Admittedly the inversion of which party belongs to the holier-than-thou elites has come abruptly, but you'd think that with the billions of dollars that the Clinton campaign is spending on expert analysis, they'd be better at reading the direction of the country. Then again, maybe it's their sclerotic bureaucracy that keeps them from adapting in real time.
Whatever the reason, they have convinced themselves that "going nuclear" means bringing up past instances of Trump engaging in guy talk about women. And not in a neutral tone of "the evidence speaks for itself," but the most fiery finger-wagging moralizing that we've seen this side of "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics".
So Trump issues a brief video apologizing for guy talk, then pivoting to attacking Bill's record of sexual assaults and Hillary's intimidation of the victims afterward, to keep them from ruining their ambitions. BFD.
Hillary surely remembers sitting on the couch with Bill for an hour-long interview about his 12 year-long affair with Gennifer Flowers. That was 60 Minutes, right after the Super Bowl. Far more flagrant of an offense, far more groveling of an apology, and far more intense of a spotlight on them before the entire nation.
And yet Bill went on to win the nomination and then the election. In the voting booth, nobody cared about his problematic past with women -- and they didn't even know about his many sexual assaults either.
Beyond not caring, a large share of voters had become downright disgusted by the hypocritical grandstanding about family values from the Religious Right, after so many televangelist scandals (affairs, prostitutes, etc.).
Now the shoe is on the other foot. Everyone except for Millennials knows about Bill's womanizing past, and Hillary's role in at least enabling him. Soon they will learn about his assaults and her intimidation of the victims. Even without knowing about the really gruesome stuff, though, middle America instinctively distrusts the grandstanding about the proper treatment of women, when it's coming from the Clintons.
Can you imagine if in 1992, the lead prosecutor of Bill's character flaws had been Jimmy "I have sinned" Swaggart? Talk about tone-deaf and clueless.
And they're sick of being lectured about women's issues and family values, when the economy continues to provide lower-paying jobs with less security, and when we're wide open to all sorts of foreign threats that the elites tell us not to worry our little heads about.
A generation later, it's still the economy, stupid. It's not that voters liked Slick Willy for having had affairs -- they were rejecting the incumbent party that had degraded into an out-of-touch elitist group that was more worried over decorum than the American people's fundamental well-being. And it's not that most voters like Teflon Don for having joked around about skirt-chasing. They're sick of the incumbent party being more concerned with how we act in our private lives than with protecting us and providing for us.
The difference this time is that the President-to-be is not a phony politician just trying to get elected in order to enrich themselves, while doing nothing to help the voters who got him there. Trump is rich enough already, not a career politician, and has been sticking his neck out for the major causes like being against NAFTA for decades. Real change is coming this time, and people know it -- making them even less likely to give a shit about what he said about chasing tail in the past.
If the Clinton campaign has proven to be this clueless and hell-bent on driving over the cliff, what does that portend about the future of the party? The Bernie fans are planning on an immediate overhauling in their direction, and away from the colossal failure of the Clintons. But I wouldn't bet on that.
Look at how long it took the Republican party to re-orient after becoming less and less electable from 1992 onward. The re-alignment process seems to be subject to hysteresis.
What we're looking at is a near-term rise of the Republicans in their Progressive Era re-incarnation, replacing the corrupt urban immigrant party that the Democrats were around that time (Tammany Hall). After the Democrats carry out their own purge toward populism over the upcoming decades, it will be their day in the sun, a la the New Deal that followed after the Progressive Era.
October 8, 2016
October 7, 2016
Why didn't Gore contest 2000 election? Shenanigans of their own?
The 2000 election took place well into the polarized partisan era, so why was there so little of a struggle between the two parties when the outcome was still up in the air after the vote was in?
The incumbent party was the apparent loser, so they should have wielded incumbent advantage in one way or another to squash the challenger party. Its candidate was the next-in-line ally of one of the most ruthless political clans in recent history (the challenger was from the other), so they should have had the killer instinct.
The incumbent party won the popular vote, had rising momentum going from its first to its second term, suggesting a win for the attempt at a third term. And the Electoral College race was about as close as you could get, all hinging on merely hundreds of votes in a very populous state -- which by the most extensive method of recounting, would have swung the state and the entire election to the incumbent party.
Instead, Al Gore declined to contest to the death the shutting down of the recount in Florida, surrendering the White House to the Republicans and the Bush clan in particular once again. Why risk another long string of Republican victories?
Remember that Clinton's terms only looked like an interregnum at best back then -- aside from the deeply unpopular Jimmy Carter, who got dethroned after a single term, and damn near got primaried out of his re-election campaign by Ted Kennedy, it was Republicans from Nixon in '68 through Bush in '88. In the documentary about the Clinton '92 campaign, The War Room, there's a scene where James Carville is trying to fire up the team before the New Hampshire primary, warning them that if they let this go, a Democrat will never win the White House again. After so many McGoverns, Carters, Mondales, and Dukakises, that's how bleak their party's prospects looked.
After only clawing back the presidency for two measly terms, why would the Democrats just hand it over to the Republicans for at least four and perhaps eight more years?
What people have remembered about the recount is that "if everything had been fair," Gore would have won Florida and the election.
Certainly he would have won Florida -- but who says the election? That's assuming that halting the Florida recount was the only event of unfairness that won a state for the wrong party.
Perhaps there were the usual shenanigans by the Democrat urban machines, or rigging the voting machines themselves, or electronically altering the data, or whatever else. If the Democrats pushed hard for fair process in Florida, they would open themselves up to counter-pushes against their own unfair practices in other states.
They would not have wanted to risk airing so much dirty laundry, delegitimizing not just the electoral process (which they don't care about), but more importantly their brand as a party. This could have kept them from pursuing the crusade to "make everything fair" even if they still would have won the election. It would have been almost impossible to govern with so much anti-democratic trickery on both sides being aired in public.
And it's also possible that they would have still lost, even after winning Florida. There were four states that the Democrats won by under 1 point, whose EC votes added up to 30 -- more than enough to outweigh the 25 votes of Florida. These were New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon. The margin in numbers of votes was 300-some in New Mexico, and between 4000 to 7000 in the other three -- not impossible for an urban machine to come up with by unsupervised tampering, dead people voting, voters from outside the state, etc. In fact, New Mexico could be left out, and the other three would still make up 25 votes to perfectly replace Florida.
Two of those states were in fact won by Bush in the very next election, New Mexico and Iowa. So who's to say he didn't get robbed in '00?
I'm not saying there was such a degree of fraud in those four states (or other blue states). I'm saying that Gore and the Democrat leadership probably didn't know for sure either. The party elites don't know how the lowly precinct officials conducted themselves in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Portland, and Davenport. That's all they needed -- a great big deal of uncertainty that would at the least expose all sorts of election fraud by their party, and at most rob them of these states, nullifying the gain of Florida in their supposed pursuit of total fairness.
It's hard to think of a convincing explanation, given what we know about how ruthless and heatedly partisan the top Democrats were, and how little of a fight it would supposedly have taken to win the election -- just recount votes in Florida! The most plausible conclusion is that they would have been found to have committed even more severe crimes of the same kind that they were accusing their enemies of.
The incumbent party was the apparent loser, so they should have wielded incumbent advantage in one way or another to squash the challenger party. Its candidate was the next-in-line ally of one of the most ruthless political clans in recent history (the challenger was from the other), so they should have had the killer instinct.
The incumbent party won the popular vote, had rising momentum going from its first to its second term, suggesting a win for the attempt at a third term. And the Electoral College race was about as close as you could get, all hinging on merely hundreds of votes in a very populous state -- which by the most extensive method of recounting, would have swung the state and the entire election to the incumbent party.
Instead, Al Gore declined to contest to the death the shutting down of the recount in Florida, surrendering the White House to the Republicans and the Bush clan in particular once again. Why risk another long string of Republican victories?
Remember that Clinton's terms only looked like an interregnum at best back then -- aside from the deeply unpopular Jimmy Carter, who got dethroned after a single term, and damn near got primaried out of his re-election campaign by Ted Kennedy, it was Republicans from Nixon in '68 through Bush in '88. In the documentary about the Clinton '92 campaign, The War Room, there's a scene where James Carville is trying to fire up the team before the New Hampshire primary, warning them that if they let this go, a Democrat will never win the White House again. After so many McGoverns, Carters, Mondales, and Dukakises, that's how bleak their party's prospects looked.
After only clawing back the presidency for two measly terms, why would the Democrats just hand it over to the Republicans for at least four and perhaps eight more years?
What people have remembered about the recount is that "if everything had been fair," Gore would have won Florida and the election.
Certainly he would have won Florida -- but who says the election? That's assuming that halting the Florida recount was the only event of unfairness that won a state for the wrong party.
Perhaps there were the usual shenanigans by the Democrat urban machines, or rigging the voting machines themselves, or electronically altering the data, or whatever else. If the Democrats pushed hard for fair process in Florida, they would open themselves up to counter-pushes against their own unfair practices in other states.
They would not have wanted to risk airing so much dirty laundry, delegitimizing not just the electoral process (which they don't care about), but more importantly their brand as a party. This could have kept them from pursuing the crusade to "make everything fair" even if they still would have won the election. It would have been almost impossible to govern with so much anti-democratic trickery on both sides being aired in public.
And it's also possible that they would have still lost, even after winning Florida. There were four states that the Democrats won by under 1 point, whose EC votes added up to 30 -- more than enough to outweigh the 25 votes of Florida. These were New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Oregon. The margin in numbers of votes was 300-some in New Mexico, and between 4000 to 7000 in the other three -- not impossible for an urban machine to come up with by unsupervised tampering, dead people voting, voters from outside the state, etc. In fact, New Mexico could be left out, and the other three would still make up 25 votes to perfectly replace Florida.
Two of those states were in fact won by Bush in the very next election, New Mexico and Iowa. So who's to say he didn't get robbed in '00?
I'm not saying there was such a degree of fraud in those four states (or other blue states). I'm saying that Gore and the Democrat leadership probably didn't know for sure either. The party elites don't know how the lowly precinct officials conducted themselves in Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Portland, and Davenport. That's all they needed -- a great big deal of uncertainty that would at the least expose all sorts of election fraud by their party, and at most rob them of these states, nullifying the gain of Florida in their supposed pursuit of total fairness.
It's hard to think of a convincing explanation, given what we know about how ruthless and heatedly partisan the top Democrats were, and how little of a fight it would supposedly have taken to win the election -- just recount votes in Florida! The most plausible conclusion is that they would have been found to have committed even more severe crimes of the same kind that they were accusing their enemies of.
October 6, 2016
Trump improving among non-"married with children" group, vs. old Republicans
One major aspect of the Trump re-alignment that has not gotten any coverage is how the Republican vs. Democrat candidates are appealing to people of different marital status, presence of children, and so on.
Usually the Republican runs on an explicitly natalist platform, whereas Trump has sidelined the issue of abortion, doesn't talk about family values, and doesn't specifically target people who are married with children. Now it is the Democrat who is appealing to suburban parents about how problematic the other candidate's tone and words would be if they came into contact with their innocent children's ears, and what kind of role model the other candidate would set for their little dears while growing up.
Trump is focusing on making life better for all Americans, not just those who score highest on the Ned Flanders index of household type, and he's focusing mainly on class and economic issues. Hillary ought to ask her husband who wins when one candidate is speaking plainly to the plight of working class whites, while the other is a hoity-toity tone-monitor lecturing the rest of us about family values. See here for an earlier discussion.
I compared the support for Trump across various marital and household types, using the Reuters tracking poll for September 2016 and Romney's performance as recorded in the General Social Survey (a national probability sample, and the gold standard for social science research). I restricted respondents to those aged 30-49, to control for whether or not they're likely to be married, have kids at home, etc. I also added 5 points to the Reuters numbers, since they deliberately altered their methodology to penalize him by that much.
He's under-performing Romney among the married-with-children ideal by 15-20 points, but doing much better in the other types (single and never married, divorced, cohabiting, married without children, etc.), by around 5-10 points. This helps Trump because most of the 30-49 age group of voters in 2012 were not married-with-children (only 25-30%). The net effect in this age group is to add about 3 points above Romney. If he can convince the married-with-children types that fixing our broken country is more important than what words their kids hear on the internet, he could improve by 10 points above Romney in this age group.
Reuters doesn't allow us to know the ages of the children at home, but I suspect Trump is out-performing Romney among parents with babies (under 6), since that's the one married-with-children demographic that Democrats tend to win. They emphasize childcare when the kids need it most, and now Trump has stolen their thunder on that topic with his plan to make early childcare more affordable. His sub-Romney support is likely among parents of preteens and teenagers.
Trump's improvement among cohabiting boyfriend-girlfriend households, the divorced, and so on, is not due to these households spurning the ideal of nuclear household living -- as though they simply had fewer burdens and responsibilities, and wanted bigger tax cuts to pursue their materialist hedonistic lifestyles. That would be the yuppies, who are still largely Democrats.
Rather, the non-Flanders people are turning to Trump because they do want to settle down, get married, have children, raise a family, visit the neighborhood children's lemonade stands, host their kids' friends for birthday parties, and the like. But given the downward class mobility that has plagued more and more young people as good-paying jobs have been off-shored or undercut by immigrants working here, and relentless mergers and acquisitions have concentrated the good jobs into fewer households, it's become harder and harder to begin the process of family formation.
Over 10 years ago, Steve Sailer wrote about affordable family formation being the key to the GOP's future, since Republicans did better with voters who were married, had more kids, and lived in areas with cheaper housing (such as in wide-open areas that are easier to develop than land lying next to a major body of water). His policy implications, however, were restricted to lowering costs rather than also raising incomes, and focused only on immigration and deregulation of building (fewer immigrants, less demand for housing, cheaper rents and mortgages).
The main driver of stagnating and falling real incomes over the past 40 years has not been immigration, which has made the trend even worse, but the disappearance of high-paying jobs. That is due to both the off-shoring of jobs (especially manufacturing, which paid many times the minimum wage), and the consolidation of good jobs via the trend toward monopolization in the era of deregulation mania.
However, using trade agreements and tariffs to bring those good jobs back here would hurt corporate profits (the very reason they were off-shored in the first place). So would breaking up big industries and blocking most mergers and acquisitions. Here we see the trade-off between favoring business interests and affordable family formation -- beyond the wage-lowering effect of businesses bringing in cheap unskilled labor. Even if we kicked all the immigrants out and shut the door, we would still have to take on the Chamber of Commerce in order for more citizens to realize the American dream in their family lives.
Under the Reagan-era coalition of the GOP, business interests were inviolable, and an elitist agenda was pursued. Downward mobility meant you were a sucker who should just go vote for the welfare-dispensing Democrats. With the populist re-alignment of the Trump movement, business interests will become subordinated to the well-being of all citizens. Now it is coherent and popular to discuss both the cost-lowering solution of immigration restriction, as well as the income-raising solution of a more protectionist trade policy and trust-busting attitude.
The natural "golden age" to look back toward for affordable family formation is the Baby Boom of the early post-WWII period. There was minimal immigration, but more importantly there was soaring prosperity (falling inequality) due to protectionist trade policy, a distrust of monopoly, and collective bargaining by labor unions. Tightly regulated banking was not very profitable, while most recent high school graduates could earn enough at a manufacturing plant to get married, buy a house, and start having children.
Only by proposing a fundamental re-structuring of the economy -- re-industrialization -- has Trump been able to succeed where the old Republican party had so pitifully failed in promoting affordable family formation.
Bernie Sanders was on the right track, too, and also galvanized the downwardly mobile and stagnant "young" people ("when you're over 70, under 40 will seem young"). However, he didn't focus quite enough on re-industrialization, almost writing it off as fantasy to return to the good ol' 1950s and '60s.
He focused on maintaining or extending the knowledge economy, just making it cost less to get a degree. But what are they supposed to do with that degree? Not everybody is going to become a professor, lawyer, or doctor. Raise the minimum wage for overly educated service workers? Fewer would be hired. Better to have higher-paying jobs being produced because the work is valuable to the company owners and the end consumers -- assembling a truck, not assembling a taco.
As Trump's plan of re-industrialization and trust-busting bears fruit, I think more and more of the Sanders supporters will come around to the new Republican party.
Usually the Republican runs on an explicitly natalist platform, whereas Trump has sidelined the issue of abortion, doesn't talk about family values, and doesn't specifically target people who are married with children. Now it is the Democrat who is appealing to suburban parents about how problematic the other candidate's tone and words would be if they came into contact with their innocent children's ears, and what kind of role model the other candidate would set for their little dears while growing up.
Trump is focusing on making life better for all Americans, not just those who score highest on the Ned Flanders index of household type, and he's focusing mainly on class and economic issues. Hillary ought to ask her husband who wins when one candidate is speaking plainly to the plight of working class whites, while the other is a hoity-toity tone-monitor lecturing the rest of us about family values. See here for an earlier discussion.
I compared the support for Trump across various marital and household types, using the Reuters tracking poll for September 2016 and Romney's performance as recorded in the General Social Survey (a national probability sample, and the gold standard for social science research). I restricted respondents to those aged 30-49, to control for whether or not they're likely to be married, have kids at home, etc. I also added 5 points to the Reuters numbers, since they deliberately altered their methodology to penalize him by that much.
He's under-performing Romney among the married-with-children ideal by 15-20 points, but doing much better in the other types (single and never married, divorced, cohabiting, married without children, etc.), by around 5-10 points. This helps Trump because most of the 30-49 age group of voters in 2012 were not married-with-children (only 25-30%). The net effect in this age group is to add about 3 points above Romney. If he can convince the married-with-children types that fixing our broken country is more important than what words their kids hear on the internet, he could improve by 10 points above Romney in this age group.
Reuters doesn't allow us to know the ages of the children at home, but I suspect Trump is out-performing Romney among parents with babies (under 6), since that's the one married-with-children demographic that Democrats tend to win. They emphasize childcare when the kids need it most, and now Trump has stolen their thunder on that topic with his plan to make early childcare more affordable. His sub-Romney support is likely among parents of preteens and teenagers.
Trump's improvement among cohabiting boyfriend-girlfriend households, the divorced, and so on, is not due to these households spurning the ideal of nuclear household living -- as though they simply had fewer burdens and responsibilities, and wanted bigger tax cuts to pursue their materialist hedonistic lifestyles. That would be the yuppies, who are still largely Democrats.
Rather, the non-Flanders people are turning to Trump because they do want to settle down, get married, have children, raise a family, visit the neighborhood children's lemonade stands, host their kids' friends for birthday parties, and the like. But given the downward class mobility that has plagued more and more young people as good-paying jobs have been off-shored or undercut by immigrants working here, and relentless mergers and acquisitions have concentrated the good jobs into fewer households, it's become harder and harder to begin the process of family formation.
Over 10 years ago, Steve Sailer wrote about affordable family formation being the key to the GOP's future, since Republicans did better with voters who were married, had more kids, and lived in areas with cheaper housing (such as in wide-open areas that are easier to develop than land lying next to a major body of water). His policy implications, however, were restricted to lowering costs rather than also raising incomes, and focused only on immigration and deregulation of building (fewer immigrants, less demand for housing, cheaper rents and mortgages).
The main driver of stagnating and falling real incomes over the past 40 years has not been immigration, which has made the trend even worse, but the disappearance of high-paying jobs. That is due to both the off-shoring of jobs (especially manufacturing, which paid many times the minimum wage), and the consolidation of good jobs via the trend toward monopolization in the era of deregulation mania.
However, using trade agreements and tariffs to bring those good jobs back here would hurt corporate profits (the very reason they were off-shored in the first place). So would breaking up big industries and blocking most mergers and acquisitions. Here we see the trade-off between favoring business interests and affordable family formation -- beyond the wage-lowering effect of businesses bringing in cheap unskilled labor. Even if we kicked all the immigrants out and shut the door, we would still have to take on the Chamber of Commerce in order for more citizens to realize the American dream in their family lives.
Under the Reagan-era coalition of the GOP, business interests were inviolable, and an elitist agenda was pursued. Downward mobility meant you were a sucker who should just go vote for the welfare-dispensing Democrats. With the populist re-alignment of the Trump movement, business interests will become subordinated to the well-being of all citizens. Now it is coherent and popular to discuss both the cost-lowering solution of immigration restriction, as well as the income-raising solution of a more protectionist trade policy and trust-busting attitude.
The natural "golden age" to look back toward for affordable family formation is the Baby Boom of the early post-WWII period. There was minimal immigration, but more importantly there was soaring prosperity (falling inequality) due to protectionist trade policy, a distrust of monopoly, and collective bargaining by labor unions. Tightly regulated banking was not very profitable, while most recent high school graduates could earn enough at a manufacturing plant to get married, buy a house, and start having children.
Only by proposing a fundamental re-structuring of the economy -- re-industrialization -- has Trump been able to succeed where the old Republican party had so pitifully failed in promoting affordable family formation.
Bernie Sanders was on the right track, too, and also galvanized the downwardly mobile and stagnant "young" people ("when you're over 70, under 40 will seem young"). However, he didn't focus quite enough on re-industrialization, almost writing it off as fantasy to return to the good ol' 1950s and '60s.
He focused on maintaining or extending the knowledge economy, just making it cost less to get a degree. But what are they supposed to do with that degree? Not everybody is going to become a professor, lawyer, or doctor. Raise the minimum wage for overly educated service workers? Fewer would be hired. Better to have higher-paying jobs being produced because the work is valuable to the company owners and the end consumers -- assembling a truck, not assembling a taco.
As Trump's plan of re-industrialization and trust-busting bears fruit, I think more and more of the Sanders supporters will come around to the new Republican party.
October 5, 2016
No signs of third-party cuck victory in Mountain states
An earlier post looked into the nature of the American two-party system, where each party is really a coalition of various groups that would form their own separate parties in Europe. Here, we form the coalition before the election rather than after. That seems to make actually governing proceed more swiftly here once the election is done, although it does make for more grand-scale politics leading up to the election, since each party is a great big coalition rather than a smaller party fending for itself.
But that doesn't mean the coalition holds together forever. When there is enough friction, one member group may break off into a protest party of its own:
That's an important point because third parties do not split off from a party that is already the opposition -- only from the incumbent party. Being taken for granted, abused, etc., stings more when you're part of the incumbent party because you aren't enjoying the fruits of victory like the other member groups are.
Once the Trump movement takes office, there could come a time after four or eight years when some of the older and now lesser elements of the coalition will feel slighted, taken for granted, and so on. We need to do our best to keep every group happy so that nobody pulls out -- at least, to the extent that they would jeopardize victory. If only one small state pulled out, and we would otherwise win by a large margin, we'd still win, just by a slightly smaller margin.
But if it's part of a broader discontent, then the coalition could be in serious trouble. For example, the Deep South punishing the Democrats in 1968 for cutting against white Southerners' interests by going whole-hog on the Civil Rights movement.
For the Trump movement, the weakest members are the apocalyptic Judaizers in the Plains and Mountain states, particularly the Mormons. So let's take a look at Utah and see if there are any signs already visible of a splinter movement there.
Right now, Trump is comfortably ahead of not only the Democrat but also the various third-party candidates, of which there are many. That is their main problem -- they are voting against Trump out of a sense of being holier-than-thou, but in what way are they holier-than-thou? There could be any number of traits that they draw that contrast on.
According to polls by PPP, Salt Lake Tribune, and Dan Jones & Assoc., Trump's support is in the high 30s, and Clinton's in the mid 20s. Normally the Republican would go on to win the state with well over 60% of the vote, but Trump is NOT A TRUE CONSERVATIVE.
And yet there is no single candidate who is running away with the 30 points left between Trump and the typical conservative Republican. Libertarian Gary Johnson is polling at 13%, while movement conservative Mormon McCuckin is polling at 10%, and Darrell Castle is at 2% (Constitution Party -- paleocon, theocratic). That still leaves about 10% who are undecided, too.
This is a microcosm of the primaries, where the non-Trump voters were too concerned with tailoring their non-Trump vote to their personal tastes, yielding over a dozen challengers to cater to as many different ideological and personality niches. If they wanted to break away, they had to overlook their personal differences and unite behind just one non-Trump candidate.
At least for now, then, Utah and the region is safe. But it's still something to keep an eye on, and to head off by giving them something in the new Republican Party -- like promising conservative Supreme Court Justices. They may want a more theocratic President, though, not just conservative influence in the courts. They may want weekly performances by a cosplay conservative President (a la Glenn Beck in his cargo cult Oval Office), rather than specific policy changes.
In the event that they did vote for a single third party in the future, that would only remove 13 EC votes. If the re-alignment made Michigan a permanent member of the coalition, that would offset the loss in the Mountain states by 3 votes. To clear 270, we'd need other members in the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, or New England. It wouldn't be the end of the world. See this earlier post on trading the Mormons for Michigan.
The only big loss that would be hard to make up for if they voted third-party is Texas, but they seem to be a lot less likely to splinter. They seem to want to punish Lyin' Ted rather than encourage him as in Utah. Trump is polling about 5 points higher in Texas than in Utah, and the main enemy is Democrats rather than a motley crew of cuck candidates. After deporting the illegals and anchor babies and their extended families, that ought to pad our margin better still.
It is exciting to be bringing in all sorts of new voters, demographic groups, states, and even regions into the Republican Party -- at least for Presidential races. But we need to be mindful of not letting the older groups feel marginalized, lest they abandon ship. And even if that proves inevitable, we need to be doubly aware of it and begin making up for it elsewhere.
But that doesn't mean the coalition holds together forever. When there is enough friction, one member group may break off into a protest party of its own:
Third parties do occasionally achieve national success, but they are short-lived reactions by defectors from one of the two parties, intended to punish the other members of the coalition who have betrayed the defecting group. They realize they will not win the general election as a break-off faction of one of the two parties -- the point is to punish past wrongdoing within the party, and serve as a credible threat against any future betrayal within the party.
Importantly, they are swift responses against the incumbent party -- not delayed grudges.
That's an important point because third parties do not split off from a party that is already the opposition -- only from the incumbent party. Being taken for granted, abused, etc., stings more when you're part of the incumbent party because you aren't enjoying the fruits of victory like the other member groups are.
Once the Trump movement takes office, there could come a time after four or eight years when some of the older and now lesser elements of the coalition will feel slighted, taken for granted, and so on. We need to do our best to keep every group happy so that nobody pulls out -- at least, to the extent that they would jeopardize victory. If only one small state pulled out, and we would otherwise win by a large margin, we'd still win, just by a slightly smaller margin.
But if it's part of a broader discontent, then the coalition could be in serious trouble. For example, the Deep South punishing the Democrats in 1968 for cutting against white Southerners' interests by going whole-hog on the Civil Rights movement.
For the Trump movement, the weakest members are the apocalyptic Judaizers in the Plains and Mountain states, particularly the Mormons. So let's take a look at Utah and see if there are any signs already visible of a splinter movement there.
Right now, Trump is comfortably ahead of not only the Democrat but also the various third-party candidates, of which there are many. That is their main problem -- they are voting against Trump out of a sense of being holier-than-thou, but in what way are they holier-than-thou? There could be any number of traits that they draw that contrast on.
According to polls by PPP, Salt Lake Tribune, and Dan Jones & Assoc., Trump's support is in the high 30s, and Clinton's in the mid 20s. Normally the Republican would go on to win the state with well over 60% of the vote, but Trump is NOT A TRUE CONSERVATIVE.
And yet there is no single candidate who is running away with the 30 points left between Trump and the typical conservative Republican. Libertarian Gary Johnson is polling at 13%, while movement conservative Mormon McCuckin is polling at 10%, and Darrell Castle is at 2% (Constitution Party -- paleocon, theocratic). That still leaves about 10% who are undecided, too.
This is a microcosm of the primaries, where the non-Trump voters were too concerned with tailoring their non-Trump vote to their personal tastes, yielding over a dozen challengers to cater to as many different ideological and personality niches. If they wanted to break away, they had to overlook their personal differences and unite behind just one non-Trump candidate.
At least for now, then, Utah and the region is safe. But it's still something to keep an eye on, and to head off by giving them something in the new Republican Party -- like promising conservative Supreme Court Justices. They may want a more theocratic President, though, not just conservative influence in the courts. They may want weekly performances by a cosplay conservative President (a la Glenn Beck in his cargo cult Oval Office), rather than specific policy changes.
In the event that they did vote for a single third party in the future, that would only remove 13 EC votes. If the re-alignment made Michigan a permanent member of the coalition, that would offset the loss in the Mountain states by 3 votes. To clear 270, we'd need other members in the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, or New England. It wouldn't be the end of the world. See this earlier post on trading the Mormons for Michigan.
The only big loss that would be hard to make up for if they voted third-party is Texas, but they seem to be a lot less likely to splinter. They seem to want to punish Lyin' Ted rather than encourage him as in Utah. Trump is polling about 5 points higher in Texas than in Utah, and the main enemy is Democrats rather than a motley crew of cuck candidates. After deporting the illegals and anchor babies and their extended families, that ought to pad our margin better still.
It is exciting to be bringing in all sorts of new voters, demographic groups, states, and even regions into the Republican Party -- at least for Presidential races. But we need to be mindful of not letting the older groups feel marginalized, lest they abandon ship. And even if that proves inevitable, we need to be doubly aware of it and begin making up for it elsewhere.
Categories:
Geography,
Morality,
Politics,
Psychology,
Religion
October 3, 2016
Poll shifts after "events" are illusory
After last week's debate that the media and the elites declared a resounding victory for Clinton, several bogus polls were released purporting to show a little bump for her. How can we tell about specific polls being bogus, and what larger lessons can be drawn from polling after supposedly big "events" like a debate, gaffe, leaked documents, etc.?
PPP put out a poll where 2% said they were voting for Evan McMullin, the fake "true conservative" candidate whose campaign exists only so that the failed cuckservative consultants who were supporting Rubio etc. can still rake in some donor money this season, and delay having to get real jobs for another six months. This nobody polls below 1% -- which is what PPP says is Jill Stein's support level, when in reality it is more like 2-3%.
In other words, it over-sampled cuckservative Republicans to cut down Trump's numbers, and under-sampled progressive Democrats to boost Clinton's numbers.
Fox News put out a poll where only 18% are Independents, and the wording did not group Democrat with "Democrat leaning Indies" and Republican with "Republican leaning Indies," which is the only way to get that low a share of Independents. Since Trump wins Indies in every poll, this one under-sampled a key support group of his.
Reuters did a little better, as they should given their superior track record from the 2012 general election. Their daily poll shows Trump improving after the debate, not a bump for Hillary like the other two. After the debate, Clinton leads by 3-4 points (4-way vs. heads-up), about what the Fox and PPP polls showed.
However, Reuters surgically altered their methodology in the middle of the election season in order to move soft Trump supporters from "Trump" into one of the other / neither / unsure categories. The result was an overnight 6-point boost for Hillary. Using their original methodology (which is what their high track record from 2012 is based on), they show Trump up by 2-3 points.
That estimate is closer to what the USC poll has said for the post-debate period, which is 4-5 points for Trump. The Reuters and USC polls are also similar in their directions after the debate -- Trump doing better, although that improvement had already been under way for several days, and was therefore not a response to the debate. That is, the debate appears not to have mattered, judging from USC and Reuters.
To make sense of this, consider a recent journal article by Gelman et al (2016), "The Mythical Swing Voter" (found among Ricky Vaughn's tweets).
They look back at the 2012 election, when Romney had a good first debate, and the polls afterward suggested a 10-point movement in his favor. But who participates in the samples before and after the debate are not the same people -- maybe that 10-point swing was real, but maybe it was just a more pro-Romney crowd that participated in the sample after their team smashed the other team in a public spectacle.
Using a panel of the same individuals over time, the researchers were able to see how likely someone was to change after the debate. There was in fact a movement in Romney's direction after winning the first debate, but it was only 2-3 points instead of 10, after correcting for demographic and partisanship differences in the before and after samples.
Most people had the same preference the whole time, with only 3% changing their minds, indicating low volatility. The major difference in the before and after polls was who chose to participate -- those who did after the debate were more likely to be Romney supporters than those who participated before the debate. Perhaps it's the same effect as when fans of the losing sports team suffer a drop in testosterone and enthusiasm generally, while the fans of the winning team are turbo-charged.
So, when pollsters contact different groups of people with each poll they release, they cannot be sure that they have a representative sample each time. Maybe after some event that demoralizes the fans of one candidate, they are less likely to respond to the pollster, maybe telling them to call back when they're in a better mood -- while the fans of the other candidate are now energized at their enemy's misfortune, and are only too eager to participate in a poll and let their support for the winner of the event be known far and wide. They are probably getting a kick just from imagining the other sides' long faces when they read the poll results in a few days.
Gelman et al discuss this in the context of party affiliation, but it's broader than that. It's not only that after an event that damages the Democrat, the polls will under-sample Democrats because they're demoralized. They will under-sample anyone who was for the Democrat -- including partisan Democrats (the bulk of support), but also cross-over voters who are normally Republican, and Independents who are inclined toward the Democrat.
Differential willingness to participate also screws up our ability to generalize about Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, from such a sample, as though we were talking about the same populations every time a poll comes out.
The Democrats who do participate after their team suffers a loss are probably not the most rabid and loyal fans, who are more sensitive to public losses and more likely to be sulking. The Democrat participants are therefore less likely to qualify as "likely voters", and are less in favor of the Democrat candidate, compared to the rabid fans who are sitting things out until some good news comes along to cheer them up and make them feel like participating in the polls again. And the Republicans will not include the cross-over voters, making them even more against the Democrat candidate than is true. And the Independents will also be those more inclined toward the Republican.
The only way to keep track of these things is to track the same individuals over time in a panel. That's what the RAND poll did in 2012, and it out-performed just about all others, particularly when it suggested only a minor slump for Obama after he bombed the first debate, while the others suggested that Romney was not only doing better than before but now ahead of Obama.
The USC poll is the RAND poll under new branding, and that's why it's worth giving greater weight to than the other ones, which are going to be affected by swings in willingness to participate among Trump supporters vs. Clinton supporters. In fact, given how roller coaster-y the emotions have been this season, the non-panel polls will probably do worse than in 2012.
In particular, I've noticed PPP and Quinnipiac, which were among the best last time, have slipped a tier down in their accuracy. For example, Quinnipiac's heads-up poll from 9/8 to 9/13 had Clinton up 5, while USC had Trump up half a point over that period. Before that, PPP's heads-up poll from 8/26 to 8/28 had Clinton up 5, while USC had her up only half a point.
In general, it seems like the non-panel polls are biased against Trump, as their deviation from the more accurate panel polls is always in the pro-Clinton direction, never a more pro-Trump result than USC. Some of that is certainly due to the anti-Trump agenda of the pollsters and their corporate sponsors, which is far fiercer than whatever anti-Romney bias there was last time. Now it's the people and Trump vs. all arms of the Establishment.
But it could also be due to a stronger unwillingness among Trump voters to participate in the non-panel polls this time, compared to Romney voters last time. That's not necessarily because Trump voters are a crankier group of people, but they are more subjected to a 24/7 gauntlet of attempted demoralization by the media, compared to what Romney voters had to put up with last time.
That is evidently having an effect on their willingness to share their views with pollsters, who they might feel are about to engage them in another tedious "gotcha!" debate about whatever the Establishment hitjob du jour is. However, the demoralization campaign is clearly not having an impact on their willingness to support Trump in all ways -- to tune into the debates starring him, to follow him on social media, to attend his rallies or watch them from home, to wear Trump gear or put up Trump signs, and ultimately to vote Trump at the polling station -- first in the primaries, and soon in the general.
In the future, I'd like to see heavy restrictions on what kind of stuff goes on during campaign season. We all know how bad it is that unlimited big money gets involved. But the endless roller coaster of events is worse -- none of them end up changing people's minds or affecting the outcome. They're just a bunch of annoying shit that we're forced by the media to pay attention to. And the media make a fortune during election season -- they're the only ones who benefit from all this crap.
Somehow we elected good presidents like FDR and Eisenhower without any of today's non-stop campaigning (for those with the energy to do so), round-the-clock coverage, and roller coaster of attention and emotion.
PPP put out a poll where 2% said they were voting for Evan McMullin, the fake "true conservative" candidate whose campaign exists only so that the failed cuckservative consultants who were supporting Rubio etc. can still rake in some donor money this season, and delay having to get real jobs for another six months. This nobody polls below 1% -- which is what PPP says is Jill Stein's support level, when in reality it is more like 2-3%.
In other words, it over-sampled cuckservative Republicans to cut down Trump's numbers, and under-sampled progressive Democrats to boost Clinton's numbers.
Fox News put out a poll where only 18% are Independents, and the wording did not group Democrat with "Democrat leaning Indies" and Republican with "Republican leaning Indies," which is the only way to get that low a share of Independents. Since Trump wins Indies in every poll, this one under-sampled a key support group of his.
Reuters did a little better, as they should given their superior track record from the 2012 general election. Their daily poll shows Trump improving after the debate, not a bump for Hillary like the other two. After the debate, Clinton leads by 3-4 points (4-way vs. heads-up), about what the Fox and PPP polls showed.
However, Reuters surgically altered their methodology in the middle of the election season in order to move soft Trump supporters from "Trump" into one of the other / neither / unsure categories. The result was an overnight 6-point boost for Hillary. Using their original methodology (which is what their high track record from 2012 is based on), they show Trump up by 2-3 points.
That estimate is closer to what the USC poll has said for the post-debate period, which is 4-5 points for Trump. The Reuters and USC polls are also similar in their directions after the debate -- Trump doing better, although that improvement had already been under way for several days, and was therefore not a response to the debate. That is, the debate appears not to have mattered, judging from USC and Reuters.
To make sense of this, consider a recent journal article by Gelman et al (2016), "The Mythical Swing Voter" (found among Ricky Vaughn's tweets).
They look back at the 2012 election, when Romney had a good first debate, and the polls afterward suggested a 10-point movement in his favor. But who participates in the samples before and after the debate are not the same people -- maybe that 10-point swing was real, but maybe it was just a more pro-Romney crowd that participated in the sample after their team smashed the other team in a public spectacle.
Using a panel of the same individuals over time, the researchers were able to see how likely someone was to change after the debate. There was in fact a movement in Romney's direction after winning the first debate, but it was only 2-3 points instead of 10, after correcting for demographic and partisanship differences in the before and after samples.
Most people had the same preference the whole time, with only 3% changing their minds, indicating low volatility. The major difference in the before and after polls was who chose to participate -- those who did after the debate were more likely to be Romney supporters than those who participated before the debate. Perhaps it's the same effect as when fans of the losing sports team suffer a drop in testosterone and enthusiasm generally, while the fans of the winning team are turbo-charged.
So, when pollsters contact different groups of people with each poll they release, they cannot be sure that they have a representative sample each time. Maybe after some event that demoralizes the fans of one candidate, they are less likely to respond to the pollster, maybe telling them to call back when they're in a better mood -- while the fans of the other candidate are now energized at their enemy's misfortune, and are only too eager to participate in a poll and let their support for the winner of the event be known far and wide. They are probably getting a kick just from imagining the other sides' long faces when they read the poll results in a few days.
Gelman et al discuss this in the context of party affiliation, but it's broader than that. It's not only that after an event that damages the Democrat, the polls will under-sample Democrats because they're demoralized. They will under-sample anyone who was for the Democrat -- including partisan Democrats (the bulk of support), but also cross-over voters who are normally Republican, and Independents who are inclined toward the Democrat.
Differential willingness to participate also screws up our ability to generalize about Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, from such a sample, as though we were talking about the same populations every time a poll comes out.
The Democrats who do participate after their team suffers a loss are probably not the most rabid and loyal fans, who are more sensitive to public losses and more likely to be sulking. The Democrat participants are therefore less likely to qualify as "likely voters", and are less in favor of the Democrat candidate, compared to the rabid fans who are sitting things out until some good news comes along to cheer them up and make them feel like participating in the polls again. And the Republicans will not include the cross-over voters, making them even more against the Democrat candidate than is true. And the Independents will also be those more inclined toward the Republican.
The only way to keep track of these things is to track the same individuals over time in a panel. That's what the RAND poll did in 2012, and it out-performed just about all others, particularly when it suggested only a minor slump for Obama after he bombed the first debate, while the others suggested that Romney was not only doing better than before but now ahead of Obama.
The USC poll is the RAND poll under new branding, and that's why it's worth giving greater weight to than the other ones, which are going to be affected by swings in willingness to participate among Trump supporters vs. Clinton supporters. In fact, given how roller coaster-y the emotions have been this season, the non-panel polls will probably do worse than in 2012.
In particular, I've noticed PPP and Quinnipiac, which were among the best last time, have slipped a tier down in their accuracy. For example, Quinnipiac's heads-up poll from 9/8 to 9/13 had Clinton up 5, while USC had Trump up half a point over that period. Before that, PPP's heads-up poll from 8/26 to 8/28 had Clinton up 5, while USC had her up only half a point.
In general, it seems like the non-panel polls are biased against Trump, as their deviation from the more accurate panel polls is always in the pro-Clinton direction, never a more pro-Trump result than USC. Some of that is certainly due to the anti-Trump agenda of the pollsters and their corporate sponsors, which is far fiercer than whatever anti-Romney bias there was last time. Now it's the people and Trump vs. all arms of the Establishment.
But it could also be due to a stronger unwillingness among Trump voters to participate in the non-panel polls this time, compared to Romney voters last time. That's not necessarily because Trump voters are a crankier group of people, but they are more subjected to a 24/7 gauntlet of attempted demoralization by the media, compared to what Romney voters had to put up with last time.
That is evidently having an effect on their willingness to share their views with pollsters, who they might feel are about to engage them in another tedious "gotcha!" debate about whatever the Establishment hitjob du jour is. However, the demoralization campaign is clearly not having an impact on their willingness to support Trump in all ways -- to tune into the debates starring him, to follow him on social media, to attend his rallies or watch them from home, to wear Trump gear or put up Trump signs, and ultimately to vote Trump at the polling station -- first in the primaries, and soon in the general.
In the future, I'd like to see heavy restrictions on what kind of stuff goes on during campaign season. We all know how bad it is that unlimited big money gets involved. But the endless roller coaster of events is worse -- none of them end up changing people's minds or affecting the outcome. They're just a bunch of annoying shit that we're forced by the media to pay attention to. And the media make a fortune during election season -- they're the only ones who benefit from all this crap.
Somehow we elected good presidents like FDR and Eisenhower without any of today's non-stop campaigning (for those with the energy to do so), round-the-clock coverage, and roller coaster of attention and emotion.
Categories:
Media,
Politics,
Psychology
September 30, 2016
Pepe panic: As harmless meme is banned in schools, youth tune out the loony Left
The moral panic that the fringe Left is pushing, about how everybody who disagrees with us is a Nazi, continues to reach new lows. Recently, opinion anchor Rachel Maddow at MSNBC ran a lengthy segment about how a ubiquitous meme, Pepe the frog, was really a crypto-Nazi symbol. Now the moral entrepreneurs at the Anti-Defamation League have officially classified him as a hate symbol.
Oh sure, maybe he started out innocently -- but after being appropriated by the dark cult of the Alt-Right, he is no longer a neutral symbol.
Right, just like how anyone who wore long hair in the '80s might not necessarily have been part of a Satanic cult that sacrificed animals in abandoned fields -- but it sure raises suspicions. Or how everyone who played Dungeons & Dragons might not necessarily have been seduced into another kind of Satanic cult -- but it sure raises suspicions. Or how anyone who played the Shout at the Devil album was not necessarily part of a Satanic heavy metal cult -- but it sure raises suspicions.
And the worst part was -- maybe they didn't even realize they had been recruited by the demonic forces! They're just impressionable, naive young people, after all. And maybe those teenagers posting Pepe memes are not fully aware of just how racist and Nazi-worshiping they are -- will someone please think of the poor innocent children who are becoming corrupted by wicked pop culture?!
These retarded moral panics never sound any less ridiculous, no matter what they come up with this time.
Here are two recent examples of earnest, concerned discussions of Pepe in American high schools:
Notice how the kids themselves are just rolling their eyes at their clueless teachers. But then the young people are not the target audience for the panic narrative, which is instead the self-appointed guardians of moral purity, including their worried teachers.
It's one thing to have to sit through a bunch of boring propaganda about the hidden Nazi meaning behind your harmless meme. It's another to have these moralistic busybodies censoring any display of that meme in and around the school. It used to be you got sent home for wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt -- now it's drawing Pepe the frog on your binder.
At least some of the parents are aware that their kids' teachers are retarded and going overboard.
Already kids are starting to rebel. Hey, teacher -- leave those memes alone!
What kind of fucked-up world do we live in, where this generation's Footloose is going to revolve around censorship of cartoon frogs on the internet? Trump cannot get elected soon enough -- the Secretary of Education is going to fire any adult caught perpetuating this idiotic panic over Pepe.
The larger outcome of this hysteria will be to utterly discredit the Left among anyone born in the 21st century. More than that, this will change the emotional impression that they have of the Left -- it will be felt on a gut level to be terminally uncool, clueless, and try-hard hall monitor losers.
That was the result of the Satanic panic in the 1980s, and we see what that did to the Cultural Right during the '90s and afterward. Whether they reject SJWs for being intellectual or social inferiors, today's teenagers will be a major force behind dethroning the moralistic Left, whether they take the side of Trump or Bernie as they get more politically involved.
Oh sure, maybe he started out innocently -- but after being appropriated by the dark cult of the Alt-Right, he is no longer a neutral symbol.
Right, just like how anyone who wore long hair in the '80s might not necessarily have been part of a Satanic cult that sacrificed animals in abandoned fields -- but it sure raises suspicions. Or how everyone who played Dungeons & Dragons might not necessarily have been seduced into another kind of Satanic cult -- but it sure raises suspicions. Or how anyone who played the Shout at the Devil album was not necessarily part of a Satanic heavy metal cult -- but it sure raises suspicions.
And the worst part was -- maybe they didn't even realize they had been recruited by the demonic forces! They're just impressionable, naive young people, after all. And maybe those teenagers posting Pepe memes are not fully aware of just how racist and Nazi-worshiping they are -- will someone please think of the poor innocent children who are becoming corrupted by wicked pop culture?!
These retarded moral panics never sound any less ridiculous, no matter what they come up with this time.
Here are two recent examples of earnest, concerned discussions of Pepe in American high schools:
This is in my old high school. Pepe is now being taught in US gov classes as a symbol of racist demagoguery. pic.twitter.com/W68epEnJBH— Steven Falco (@nunzioni) September 29, 2016
in case you're sad today just know that we discussed the "hate symbol" of Pepe the Frog in english class today pic.twitter.com/iDBfKyjrGD— Moriah 🌐 (@lowkeychaotic) September 28, 2016
Notice how the kids themselves are just rolling their eyes at their clueless teachers. But then the young people are not the target audience for the panic narrative, which is instead the self-appointed guardians of moral purity, including their worried teachers.
talking about pepe the frog memes in school >— ada (@adainthecastle) September 28, 2016
my government teacher talked about pepe in class— sharkboy (@reidtbh) September 29, 2016
When half of your politics class is about Pepe the frog— BIG MOIST (@Dylan_Cifelli) September 29, 2016
we're literally analyzing the pepe meme in my college writing class lol— erin (@ErinSheariss) September 29, 2016
did we seriously put freaking PEPE THE FROG ON OUR SCHOOL BROADCAST SYSTEM— nika 🐝 (@nikalback) September 29, 2016
my school news is really talking about the pepe meme— hoseoksus (@gwangjjugod) September 29, 2016
Someone mentioned "Pepe the Frog" in my Media and Society class and I want to dive out the window.— SarkhanVolkswagen (@dasebeleren) September 26, 2016
It's one thing to have to sit through a bunch of boring propaganda about the hidden Nazi meaning behind your harmless meme. It's another to have these moralistic busybodies censoring any display of that meme in and around the school. It used to be you got sent home for wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt -- now it's drawing Pepe the frog on your binder.
@zslusser8 the school made the seniors take down all the Pepe memes in their hallway because of this— Joey (@Jomoyr) September 29, 2016
Some kids made pepe out of post it notes, but my school is taking it down because it's a "nazi symbol". Not all pepes are racist! pic.twitter.com/xY1hdi6TS3— Alexey Malyshkin (@amalyshkin00) September 29, 2016
if I draw pepe in school will l get in trouble— marek (@MarekIzKool) September 29, 2016
So now I'm gonna get in trouble in school not only for using my phone, but for posting a Pepe meme because it's a hate crime now. Amazing.— King Of Hearts♥️ (@SteeleFan1) September 29, 2016
My class has a pet frog that someone name Pepe but now hes a hate meme so we have to change his name— Seth (@ItsChargers) September 30, 2016
At least some of the parents are aware that their kids' teachers are retarded and going overboard.
@AV_Newswire @joshtpm My high school kids don't think Pepe is a white nationalist symbol. Media helping change meaning of meme— EduDiva (@EduDiva) September 30, 2016
@DerekActual @TheGingerarchy My kid has Pepe and Harambe in her locker. Waiting for a call from the school shortly.— WINNING TEMPERAMENT (@nonpromqueen) September 28, 2016
Already kids are starting to rebel. Hey, teacher -- leave those memes alone!
I can't believe Pepe has been officially put in the same class as the swastika, wtf is 2016 #justiceforpepe— #SiSloss (@weeaboowitch) September 29, 2016
doing a speech in class on why pepe isn't a hate symbol, really looking forward to it 🐸— alex senpai (@alex_excell) September 30, 2016
What kind of fucked-up world do we live in, where this generation's Footloose is going to revolve around censorship of cartoon frogs on the internet? Trump cannot get elected soon enough -- the Secretary of Education is going to fire any adult caught perpetuating this idiotic panic over Pepe.
The larger outcome of this hysteria will be to utterly discredit the Left among anyone born in the 21st century. More than that, this will change the emotional impression that they have of the Left -- it will be felt on a gut level to be terminally uncool, clueless, and try-hard hall monitor losers.
That was the result of the Satanic panic in the 1980s, and we see what that did to the Cultural Right during the '90s and afterward. Whether they reject SJWs for being intellectual or social inferiors, today's teenagers will be a major force behind dethroning the moralistic Left, whether they take the side of Trump or Bernie as they get more politically involved.
Categories:
Education,
Media,
Morality,
Over-parenting,
Politics,
Pop culture,
Psychology
September 29, 2016
The Sanders supporters: Where are they now?
After yet another "Bernie rally" that drew only hundreds rather than tens of thousands -- most of them paid elderly seat-fillers, not cheering young people -- it's worth taking a look at what has happened to the other anti-Establishment uprising of this season.
Like all broad political movements, the Bernie phenomenon was not a monolithic mass. It was a coalition of distinct groups whose only commonality was being ignored, taken for granted, or abused by the senior partner of the party -- the Establishment, controlled by the allah-gahkey.
Although these various groups would have enthusiastically voted for Bill Clinton in the '90s, by now the mask has been removed from the face of Clintonism. This year they all joined together to try to replace the Clintons and even the Obamas with something new. But now with no single Bernie movement left to invest in, they have chosen four separate paths among the existing candidates, according to Emerson's national poll.
The largest group were the well-meaning partisan Democrats, who have gone to Clinton, and who made up around 60% of Bernie voters. They wanted desperately to change their party for the better, after getting regularly kicked around by the callous corporate senior members. But they are fundamentally hopeless and depressive, so they always come crawling back after yet another beating from their wicked stepmother (sometimes referred to as Crooked Hillary Clinton).
To reduce cognitive dissonance, they rationalize this undeserved loyalty as not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, AKA never complain no matter how hard they beat you. They are akin to the cuckservatives on the Republican side, who had kept depressively voting Republican no matter how awfully they were treated by the Establishment.
Then there were the working-class and other populist whites whose main concern is job-killing trade agreements, corporate elite control over the economy, and basic material security. Making up 20% of Bernie voters, they have defected parties to Trump -- who they don't even consider a "real" Republican anyway, and so not the greatest leap in the world to make.
These voters want no part of a party that pushed and defended NAFTA, let alone the TPP which would only further de-industrialize our economy and make working-class people even poorer and facing chronic uncertainty. The only problem was that the Republicans had been equally strong cheerleaders of de-industrialization -- "We found six-figure careers in the knowledge economy, so why don't you?" Now that Trump has promised to re-industrialize our backward economy, it is an absolute no-brainer for them to ditch the Dems.
Next are the ideological progressives, who made up 10% of Bernie voters and are now voting for the Green candidate Jill Stein. If someone was into the Bernie phenomenon because of his positions on major issues, there is only one place for them to go to. Bernie and Jill come from roughly the same background ideologically, only differing on strategy -- attempt a hostile takeover of a major party in order to win and govern, or run on a third party in order to raise issues and make a statement.
Back in the '80s, these types were languishing in a climate of three consecutive Republican victories -- and not liberals like Nixon or Eisenhower, who they might have tolerated. Once the Clinton coalition came a-callin' in '92, they were champing at the bit for a chance to finally win and get something done. But as with the labor-oriented voters, they quickly learned that they'd only been used for their votes, and would receive nothing in return. They were similarly taken advantage of by the Obama coalition, after two terms of another Bush, when they were desperate to unseat the Republicans again.
This time, however, they haven't been suffering under multiple Republican administrations, so they don't have that desperation to join the Democrats in order to knock out an incumbent conservative President. The situation now is more like 2000, when they voted for Nader instead of Gore. (In general, as I discussed in this earlier post, third-party movements split off from the incumbent party, as a way of punishing their senior partners for mistreatment and to deter such mistreatment in the future.)
That only leaves the 10% of Bernie voters who say they're voting for the Libertarian Gary Johnson. They "say" they're voting Libertarian, but this group has the weakest commitment -- just 40% of Johnson supporters are certainly going to vote for him, compared to about 90% of Clinton and Trump supporters having made up their minds, and 75% of Green supporters.
Who are they, and what brings them to the Libertarian candidate? These are the only group of identity politics voters from the original Bernie coalition -- and their identity is young-ish white slackers who have triple-digit IQs and related levels of education. They're largely male, along with girls who can hang with guys. They are the answer to, Who would South Park vote for? Why, naturally it's the goofy white stoner dude who can't be bothered to do his homework about Aleppo.
They were not drawn to the Bernie phenomenon because of his policies, else they would have gone to either Trump or Stein. Their counterparts back in 1992 would have been the incipient slacker culture, who viewed the Republicans as too stuffy and genteel. But now that the Party of Clinton has become so moralistic (social justice warriors), and so focused on hoovering up the mega-donations of limousine liberals, the youthful / man-child underachievers with no PC filter feel out of place voting Democrat.
Since their main concern is the cultivation of their persona, and expressing that through their voting behavior, they were projecting such an image onto Bernie when they first started noticing him. He certainly was a slacker, not having a real full-time job until he was around 40 years old. He probably did drugs. He made meta-ironic jokes about his appearance (hair), about pop culture (Trump-isms like "yuge"), and generally gave off a high-IQ prankster vibe. He came off as a man-child, albeit more of the absent-minded professor type. And he's a white male who despite being on the Left did not drone on about racism, sexism, homophobia, bla bla bla -- at least, not until he became a ventriloquist dummy for Crooked Hillary.
Transferring these identity traits onto Gary Johnson has not gone as successfully as they were hoping. He's a slacker, druggie, and white male who doesn't obsess over PC. But he also comes off more juvenile than young-at-heart (that creepy tongue thing he did in an interview with Kasie Hunt), and as more of a dull moron than a quick-witted jokester (this is your brain on drugs). Johnson doesn't do pop culture irony very well either, even though his supporters keep trying to make dick jokes a thing with his name.
If they're unsatisfied with Johnson, and 60% of his supporters are still open to other candidates, they will not go for Clinton in the end -- totally wrong persona for them to identify with. And probably not for Stein either -- too earnest, purposeful, and ideological. Some will see enough of themselves in Trump to identify with him -- no filter, down-to-earth, white male bored by PC. However, he also represents middle-aged and older people who are high-energy go-getting over-achievers. Left with no cerebral slackers to vote for, perhaps they will just say "fuck it" and stay home, in order to preserve their identity.
Like all broad political movements, the Bernie phenomenon was not a monolithic mass. It was a coalition of distinct groups whose only commonality was being ignored, taken for granted, or abused by the senior partner of the party -- the Establishment, controlled by the allah-gahkey.
Although these various groups would have enthusiastically voted for Bill Clinton in the '90s, by now the mask has been removed from the face of Clintonism. This year they all joined together to try to replace the Clintons and even the Obamas with something new. But now with no single Bernie movement left to invest in, they have chosen four separate paths among the existing candidates, according to Emerson's national poll.
The largest group were the well-meaning partisan Democrats, who have gone to Clinton, and who made up around 60% of Bernie voters. They wanted desperately to change their party for the better, after getting regularly kicked around by the callous corporate senior members. But they are fundamentally hopeless and depressive, so they always come crawling back after yet another beating from their wicked stepmother (sometimes referred to as Crooked Hillary Clinton).
To reduce cognitive dissonance, they rationalize this undeserved loyalty as not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, AKA never complain no matter how hard they beat you. They are akin to the cuckservatives on the Republican side, who had kept depressively voting Republican no matter how awfully they were treated by the Establishment.
Then there were the working-class and other populist whites whose main concern is job-killing trade agreements, corporate elite control over the economy, and basic material security. Making up 20% of Bernie voters, they have defected parties to Trump -- who they don't even consider a "real" Republican anyway, and so not the greatest leap in the world to make.
These voters want no part of a party that pushed and defended NAFTA, let alone the TPP which would only further de-industrialize our economy and make working-class people even poorer and facing chronic uncertainty. The only problem was that the Republicans had been equally strong cheerleaders of de-industrialization -- "We found six-figure careers in the knowledge economy, so why don't you?" Now that Trump has promised to re-industrialize our backward economy, it is an absolute no-brainer for them to ditch the Dems.
Next are the ideological progressives, who made up 10% of Bernie voters and are now voting for the Green candidate Jill Stein. If someone was into the Bernie phenomenon because of his positions on major issues, there is only one place for them to go to. Bernie and Jill come from roughly the same background ideologically, only differing on strategy -- attempt a hostile takeover of a major party in order to win and govern, or run on a third party in order to raise issues and make a statement.
Back in the '80s, these types were languishing in a climate of three consecutive Republican victories -- and not liberals like Nixon or Eisenhower, who they might have tolerated. Once the Clinton coalition came a-callin' in '92, they were champing at the bit for a chance to finally win and get something done. But as with the labor-oriented voters, they quickly learned that they'd only been used for their votes, and would receive nothing in return. They were similarly taken advantage of by the Obama coalition, after two terms of another Bush, when they were desperate to unseat the Republicans again.
This time, however, they haven't been suffering under multiple Republican administrations, so they don't have that desperation to join the Democrats in order to knock out an incumbent conservative President. The situation now is more like 2000, when they voted for Nader instead of Gore. (In general, as I discussed in this earlier post, third-party movements split off from the incumbent party, as a way of punishing their senior partners for mistreatment and to deter such mistreatment in the future.)
That only leaves the 10% of Bernie voters who say they're voting for the Libertarian Gary Johnson. They "say" they're voting Libertarian, but this group has the weakest commitment -- just 40% of Johnson supporters are certainly going to vote for him, compared to about 90% of Clinton and Trump supporters having made up their minds, and 75% of Green supporters.
Who are they, and what brings them to the Libertarian candidate? These are the only group of identity politics voters from the original Bernie coalition -- and their identity is young-ish white slackers who have triple-digit IQs and related levels of education. They're largely male, along with girls who can hang with guys. They are the answer to, Who would South Park vote for? Why, naturally it's the goofy white stoner dude who can't be bothered to do his homework about Aleppo.
They were not drawn to the Bernie phenomenon because of his policies, else they would have gone to either Trump or Stein. Their counterparts back in 1992 would have been the incipient slacker culture, who viewed the Republicans as too stuffy and genteel. But now that the Party of Clinton has become so moralistic (social justice warriors), and so focused on hoovering up the mega-donations of limousine liberals, the youthful / man-child underachievers with no PC filter feel out of place voting Democrat.
Since their main concern is the cultivation of their persona, and expressing that through their voting behavior, they were projecting such an image onto Bernie when they first started noticing him. He certainly was a slacker, not having a real full-time job until he was around 40 years old. He probably did drugs. He made meta-ironic jokes about his appearance (hair), about pop culture (Trump-isms like "yuge"), and generally gave off a high-IQ prankster vibe. He came off as a man-child, albeit more of the absent-minded professor type. And he's a white male who despite being on the Left did not drone on about racism, sexism, homophobia, bla bla bla -- at least, not until he became a ventriloquist dummy for Crooked Hillary.
Transferring these identity traits onto Gary Johnson has not gone as successfully as they were hoping. He's a slacker, druggie, and white male who doesn't obsess over PC. But he also comes off more juvenile than young-at-heart (that creepy tongue thing he did in an interview with Kasie Hunt), and as more of a dull moron than a quick-witted jokester (this is your brain on drugs). Johnson doesn't do pop culture irony very well either, even though his supporters keep trying to make dick jokes a thing with his name.
If they're unsatisfied with Johnson, and 60% of his supporters are still open to other candidates, they will not go for Clinton in the end -- totally wrong persona for them to identify with. And probably not for Stein either -- too earnest, purposeful, and ideological. Some will see enough of themselves in Trump to identify with him -- no filter, down-to-earth, white male bored by PC. However, he also represents middle-aged and older people who are high-energy go-getting over-achievers. Left with no cerebral slackers to vote for, perhaps they will just say "fuck it" and stay home, in order to preserve their identity.
Categories:
Age,
Dudes and dudettes,
Economics,
Human Biodiversity,
Politics,
Pop culture,
Psychology
September 28, 2016
Grungers for Trump
In Emerson's new polls, Trump wins Gen X-ers in Washington state, 42-38. (Overall he's only down six points, 44-38.) As elsewhere, he handily wins those with less than a bachelor's degree.
Although he'll lose Seattle, he's up big-league in nearby Snohomish County, where he's held yuge rallies at the large city of Everett; in the capital city of Olympia (odd, since you'd think Establishment types lived there); and in Spokane, the second-largest city.
Expect several of the populous blue counties in Western Washington to turn red-for-Trump this time.
He isn't behind so far in the Congressional district where Kurt Cobain's home town is located, and most of the Democrats in that district are likely concentrated farther away in the big city of Tacoma.
If Trump wins the birthplace of Nirvana, you know a serious re-alignment is under way -- the left-behind Americans and their stewards vs. the well-fed parasites of all classes.
And now a little Pacific Northwest populism for the occasion:
Although he'll lose Seattle, he's up big-league in nearby Snohomish County, where he's held yuge rallies at the large city of Everett; in the capital city of Olympia (odd, since you'd think Establishment types lived there); and in Spokane, the second-largest city.
Expect several of the populous blue counties in Western Washington to turn red-for-Trump this time.
He isn't behind so far in the Congressional district where Kurt Cobain's home town is located, and most of the Democrats in that district are likely concentrated farther away in the big city of Tacoma.
If Trump wins the birthplace of Nirvana, you know a serious re-alignment is under way -- the left-behind Americans and their stewards vs. the well-fed parasites of all classes.
And now a little Pacific Northwest populism for the occasion:
Categories:
Generations,
Geography,
Music,
Politics,
Pop culture
September 27, 2016
Is anti-police the hill that progressives want to die on?
To see how the Bernie people are responding to the debate, I checked the Twitter feeds of several visible progressives (Michael Tracey, Jordan Chariton, Nomiki Konst). One major objection all of them had was about Trump's law-and-order theme, not on pragmatic grounds, and not in a yawning or glib dismissive tone of voice. For them it's one of those moralistic crusade issues that provokes a visceral emotional reaction.
Back during the anti-globalization movement of the early 2000s, I was anti-authoritarian like many other students involved. But kneejerk "question authority" feelings should be outgrown once you're out of college, and these progressives are about 30 or older. They're probably representative of the rest of Bernie's followers, who were largely under 40.
Pushing an issue that resonates primarily with young adults, and that turns off older adults (over 30 or 40), is strategic suicide. Especially once the crime rate enters its upward phase of the cycle again, or when there's a rising threat of terrorism. And while cops may not garner the level of trust that the military does, law enforcement is still up there compared to most other institutions (courts, media, churches, etc.).
If anything, ordinary Americans don't trust the police to the extent that they hang back and cover their ass, rather than get in the way of criminals when crimes are being committed, or aggressively prevent them. Normal people would like a stronger police force -- not an even weaker one than the apathetic kind that we already have.
Police who refrain from targeting the worst threats and offenders are apathetic and weak, no matter if they occasionally go after a more harmless target, just to give the impression that they're doing serious police work.
When people demand stronger police, they don't mean more heavy-handed treatment of skateboarding teenagers at the shopping center -- they mean a force that would prevent the Charlotte riots from ever beginning, including not allowing them to mill about in the open streets after dark, which gives them the feeling of owning the entire territory and emboldens them to break apartment building windows, loot stores, bust up cars, and start fires in trash cans.
Working and lower-middle-class whites are particularly suspicious of the anti-police view among progressives, which they take to be elitist entitlement -- "I went to college, so how dare the pigs ask to see my ID for anything." That conclusion is hard to shake when the progressive in question sounds like they're still stuck in their adolescent "smash authority" phase.
Now, just because a goal is strategic suicide for the broader plans that a movement has, does not mean they will simply put it on the back burner. If it has moralistic intensity for them, it's not negotiable, and when pressed they will vigorously defend its importance.
Progressives are even more reluctant to let this issue go because it's their only foot in the door to minorities, who otherwise have little interest in progressive causes (witness Bernie's epic failures wherever the non-white population was common). The progs know you can't win a liberal or Democrat constituency without winning over minorities, so they have no choice but to keep focusing on the anti-police issue, given their aversion to identity politics.
Remember, though, that black people and progressive whites view the anti-police issue in two different ways: for blacks it is an anti-white stance, for progressives it is anti-authoritarian. No matter which angle is emphasized, it will turn off white working-class people, who are a far larger constituency in Democrat politics.
Caught between a rock and a hard place on which coalition member to alienate less, the anti-police progressives seem to be doomed to marginal status for the near future. The same can be said, for that matter, about the hardcore libertarians on the Republican / conservative side.
With the old Clinton / Obama coalition coming apart at the seams, it's the Bernie people who are going to determine where the Democrats go in the next several election cycles. If they can't let go of their moralistic anti-police stance, they may doom themselves to McGovern / Mondale status as the law-and-order Republicans akin to Nixon and Reagan take over again.
Notice that this time, though, the Left will not have as many cards to play against Trump -- he has totally made anti-globalization his own specialty, in both trade and foreign policy, not to mention his push to root out corruption, especially by big banks and other big industries.
The Bernie people could try to win over the populist voters with their programs about single-payer health care and debt forgiveness for student loans. But Trump is not adamantly opposed to either idea qualitatively, although he might not go quite that far in degree.
Really the only two big issues that will remain sharp distinctions between the Bernie side and the Trump side in our new populist era, are climate change / taxing carbon and law-and-order / gun control. No amount of progressive campaigning will convince working-class whites that these two themes are better solved by the Bernie side, which will come off as trying to push for elite concerns that the middle and lower classes don't care much about, and if they do, it's more in the pro-Trump direction.
Progressives also favor amnesty, but once Trump deports those who would get it, it will cease to be an issue. Bernie, Nader, etc. do not want high levels of immigration because they know it's just a scheme by the wealthy business owners to cut labor costs and pocket the difference in profits. We're going to have a big fat beautiful wall, too, a one-time accomplishment like the deportations that will have long-lasting effects. The progs can simply enjoy the benefits without having to "own" the means that achieved them.
If this "40 years in the wilderness" sounds unrealistic, just think of how self-marginalizing the Right behaved for decades over abortion. It was not pragmatic, let's try to cut down the number, etc. -- it was a contest to see who could hold more extreme views on how few exceptions they would permit, and anyone who permitted more exceptions was moralistically shunned. It's not beyond belief that the Left will evolve toward marginality over policing / gun control -- probably not over climate change, which is too abstract to really turn someone off, compared to something as visceral as violence, social chaos, and protection from it.
Back during the anti-globalization movement of the early 2000s, I was anti-authoritarian like many other students involved. But kneejerk "question authority" feelings should be outgrown once you're out of college, and these progressives are about 30 or older. They're probably representative of the rest of Bernie's followers, who were largely under 40.
Pushing an issue that resonates primarily with young adults, and that turns off older adults (over 30 or 40), is strategic suicide. Especially once the crime rate enters its upward phase of the cycle again, or when there's a rising threat of terrorism. And while cops may not garner the level of trust that the military does, law enforcement is still up there compared to most other institutions (courts, media, churches, etc.).
If anything, ordinary Americans don't trust the police to the extent that they hang back and cover their ass, rather than get in the way of criminals when crimes are being committed, or aggressively prevent them. Normal people would like a stronger police force -- not an even weaker one than the apathetic kind that we already have.
Police who refrain from targeting the worst threats and offenders are apathetic and weak, no matter if they occasionally go after a more harmless target, just to give the impression that they're doing serious police work.
When people demand stronger police, they don't mean more heavy-handed treatment of skateboarding teenagers at the shopping center -- they mean a force that would prevent the Charlotte riots from ever beginning, including not allowing them to mill about in the open streets after dark, which gives them the feeling of owning the entire territory and emboldens them to break apartment building windows, loot stores, bust up cars, and start fires in trash cans.
Working and lower-middle-class whites are particularly suspicious of the anti-police view among progressives, which they take to be elitist entitlement -- "I went to college, so how dare the pigs ask to see my ID for anything." That conclusion is hard to shake when the progressive in question sounds like they're still stuck in their adolescent "smash authority" phase.
Now, just because a goal is strategic suicide for the broader plans that a movement has, does not mean they will simply put it on the back burner. If it has moralistic intensity for them, it's not negotiable, and when pressed they will vigorously defend its importance.
Progressives are even more reluctant to let this issue go because it's their only foot in the door to minorities, who otherwise have little interest in progressive causes (witness Bernie's epic failures wherever the non-white population was common). The progs know you can't win a liberal or Democrat constituency without winning over minorities, so they have no choice but to keep focusing on the anti-police issue, given their aversion to identity politics.
Remember, though, that black people and progressive whites view the anti-police issue in two different ways: for blacks it is an anti-white stance, for progressives it is anti-authoritarian. No matter which angle is emphasized, it will turn off white working-class people, who are a far larger constituency in Democrat politics.
Caught between a rock and a hard place on which coalition member to alienate less, the anti-police progressives seem to be doomed to marginal status for the near future. The same can be said, for that matter, about the hardcore libertarians on the Republican / conservative side.
With the old Clinton / Obama coalition coming apart at the seams, it's the Bernie people who are going to determine where the Democrats go in the next several election cycles. If they can't let go of their moralistic anti-police stance, they may doom themselves to McGovern / Mondale status as the law-and-order Republicans akin to Nixon and Reagan take over again.
Notice that this time, though, the Left will not have as many cards to play against Trump -- he has totally made anti-globalization his own specialty, in both trade and foreign policy, not to mention his push to root out corruption, especially by big banks and other big industries.
The Bernie people could try to win over the populist voters with their programs about single-payer health care and debt forgiveness for student loans. But Trump is not adamantly opposed to either idea qualitatively, although he might not go quite that far in degree.
Really the only two big issues that will remain sharp distinctions between the Bernie side and the Trump side in our new populist era, are climate change / taxing carbon and law-and-order / gun control. No amount of progressive campaigning will convince working-class whites that these two themes are better solved by the Bernie side, which will come off as trying to push for elite concerns that the middle and lower classes don't care much about, and if they do, it's more in the pro-Trump direction.
Progressives also favor amnesty, but once Trump deports those who would get it, it will cease to be an issue. Bernie, Nader, etc. do not want high levels of immigration because they know it's just a scheme by the wealthy business owners to cut labor costs and pocket the difference in profits. We're going to have a big fat beautiful wall, too, a one-time accomplishment like the deportations that will have long-lasting effects. The progs can simply enjoy the benefits without having to "own" the means that achieved them.
If this "40 years in the wilderness" sounds unrealistic, just think of how self-marginalizing the Right behaved for decades over abortion. It was not pragmatic, let's try to cut down the number, etc. -- it was a contest to see who could hold more extreme views on how few exceptions they would permit, and anyone who permitted more exceptions was moralistically shunned. It's not beyond belief that the Left will evolve toward marginality over policing / gun control -- probably not over climate change, which is too abstract to really turn someone off, compared to something as visceral as violence, social chaos, and protection from it.
Categories:
Crime,
Economics,
Human Biodiversity,
Morality,
Politics,
Psychology,
Violence
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