters and working to make sure those who want to vote in states with draconian disenfranchisement laws have the proper IDs.

None of this is to suggest that Democrats should get complacent -- though absolutely no evidence suggests the left is doing that -- but there are some pretty clear roadblocks ahead for the GOP that I don't think can be denied in this environment.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Bog »

Sonic Youth wrote:Yes, but... you do realize that while you pointed out that we live in a bubble, you illustrated a bubble of your own.
Absolutely I do...the same bubble of people who exist in all the other small places in these small margin states who will literally decide the presidential race. The ones who don't forget to vote, don't have to work a double that day, who don't ever get denied a ballot at the polls. I'm glad you stay away from being justified by a tv personality your every feeling...my bigger point was Sonic...you're not webcasting Rush then plopping down for glorious set of Tucker/Five/Hannity either then are you?

It is just so damned hard to not get re-elected when you're the incumbent, whatever the hell the reason. I mean we're looking at Hoover and Carter as far as elected dudes who ran a 1 on 1 race to actually lose in at least 120 years? The former there had a total national catastrophe to run with as well.
Sonic Youth wrote: Have we really gotten to this state of despair?
Sorry if I sounded in a state of despair or incite panic...I feel pretty positive in gains in the house and probably getting the Senate back by January of 2021...and that feels like it might be plenty to not pull our hair out over. Sight unseen I would simply not place any money down on him NOT winning re-election were he the nominee/president at that point.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

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Yes, but... you do realize that while you pointed out that we live in a bubble (I watch none of those shows, FTR), you illustrated a bubble of your own. I'm sure your observations are exactly as you say they are. I'm sure things are similar in Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, too. But your observations are anecdotal, and representative of only certain pockets. In sheer numbers, how large are those pockets now? How large will they be in 2018 and 2020? Again, I'll quote Tee: "Trump achieved margins of 0.22% in MI, 0.67% in WI, and 0.71% in PA".

The fact is, unlike every other modern president, he had no honeymoon period. He entered office with low ratings, which - and I'm not sure why people are willfully ignoring this - have only gone down nationwide. This is unique to probably every other president in the 20th/21st century. No, it doesn't mean it will stay like this by 2020. But why are people waving off actual information that should comfort us? Have we really gotten to this state of despair?
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Bog »

Heksagon wrote:I don't see any reason to suppose that Trump's support is significantly lower than it was in November.
This is really the crux of the argument...and Magilla made a comment also about getting the little info they do have from Hannity and Newt screaming back and forth with the nasty Dr. Gorka about how it is all made up anyway. I'm not sure how many of you are "on the ground" with the men and women who support and now more intensely support Trump. I live in Columbus Ohio and work in a very wealthy semi-suburban county just north (Delaware county) where the rhetoric is- we really need to get behind our president because the hate and vitriol, mostly manufactured by NBC, is at such a high they're even telling me basically everyone disapproves of the amazing job he's doing.

I don't know the exact number but I know it was pretty low and only went lower...but W's rating around 11/04 was in the 40s right? I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer but these Ohioans who I hear from literally every day of my life think they're being mocked for voting for him...a decent amount of which are people in their 60s and 70s who already think and disgustingly say aloud to me he is on a path for best president of his/her lifetime. The disturbing facet of this is by a 3 to 1 margin it is women spouting these opinions.

Most of us live in a (primarily self-made) bubble where we have sick fantasies that Fox News will implode and everyone who watches religiously will cease to exist and/or have voting rights stricken from the record. We (here) watch Rachel and Lawrence lose their minds over every terrible thing he does next, we see Colbert and Kimmel and Samantha riff about his stupidity, illiteracy, unfit ability , his nepotistic indifference, etc and we wish and hope and pray the world will agree eventually.

Down here in the shitty dumbass state that seems to decide it all with this hideously gerrymandered system we have though...Fox News and Rush and Alex and locally Bill Cunningham and Mike Gallagher are energizing the same voters that shocked the world in November that, despite all they may hear on any other channel they tune in about the disarray and slam dunk loss coming in the next 2 cycles, Savior Trump's opponent will indubitably have a hyphen and then a capital D next to his/her name in 2020 and that is worse than any TweeterStorm you might have to not understand and endure for 4 more years.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Sonic Youth »

But what does that even matter? She's not running again.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Sabin »

Sonic Youth wrote
His favorability rating is 10 points lower now than it was on Election Day.
Well, Hillary Clinton's not much better. Gallup finds her favorability at 41% and unfavorability at 57%. With the exception of John Kerry, she's the only candidate since 1992 who hasn't received a boost since Election Day. In fact, she's had a two point drop. Now that's not as bad as ten points, but to be fair she hasn't really done anything aside from make some mildly toxic appearances that only reminded voters why they dislike her. Trump's favorability might be shitty, but he's not hopelessly stagnant like Bush was at the end of his second term. Dropping bombs makes people like him, and he knows that.
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Sonic Youth
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

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Heksagon wrote:Trump did terribly in polls measuring favorability even before he was elected, so I wouldn't read too much into his currently poor approval rating.
His favorability rating is 10 points lower now than it was on Election Day.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Big Magilla »

Exactly. It's the women that really surprise me. How any woman can vote for this pig is beyond me, but a sizeable number continue to support him despite his constant despicable lies and deeds, many of them in secret, which is why they don't show up in the polls.

Many of them get the little information they have about the world from Fox News, just like Trump himself.

They, like Trump's more vocal supporters, are looking for change. When they don't get it, or get something they don't like, they will smarten up, but it won't happen overnight. There is no good reason why this pathological liar received a single vote beyond the haters and right-wing ideologues, but he did and will again if they don't wake up.

Most people don't want to be told they're wrong. They have to figure it out for themselves. That doesn't mean we should stop trying to convince them otherwise. Some of them may never change, but we have to hope. We have to take every opportunity we have to try to get them away from the dark side even if it does take 12 years to do it.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Heksagon »

Trump did terribly in polls measuring favorability even before he was elected, so I wouldn't read too much into his currently poor approval rating.

A lot of those who "disapprove" of him are Republicans who voted for him anyways out of party loyalty. A smaller, but still significant, amount are women, Latinos and working-class Democrats who don't want to admit publicly that they support him.

There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Democrats' chances in 2018 and 2020, but currently, I don't see any reason to suppose that Trump's support is significantly lower than it was in November.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Big Magilla »

Sonic Youth wrote:
OscarGuy wrote:Approval Numbers:

Gallup - 36%

That was released today. Also released was Rasmussen who no one with a brain would ever cite and it's at 47%.
Ipsos/CBS poll is at 34%.
Hopeful, but not conclusive. The only polls that count are the ones at the ballot box, but we already know that.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Sonic Youth »

OscarGuy wrote:Approval Numbers:

Gallup - 36%

That was released today. Also released was Rasmussen who no one with a brain would ever cite and it's at 47%.
Ipsos/CBS poll is at 34%.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Greg »

Elizabeth Warren Calls For Democrats To Embrace Single-Payer Health Care:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/eli ... mg00000009
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Big Magilla »

It's not the solid 20% that concerns me. It's the other 16% plus another invisible 10% that tell pollsters one thing and do another.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote:Angus King, Independent Maine Senator, was asked on MSNBC if Trump voters were turning against him on the health bill. His answer was no, Trump supporters see an attack on him as an attack on them.
There's a great deal of sloppy reporting that conflates "Trump voters" with all 60 million people who pulled the lever for him last November, and King (an excellent fellow on almost all scores) falls into that trap here.

Clearly, many of the the second group have abandoned him -- he got 46% on Election Day, and has current poll numbers that (discounting the laughable Rasmussen) average out to mid/high 30s.

What most people mean when they say "Trump voters" is those who were avid about him from the day he announced, turned out in force to win him the nomination, and will stick with him even if, as he says, he shoots someone on 5th Avenue. This number probably bottoms out in the mid/high 20s -- the same percentage as still stood with Nixon the day he resigned -- but for the moment could be somewhere there in the 30s.

To speak of that group as if they're enough to win Trump a second term is innumeracy.
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Re: Everything Is Great and Amazing

Post by Big Magilla »

Angus King, Independent Maine Senator, was asked on MSNBC if Trump voters were turning against him on the health bill. His answer was no, Trump supporters see an attack on him as an attack on them.
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