Quote:One of the biggest reasons Donald Trump is considered to be a long shot to win the presidency is the diversity of the country.
As Joe Scarborough of MSNBC [/url][url=http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mark-halperin-morning-joe-trump-california?version=meter+at+6&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F06%2F10%2Fupshot%2Fthere-are-more-white-voters-than-people-think-thats-good-news-for-trump.html&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click]put it, “There are not enough white voters in America for Donald Trump to win while getting routed among minorities.”
But a growing body of evidence suggests that there is still a path, albeit a narrow one, for Mr. Trump to win without gains among nonwhite voters.
New analysis by The Upshot shows that millions more white, older working-class voters went to the polls in 2012 than was found by exit polls on Election Day. This raises the prospect that Mr. Trump has a larger pool of potential voters than generally believed.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/upshot/there-are-more-white-voters-than-people-think-thats-good-news-for-trump.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=The%20Upshot&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article

(06-09-2016, 10:10 PM)Dan Wrote:

Quote:One of the biggest reasons Donald Trump is considered to be a long shot to win the presidency is the diversity of the country.
As Joe Scarborough of MSNBC [/url][url=http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mark-halperin-morning-joe-trump-california?version=meter+at+6&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F06%2F10%2Fupshot%2Fthere-are-more-white-voters-than-people-think-thats-good-news-for-trump.html&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click]put it, “There are not enough white voters in America for Donald Trump to win while getting routed among minorities.”
But a growing body of evidence suggests that there is still a path, albeit a narrow one, for Mr. Trump to win without gains among nonwhite voters.
New analysis by The Upshot shows that millions more white, older working-class voters went to the polls in 2012 than was found by exit polls on Election Day. This raises the prospect that Mr. Trump has a larger pool of potential voters than generally believed.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/upshot/there-are-more-white-voters-than-people-think-thats-good-news-for-trump.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=The%20Upshot&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article

(06-10-2016, 06:18 AM)Anthony Wrote: But what if Trump does better - even much better - among black voters than any other GOP Presidential candidate in living memory, courtesy of his promise to slam the door on immigration, which has greatly benefited African-Americans every single time it has been done?

Quote:...One big reason Trump is trailing — by an average of 4 to 6 percentage points, depending on which aggregator you use — is because, despite all the bluster, he isn’t doing any better than Romney did among white voters. According to Cohn’s estimate, based on pre-election surveys, Romney beat President Obama by 17 percentage points among white voters. To win, Trump would need to improve on Romney’s margin by a minimum of 5 percentage points if the electorate looked exactly the same as it did in 2012 and every other racial group voted in the same manner as it did in 2012. 

...Trump is winning white voters by an average of 17 percentage points, matching exactly Romney’s margin from four years ago. That’s not good enough, especially considering that the 2016 electorate will probably be more diverse than 2012’s. Trump probably needs to do even better than a 22-point lead among white voters, or he will have to pull in more minority voters than Romney did in order to win.

...And Trump is already doing far better than Romney among white voters without a college degree, as Cohn noted. But in politics, as in physics, every action has a reaction. As Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has pointed out, Trump is also doing considerably worse than Romney among white voters with a college degree. That makes sense, given Trump’s direct appeals to whites who do not have a high level of education, and his penchant for shunning intellectuals.

(06-10-2016, 11:22 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-10-2016, 11:01 AM)playwrite Wrote: Nate Silver nips this latest Great White Hope in the butt -


Trump Isn’t Winning Enough White Voters

Quote:...One big reason Trump is trailing — by an average of 4 to 6 percentage points, depending on which aggregator you use — is because, despite all the bluster, he isn’t doing any better than Romney did among white voters. According to Cohn’s estimate, based on pre-election surveys, Romney beat President Obama by 17 percentage points among white voters. To win, Trump would need to improve on Romney’s margin by a minimum of 5 percentage points if the electorate looked exactly the same as it did in 2012 and every other racial group voted in the same manner as it did in 2012. 

...Trump is winning white voters by an average of 17 percentage points, matching exactly Romney’s margin from four years ago. That’s not good enough, especially considering that the 2016 electorate will probably be more diverse than 2012’s. Trump probably needs to do even better than a 22-point lead among white voters, or he will have to pull in more minority voters than Romney did in order to win.

...And Trump is already doing far better than Romney among white voters without a college degree, as Cohn noted. But in politics, as in physics, every action has a reaction. As Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has pointed out, Trump is also doing considerably worse than Romney among white voters with a college degree. That makes sense, given Trump’s direct appeals to whites who do not have a high level of education, and his penchant for shunning intellectuals.

Basically, it's the Great White Uneducated Hope.

Or, Trump's success really depends on how clueless the country has become.

Choose your side.

Granted I live in "Bubble-land," but none of the whites in my own social circle have expressed any affinity for Trump. In rough order, here are the actual affinities - Clinton, Sanders, Johnson.

(06-17-2016, 02:08 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-17-2016, 07:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-10-2016, 11:22 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-10-2016, 11:01 AM)playwrite Wrote: Nate Silver nips this latest Great White Hope in the butt -


Trump Isn’t Winning Enough White Voters

Quote:...One big reason Trump is trailing — by an average of 4 to 6 percentage points, depending on which aggregator you use — is because, despite all the bluster, he isn’t doing any better than Romney did among white voters. According to Cohn’s estimate, based on pre-election surveys, Romney beat President Obama by 17 percentage points among white voters. To win, Trump would need to improve on Romney’s margin by a minimum of 5 percentage points if the electorate looked exactly the same as it did in 2012 and every other racial group voted in the same manner as it did in 2012. 

...Trump is winning white voters by an average of 17 percentage points, matching exactly Romney’s margin from four years ago. That’s not good enough, especially considering that the 2016 electorate will probably be more diverse than 2012’s. Trump probably needs to do even better than a 22-point lead among white voters, or he will have to pull in more minority voters than Romney did in order to win.

...And Trump is already doing far better than Romney among white voters without a college degree, as Cohn noted. But in politics, as in physics, every action has a reaction. As Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report has pointed out, Trump is also doing considerably worse than Romney among white voters with a college degree. That makes sense, given Trump’s direct appeals to whites who do not have a high level of education, and his penchant for shunning intellectuals.

Basically, it's the Great White Uneducated Hope.

Or, Trump's success really depends on how clueless the country has become.

Choose your side.

Granted I live in "Bubble-land," but none of the whites in my own social circle have expressed any affinity for Trump. In rough order, here are the actual affinities - Clinton, Sanders, Johnson.

... which also suggests that he would do unusually badly outside the Mountain South, the area with the most white voters with low education. Thus he would win West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma quickly and with amazing numbers. On the other side, where white people are generally well educated, Donald Trump could be losing much ground. He has been tied with Hillary Clinton in Utah, which has high-quality education even if the state has typically been one of the strongest Republican states since 1952. The one poll that I have seen of Kansas, a state that has gone for only one Democratic nominee (LBJ in the 1964 blowout)  has Donald Trump behind.

Those two states could be on-time, specific anomalies. Of course, Donald Trump might be a poor match for Mormon sensibilities, and the Kansas GOP could be facing some short-term rifts. Besides, the poll in Kansas is one pollster with a suspect reputation for accuracy.

The more educated that people are, the less vulnerable they are to demagoguery. The more likely they are to abhor political violence even supposedly on their side. They are more capable of critical thought that allows them to recognize contradictory statements that can have only absurd conclusions. Knowing that contradictory policies ensure that some people who get promises made to them will get the shaft. Maybe if one is an Insider and knows who (typically more helpless people with fewer connections) will get the shaft and that as an Insider one will get the boon, one might tolerate the dishonesty because one will get the boon at others' expense.

To be fair, there are some intellectuals who seem to now be tolerant of fascism. It is mainly the Duginist strain they are interested in. Their intense hatred of globalism, neocons and the late 20th century version of Western liberalism brought them to such a juncture. We even seem to have a few folks who think like this on this forum. Mainly they come from a Left Anarchist pedigree and in some cases are younger folks who in a past age might have associated with the New Left. But these are few. The typical mainstream Blue County person would have nothing to do with fascism in any form.

(06-17-2016, 02:08 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: To be fair, there are some intellectuals who seem to now be tolerant of fascism. It is mainly the Duginist strain they are interested in. Their intense hatred of globalism, neocons and the late 20th century version of Western liberalism brought them to such a juncture. We even seem to have a few folks who think like this on this forum. Mainly they come from a Left Anarchist pedigree and in some cases are younger folks who in a past age might have associated with the New Left. But these are few. The typical mainstream Blue County person would have nothing to do with fascism in any form.

(06-19-2016, 09:02 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: National Bolshevism -- ugly politics indeed.



Another ugly symbol:



beloved by white nationalists. There's another flag with a white circle on a red field, and it is illegal in some places and offensive universally.

(06-20-2016, 12:33 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-18-2016, 05:17 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-17-2016, 02:08 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: To be fair, there are some intellectuals who seem to now be tolerant of fascism. It is mainly the Duginist strain they are interested in. Their intense hatred of globalism, neocons and the late 20th century version of Western liberalism brought them to such a juncture. We even seem to have a few folks who think like this on this forum. Mainly they come from a Left Anarchist pedigree and in some cases are younger folks who in a past age might have associated with the New Left. But these are few. The typical mainstream Blue County person would have nothing to do with fascism in any form.

Duginism is a new notion to me. Seems a conflation of some left and right authoritarian nonsense. Those on the forum who "think like this" seem to include Cynic Hero for sure, and maybe Anthony 58 (formerly Flat 58) and Tussilago might flirt with some of its aspects, but none of those three could ever have associated with New Left anarchism.

Not all Duginists came from New Left pedigree. However, any former Leftist who is now a Duginist is highly likely to be of New Left pedigree. Make sense?

(06-20-2016, 02:15 PM)Tn Wrote:

T Wrote:It strikes me that if one creates a graphical frequency distribution of intelligence, based on any criteria that you might come up with, pretty close to 50% of our population is going to be below average.

It's safe to assume that the electorate skews slightly above average in intelligence. The feeble-minded are likely to find getting to the polls, let alone voting, a difficult activity.

Quote:That suggests to me that this group is vulnerable to well-designed simplistic argument that appeals to them.

On the other side, there are people who see or hear the same argument and are aghast.

Quote:But you don't have to be smart to be very, very destructive.  And you don't have to be smart to vote.

On the other side -- while Trump is gaining the white ignoramus vote, he is losing even more of the  more-educated part of the white vote.

Quote:Doesn't it seem obvious then, that some kind of societal provision needs to be made so that a potentially massive movement does not arise that wants to make things better for itself, but instead simply blows everything up?

(06-20-2016, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-20-2016, 02:15 PM)Tn Wrote:

T Wrote:It strikes me that if one creates a graphical frequency distribution of intelligence, based on any criteria that you might come up with, pretty close to 50% of our population is going to be below average.

It's safe to assume that the electorate skews slightly above average in intelligence. The feeble-minded are likely to find getting to the polls, let alone voting, a difficult activity.

Quote:That suggests to me that this group is vulnerable to well-designed simplistic argument that appeals to them.

On the other side, there are people who see or hear the same argument and are aghast.

Quote:But you don't have to be smart to be very, very destructive.  And you don't have to be smart to vote.

On the other side -- while Trump is gaining the white ignoramus vote, he is losing even more of the  more-educated part of the white vote.

Quote:Doesn't it seem obvious then, that some kind of societal provision needs to be made so that a potentially massive movement does not arise that wants to make things better for itself, but instead simply blows everything up?

It's called the Bill of Rights.

(06-20-2016, 03:17 PM)TnT Wrote:

(06-20-2016, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-20-2016, 02:15 PM)Tn Wrote:

T Wrote:It strikes me that if one creates a graphical frequency distribution of intelligence, based on any criteria that you might come up with, pretty close to 50% of our population is going to be below average.

It's safe to assume that the electorate skews slightly above average in intelligence. The feeble-minded are likely to find getting to the polls, let alone voting, a difficult activity.

Quote:That suggests to me that this group is vulnerable to well-designed simplistic argument that appeals to them.

On the other side, there are people who see or hear the same argument and are aghast.

Quote:But you don't have to be smart to be very, very destructive.  And you don't have to be smart to vote.

On the other side -- while Trump is gaining the white ignoramus vote, he is losing even more of the  more-educated part of the white vote.

Quote:Doesn't it seem obvious then, that some kind of societal provision needs to be made so that a potentially massive movement does not arise that wants to make things better for itself, but instead simply blows everything up?

It's called the Bill of Rights.

If the Bill of Rights was sufficient, we wouldn't have the mess that we are in with rampant inequality, a system that favors mostly the white, well-to-do, crumbling infrastructure in the face of un- and under-employment, more people in prison than any other modern nation ...

Quote:These things DIRECTLY impact the folks that are below average.  Note also, that I DID NOT imply that they are "feeble minded." Just mathematically below average.  Look, if the frequency distribution is anywhere near Gaussian, the below average population is about 50%.