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06-11-2020, 11:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-11-2020, 11:40 PM by Eric the Green.)
It may well be that yesterday and today, when the Fed chairman said 9% unemployment will last through the year, and that the economy will limp along after that, and that many businesses will not recover, with 200,000 coronavirus deaths expected by September (which Trump says is a victory), as cases and deaths surge again, and when the stock market ended its optimistic run after the economy reopened, will be seen as the two days when the two economic Lichtman Keys definitely turned against Trump, whose approval numbers fell today to 42-55.
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06-12-2020, 06:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-12-2020, 06:04 AM by David Horn.)
(06-08-2020, 09:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We are going to see a large "Republicans for Biden" activity.
Among the Never Trumpers, I agree. But the Trumpers can't just stop being Trumpers. They did it because he represents their resentments. It's the identity they embraced willingly. That doesn't mean that a fair proportion of them aren't having regrets, but voting for a Democrat is a bridge too far -- at least this time. It took a while for the Reagan Democrat's to become Republicans, and the GOP used all the tools of hate and loathing of the 'other' making their pitch. I suspect the opposite will hold true as well; maybe moreso.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(06-11-2020, 11:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: It may well be that yesterday and today, when the Fed chairman said 9% unemployment will last through the year, and that the economy will limp along after that, and that many businesses will not recover, with 200,000 coronavirus deaths expected by September (which Trump says is a victory), as cases and deaths surge again, and when the stock market ended its optimistic run after the economy reopened, will be seen as the two days when the two economic Lichtman Keys definitely turned against Trump, whose approval numbers fell today to 42-55.
Let's see if this has legs first, but it may be that sanity has finally taken hold.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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And this news just in:
Biden will beat Trump, says historian who has predicted every presidential race since 1984.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=...P9s1f_2EF9
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glad to see it! Mr. Lichtman. Many posts here about his method.
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The Lichtman Test:
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
Six keys against the Incumbent's Party give an overwhelming chance of failure.
So let's see how it worked out for 2016. In that open-seat election, blue would be for Donald Trump and red for Hillary Clinton:
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
All four of the first four turn against the Democrats. Obama did not successfully build an electorally-stronger Democratic Party. Sanders was unable to get all of his supporters to go to Clinton in November. Jill Stein of the Green Party won enough left-leaning voters who would have never voted for Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
OK, Obama's stewardship of the American economy was far steadier than that of Dubya, at the end of whose second term had an economic bubble going bust in a financial panic about as scary as that of 1929. It's the economy, stupid? To a large degree, but one can lose while the economy is going well.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
I forget -- over what change in policy did Obama preside? The biggest change was Supreme Court decisions about same-sex marriage and child custody rights. Obama handled it well. Give him some credit. There were no great pieces of legislation in the 114th Congress -- not that there was likely to be much agreement between a President and a hostile Congress. But I will have to hand him LGBT rights.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
Such unrest as there was was local and transitory. Obama had the most scandal-free Administration in decades.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Benghazi was out of the blue, a minor incident until ISIS found a way to exploit what had been a protest over the release of a very bad movie hostile to Islam -- a movie that practically nobody saw. Republicans successfully made a mountain out of a molehill, and that may have decided the election. Purple due to ambiguity. Perception is everything, and Americans were split along party lines on this.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Nothing really happened, which is the best that could happen with a President facing a hostile Congress, but that is a negative for Obama's Party.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
(Make America Great Again) may be a hollow slogan, but Trump was able to appeal to the "basket of deplorable(s)" that Hillary Clinton derided. Trump expressed his love for "low-information voters". Whether one likes or loathes such and finds Trump's message hollow or even abominable, he succeeded in winning the right votes and getting elected.
Seven keys unambiguously turned for Trump in 2016, and it is amazing, if one looks at all the keys, that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote if not the electoral vote.
.....Now let's see how that works in 2020. Trump had his chances with both Houses of Congress on his side for two years and plenty of servile media praising him for everything and ridiculing all Democratic opposition.
Red favors the Democrat, and blue the Republican, with purple as ambiguous and green yet to be decided.
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
This key turned decisively against a Trump re-election bid. Gaining seats is tough for any Party that has the incumbent President, but the 2018 midterm election was an unmitigated and unambiguous disaster for Trump and the GOP.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
William Weld did get nearly 10% support in the New Hampshire Republican Party, demonstrating that some dissent with Trump exists within the Republican Party -- but most states are decided by winner-take-all in the Republican nominating convention. Trump is in a far-stronger position here than he was in 2016 -- almost as strong as Obama in 2012.
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
Not definitive unless the 2020 election be close enough. Still too early to call, so in green.
5. Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Trump was going to get a bum rap on this because it is very difficult to maintain a seven-year recovery following a meltdown that led to the threat of a second Great Depression. But the Plague of 2020, which by all reasonable accounts this President has handled ineptly, is causing mass unemployment and causing big losses of income to multitudes. Even if America gets out of a recession it will do so too late for Trump.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
Tax cuts for his super-rich supporters and putting reactionaries into court seats? He has not successfully banned abortion, rescinded LGBT rights, put organized prayer back in public schools, established a flat tax, privatized the Interstate Highway system to monopolistic profiteers, closed the Postal Service, or destroyed unions; success in any one of those would count even if they are harmful to more than to whom such would be desirable... even pathological change would count as major policy.
For example, a new persecution of an ethnic or religious group, no matter how abominable such a deed would be, would count as a positive. This key does not depend upon whether the change is good or evil.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Have you been following the news? Even before that there were sporadic examples of racist violence, including the shootings of two synagogues and some lone-wolf Trump supporter mailing bombs to liberal politicians and celebrities. This went from green or purple to red a long time ago. "Surges" of federal law enforcement to suppress anti-Trump demonstrations have had the effect of casting a mist of kerosene upon a fire.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
This is the most corrupt Administration since at least Warren Gamaliel Harding.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
The President was impeached for an effort to get the President of Ukraine to embarrass the President's most likely opponent. Sure he got off -- on a nearly-strict party-line vote that might not look so good in November. Add to this -- while Americans are demonstrating over an incident of inexcusable police brutality, the People's Republic seems to be throttling such freedom as it had recently tolerated in Hong Kong. This may be even more momentous.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Possible, but I don't see this yet. Green for undecided.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
The President is a wreck.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
Biden charismatic? Not really.
Eight keys have turned against the President, and one (a striking success in international affairs seems to be fading as a possibility to avoid going for Biden). The Lichtman test says that he loses even if I can interpret it to say that he would win decisively in 2016.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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08-06-2020, 07:27 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2020, 06:27 AM by Eric the Green.)
I would not give Trump Key 13 in 2016 because of his huge personal unpopularity, greater than Hillary's all the way through and including the election. I don't think Benghazi was enough of a failure to give Key 10 (foreign policy failure) to Trump. But I would probably give Trump Key 7, since Obamacare was Obama's only legislative achievement, and it was in his first term. A supreme court decision does not belong to the president (LGBT rights). Since I decided to give Key 7 to Trump (a FALSE key), that makes 7 false keys for Hillary. 1-4, 7, 11 and 12. I posted on this earlier.
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid54337
Once Lichtman decided to give Key 4 to Trump because of Gary Johnson, he agreed with me on all the keys for 2016 that I mention here. The article got the Key # wrong though, but the description right.
https://www.american.edu/media/news/0926...iction.cfm
For 2020, I agree with Lichtman on Keys 10 and 11. No great failures in foreign affairs, but no great success either. The Ukraine scandal belongs under Key 9. He was impeached for this, but I would not turn two Keys for it.
I agree with you on Key 7, but Lichtman gave it to Trump.
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(08-06-2020, 07:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would not give Trump Key 13 in 2016 because of his huge personal unpopularity, greater than Hillary's all the way through and including the election. I don't think Benghazi was enough of a failure to give Key 10 (foreign policy failure) to Trump. But I would probably give Trump Key 7, since Obamacare was Obama's only legislative achievement, and it was in his first term. A supreme court decision does not belong to the president (LGBT rights). Since I decided to give Key 7 to Trump (a FALSE key), that makes 7 false keys for Hillary. 1-4, 7, 11 and 12. I posted on this earlier.
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid54337
Once Lichtman decided to give Key 4 to Trump because of Gary Johnson, he agreed with me on all the keys for 2016 that I mention here. The article got the Key # wrong though, but the description right.
For 2020, I agree with Lichtman on Keys 10 and 11. No great failures in foreign affairs, but no great success either. The Ukraine scandal belongs under Key 9. He was impeached for this, but I would not turn two Keys for it.
I agree with you on Key 7, but Lichtman gave it to Trump.
Perception is everything in politics, but that is transitory. I see Obama's handling of same-sex rights as a parallel to Eisenhower on school desegregation... but people who have seen large numbers of my posts recognize how much I see Obama and Eisenhower similar in temperament. Obama kept silent about it until the USSC decision came down, and he made clear after the fact where he stood. Supreme Court decisions are the law and it is up to us to live with those decisions. The Obergfell ruling will be the major event of Obama's second term by far and it will be remembered long after all the petty squabbles of our time become silly. Having the White House bathed in the rainbow colors of the LGBT rights banner on the night of the decision made clear where Obama stood. LGBT rights will stick, and even Trump was unable to win support by promising to rescind them. Abortion? Still there. "Gun rights"? Still there.
I see the death of an American diplomat in Libya as a personal tragedy in an act of heroism (he died of smoke inhalation while trying to rescue something from a fire and was not killed by an angry crowd) but the Obama administration got much blame for a lack of omniscience on that. Donald Trump was able to play the "tough guy" hand. Never mind that Trump is far more cruel than tough, as most of us have discovered. This may have been enough to tip the scale to Trump in 2016.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Which narrative do you wish to believe? People who believed a certain narrative thought that Donald Trump was charmed enough to win despite so many people loathing him. People blinded by their contempt for Trump (in my case that contempt has proved itself an understatement in my current view of him), Trump was going to lose because nobody but an utter fool could support someone that awful. Hillary Clinton's "Basket of Deplorable(s)" was much larger than many of us thought.
Quinnipiac:
Two states (KY, SC) that rarely get polled, and one that doesn't get polled often enough (ME) for a built-in complexity:
12. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
KY ME SC
Approve 49% 37% 49%
Disapprove 47 60 47
DK/NA 4 3 4
Relating to the Senate:
10-11. Do you approve or disapprove of the way - (KY) Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell / (ME) Angus King, Susan Collins / (SC) Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham - is handling [his/her] job as United States Senator?
KY.............. ME............ SC...........
Paul McConnell King Collins Scott Graham
Approve 43% 46% 60% 43% 55% 43%
Disapprove 38 48 25 52 22 47
DK/NA 19 6 14 6 22 10
McConnell, Collins, and Graham are the ones up for re-election, and they are clearly behind the Senators not up for re-election this time, and all three are underwater in approval.
https://poll.qu.edu/2020-presidential-sw...aseID=3670
This is hideous for Trump. It's likely an exaggeration. To be sure, only 200 in the sample... but if such a sample size is too small for Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, such a sample size is adequate for Iowa:
Political Polls
@Politics_Polls
NEW @davidbinder / @focusonrural (D) Poll (7/30-31):
IOWA:
Biden 49% (+6)
Trump 43%
.
MICHIGAN:
Biden 51% (+10)
Trump 41%
.
WISCONSIN:
Biden 53% (+11)
Trump 42%
.
MINNESOTA:
Biden 54% (+18)
Trump 36%
12:22 PM · Aug 6, 2020
Utah, Hinckley Institute (associated, I assume, with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. a/k/a the Mormons:
Trump approval 55 (strong 36, somewhat 19)
Trump disapproval 43 approve (strong 36, somewhat 7)
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/8/6/21...itute-poll
...I get to re-introduce the deep blue for a state in which Trump has a 55% or higher approval. But even here, strong disapproval is just slightly (if insignificant statistically) higher than strong approval. This is about the shakiest 55% support that I can imagine, as Trump is so polarizing that "slight approval" is usually very small. Trump will win Utah, but with an unusually low level of support in this usually strong-R state.
I can say this: there will be plenty of Utah voters who will vote for Trump yet not be disappointed when he loses.
Seat-of-the-pants handicapping for the Presidency:
AZ Biden 70 Trump 30
FL Biden 70 Trump 30
GA Biden 70 Trump 30
IA Biden 55 Trump 45
ME Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
MI Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
MN Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
NH Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
NC Biden 60 Trump 40
OH Biden 70 Trump 30
PA Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
TX Biden 60 Trump 40
WI Biden 99+ Trump 1 or less
I can add Kentucky and South Carolina:
AK Trump 60 Biden 40
KY Trump 65 Biden 35
MO Trump 70 Biden 30
MT Trump 70 Biden 30
SC Trump 60 Biden 40
UT Trump 95 other alternatives 5
California? How many 9's after the decimal point?
This is the first time in a long time in which I give Biden a stronger chance in Iowa than Trump. It is not an approval poll, but I can't imagine Trump having a positive approval rating with this Iowa split.
![[Image: genusmap.php?year=2012&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_...&NE3=0;1;6]](https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusmap.php?year=2012&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_p=1&type=calc&AL=0;9;6&AK=1;3;2&AZ=1;11;5&AR=1;6;5&CA=1;55;8&CO=1;9;7&CT=1;7;7&DE=0;3;5&DC=0;3;9&FL=1;29;5&GA=1;16;2&HI=0;4;7&ID=0;4;6&IL=0;20;5&IN=2;11;2&IA=1;6;5&KS=2;6;5&KY=2;8;2&LA=2;8;5&MD=1;10;7&MA=1;11;7&MI=1;16;7&MN=1;10;7&MS=2;6;5&MO=2;10;2&MT=2;3;2&NV=1;6;5&NH=1;4;7&NJ=1;14;7&NM=1;5;7&NY=1;29;7&NC=1;15;5&ND=0;3;5&OH=1;18;5&OK=2;7;5&OR=0;7;5&PA=1;20;7&RI=0;4;6&SC=2;9;2&SD=0;3;5&TN=2;11;5&TX=1;38;5&UT=2;6;7&VT=1;3;7&VA=1;13;5&WA=1;12;7&WV=0;5;6&WI=1;10;7&WY=0;3;6&ME=1;2;7&ME1=1;1;7&ME2=1;1;2&NE=0;2;5&NE1=0;1;5&NE2=1;1;2&NE3=0;1;6)
Trump approval 55% or higher
Trump approval 50-54%
Trump approval positive but under 50%
ties are in white
Trump approval negative but disapproval under 50%
Trump disapproval 50-54%
Trump disapproval 55% or higher
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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08-07-2020, 06:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2020, 06:40 PM by Eric the Green.)
(08-07-2020, 01:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (08-06-2020, 07:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would not give Trump Key 13 in 2016 because of his huge personal unpopularity, greater than Hillary's all the way through and including the election. I don't think Benghazi was enough of a failure to give Key 10 (foreign policy failure) to Trump. But I would probably give Trump Key 7, since Obamacare was Obama's only legislative achievement, and it was in his first term. A supreme court decision does not belong to the president (LGBT rights). Since I decided to give Key 7 to Trump (a FALSE key), that makes 7 false keys for Hillary. 1-4, 7, 11 and 12. I posted on this earlier.
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid54337
Once Lichtman decided to give Key 4 to Trump because of Gary Johnson, he agreed with me on all the keys for 2016 that I mention here. The article got the Key # wrong though, but the description right.
https://www.american.edu/media/news/0926...iction.cfm
For 2020, I agree with Lichtman on Keys 10 and 11. No great failures in foreign affairs, but no great success either. The Ukraine scandal belongs under Key 9. He was impeached for this, but I would not turn two Keys for it.
I agree with you on Key 7, but Lichtman gave it to Trump.
Perception is everything in politics, but that is transitory. I see Obama's handling of same-sex rights as a parallel to Eisenhower on school desegregation... but people who have seen large numbers of my posts recognize how much I see Obama and Eisenhower similar in temperament. Obama kept silent about it until the USSC decision came down, and he made clear after the fact where he stood. Supreme Court decisions are the law and it is up to us to live with those decisions. The Obergfell ruling will be the major event of Obama's second term by far and it will be remembered long after all the petty squabbles of our time become silly. Having the White House bathed in the rainbow colors of the LGBT rights banner on the night of the decision made clear where Obama stood. LGBT rights will stick, and even Trump was unable to win support by promising to rescind them. Abortion? Still there. "Gun rights"? Still there.
I see the death of an American diplomat in Libya as a personal tragedy in an act of heroism (he died of smoke inhalation while trying to rescue something from a fire and was not killed by an angry crowd) but the Obama administration got much blame for a lack of omniscience on that. Donald Trump was able to play the "tough guy" hand. Never mind that Trump is far more cruel than tough, as most of us have discovered. This may have been enough to tip the scale to Trump in 2016.
I don't think Lichtman or others have seen the supreme court decision on gay marriage as an achievement by Obama. The supreme court did it.
I don't think the loss of diplomats in an attack on an embassy is a major foreign policy failure. It has happened many times in many places. Republicans made an issue of it, but got nowhere.
Trump won due to many factors, each of which may have been the one to give him those 77,744 votes in 3 states, even besides the electoral college itself.
1. Comey's revelation about further scandal involving Hillary's emails on Weiner's computer sent her poll numbers tanking just 2 weeks before the election, and they never recovered.
2. Voter purges and suppression kept many black and poor people from voting in major cities in the key states that decided the election.
3. Russian fake news and release of wikileaks misled some voters.
4. Hillary herself used poor strategy in not campaigning enough in the decisive Rust Belt states.
5. Trump was a better campaigner than Hillary and had more effective ads.
6. Some people did not vote who might have voted for Hillary, but preferred Bernie Sanders. This involves Lichtman Key #2.
It's possible that the manufactured Benghazi scandal helped to push a few minds against Hillary, and certainly the manufactured email scandal did as well. Hillary's evasiveness about the latter is part of Key 12 (incumbent party candidate charisma) going against her in 2016, as she seemed untrustworthy. But if I remember correctly, the attack itself happened in Obama's first term, and to that extent would have an effect on the 2012 election Keys rather than the 2016 Keys, although hearings continued after 2012. But it's also true that the hearings never exposed any wrong doing; it was merely grandstanding and propaganda. Hillary herself gave a bravado performance at the hearings.
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(08-07-2020, 06:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-07-2020, 01:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (08-06-2020, 07:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would not give Trump Key 13 in 2016 because of his huge personal unpopularity, greater than Hillary's all the way through and including the election. I don't think Benghazi was enough of a failure to give Key 10 (foreign policy failure) to Trump. But I would probably give Trump Key 7, since Obamacare was Obama's only legislative achievement, and it was in his first term. A supreme court decision does not belong to the president (LGBT rights). Since I decided to give Key 7 to Trump (a FALSE key), that makes 7 false keys for Hillary. 1-4, 7, 11 and 12. I posted on this earlier.
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid54337
Once Lichtman decided to give Key 4 to Trump because of Gary Johnson, he agreed with me on all the keys for 2016 that I mention here. The article got the Key # wrong though, but the description right.
For 2020, I agree with Lichtman on Keys 10 and 11. No great failures in foreign affairs, but no great success either. The Ukraine scandal belongs under Key 9. He was impeached for this, but I would not turn two Keys for it.
I agree with you on Key 7, but Lichtman gave it to Trump.
Perception is everything in politics, but that is transitory. I see Obama's handling of same-sex rights as a parallel to Eisenhower on school desegregation... but people who have seen large numbers of my posts recognize how much I see Obama and Eisenhower similar in temperament. Obama kept silent about it until the USSC decision came down, and he made clear after the fact where he stood. Supreme Court decisions are the law and it is up to us to live with those decisions. The Obergfell ruling will be the major event of Obama's second term by far and it will be remembered long after all the petty squabbles of our time become silly. Having the White House bathed in the rainbow colors of the LGBT rights banner on the night of the decision made clear where Obama stood. LGBT rights will stick, and even Trump was unable to win support by promising to rescind them. Abortion? Still there. "Gun rights"? Still there.
I see the death of an American diplomat in Libya as a personal tragedy in an act of heroism (he died of smoke inhalation while trying to rescue something from a fire and was not killed by an angry crowd) but the Obama administration got much blame for a lack of omniscience on that. Donald Trump was able to play the "tough guy" hand. Never mind that Trump is far more cruel than tough, as most of us have discovered. This may have been enough to tip the scale to Trump in 2016.
I don't think Lichtman or others have seen the supreme court decision on gay marriage as an achievement by Obama. The supreme court did it.
I don't think the loss of diplomats in an attack on an embassy as a major foreign policy failure. It has happened many times in many places. Republicans made an issue of it, but got nowhere.
Trump won due to many factors, each of which may have been the one to give him those 77,744 votes in 3 states, even besides the electoral college itself.
1. Comey's revelation about further scandal involving Hillary's emails on Weiner's computer sent her poll numbers tanking just 2 weeks before the election, and they never recovered.
2. Voter purges and suppression kept many black and poor people from voting in major cities in the key states that decided the election.
3. Russian fake news and release of wikileaks misled some voters.
4. Hillary herself used poor strategy in not campaigning enough in the decisive Rust Belt states.
5. Trump was a better campaigner than Hillary and had more effective ads.
6. Some people did not vote who might have voted for Hillary, but preferred Bernie Sanders. This involves Lichtman Key #2.
There is one assumption that we ordinarily make about Presidential elections: that those elections will be free and fair. Electoral tampering (rigging) by the Party in power would be good for reversing a key turned against the incumbent's party. Note well that this seems to have never have happened before. This would hold true if the incumbent's Party manipulated the results of primaries of the challenger's party to select a sure loser.
Foreign interference in the electoral process on behalf of a challenger would be a key turning strongly against the incumbent. This includes fake news and hacking of electoral databases.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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08-07-2020, 06:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-07-2020, 06:58 PM by Eric the Green.)
(08-07-2020, 02:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (08-07-2020, 06:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (08-07-2020, 01:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (08-06-2020, 07:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would not give Trump Key 13 in 2016 because of his huge personal unpopularity, greater than Hillary's all the way through and including the election. I don't think Benghazi was enough of a failure to give Key 10 (foreign policy failure) to Trump. But I would probably give Trump Key 7, since Obamacare was Obama's only legislative achievement, and it was in his first term. A supreme court decision does not belong to the president (LGBT rights). Since I decided to give Key 7 to Trump (a FALSE key), that makes 7 false keys for Hillary. 1-4, 7, 11 and 12. I posted on this earlier.
http://generational-theory.com/forum/thr...l#pid54337
Once Lichtman decided to give Key 4 to Trump because of Gary Johnson, he agreed with me on all the keys for 2016 that I mention here. The article got the Key # wrong though, but the description right.
https://www.american.edu/media/news/0926...iction.cfm
For 2020, I agree with Lichtman on Keys 10 and 11. No great failures in foreign affairs, but no great success either. The Ukraine scandal belongs under Key 9. He was impeached for this, but I would not turn two Keys for it.
I agree with you on Key 7, but Lichtman gave it to Trump.
Perception is everything in politics, but that is transitory. I see Obama's handling of same-sex rights as a parallel to Eisenhower on school desegregation... but people who have seen large numbers of my posts recognize how much I see Obama and Eisenhower similar in temperament. Obama kept silent about it until the USSC decision came down, and he made clear after the fact where he stood. Supreme Court decisions are the law and it is up to us to live with those decisions. The Obergfell ruling will be the major event of Obama's second term by far and it will be remembered long after all the petty squabbles of our time become silly. Having the White House bathed in the rainbow colors of the LGBT rights banner on the night of the decision made clear where Obama stood. LGBT rights will stick, and even Trump was unable to win support by promising to rescind them. Abortion? Still there. "Gun rights"? Still there.
I see the death of an American diplomat in Libya as a personal tragedy in an act of heroism (he died of smoke inhalation while trying to rescue something from a fire and was not killed by an angry crowd) but the Obama administration got much blame for a lack of omniscience on that. Donald Trump was able to play the "tough guy" hand. Never mind that Trump is far more cruel than tough, as most of us have discovered. This may have been enough to tip the scale to Trump in 2016.
I don't think Lichtman or others have seen the supreme court decision on gay marriage as an achievement by Obama. The supreme court did it.
I don't think the loss of diplomats in an attack on an embassy is a major foreign policy failure. It has happened many times in many places. Republicans made an issue of it, but got nowhere.
Trump won due to many factors, each of which may have been the one to give him those 77,744 votes in 3 states, even besides the electoral college itself.
1. Comey's revelation about further scandal involving Hillary's emails on Weiner's computer sent her poll numbers tanking just 2 weeks before the election, and they never recovered.
2. Voter purges and suppression kept many black and poor people from voting in major cities in the key states that decided the election.
3. Russian fake news and release of wikileaks misled some voters.
4. Hillary herself used poor strategy in not campaigning enough in the decisive Rust Belt states.
5. Trump was a better campaigner than Hillary and had more effective ads.
6. Some people did not vote who might have voted for Hillary, but preferred Bernie Sanders. This involves Lichtman Key #2.
There is one assumption that we ordinarily make about Presidential elections: that those elections will be free and fair. Electoral tampering (rigging) by the Party in power would be good for reversing a key turned against the incumbent's party. Note well that this seems to have never have happened before. This would hold true if the incumbent's Party manipulated the results of primaries of the challenger's party to select a sure loser.
Foreign interference in the electoral process on behalf of a challenger would be a key turning strongly against the incumbent. This includes fake news and hacking of electoral databases.
Indeed this would-be key did turn on behalf of the challenger in 2000 and 2016, and could have turned a Key against Gore in Lichtman's prediction for 2000 had he included it. Unfortunately no-one knew beforehand the extent of the cheating and mistakes along these lines that would occur in Florida. We'll see if, as Lichtman himself warns, that this force currently outside the Keys could turn the election in favor of the incumbent this year. So Lichtman points out that we need to vote to save our democracy. A large victory cannot be cheated for or against so easily, as opposed to the elections of 2000 and 2016. These days, the Republicans can't win unless they cheat. Some say that this would-be Key also benefited incumbent George W Bush in 2004.
There was no cheating against Sanders by the Democrats in 2016 that could have altered the result, because Hillary's victory was too large. But many Sanders voters resented what little cheating did happen anyway and stayed home. This is all related to Key 2. In any case, the voters in either Party are responsible for whom they choose as their nominee, and that's why Key 12 is also about the performance of the party in power. It is also affected by whom the opposition chooses, Key 13.
These days, choosing a recent vice-president may give some portion of Key 13 or Key 3 to the party than nominates that candidate. In the past, vice-presidents were not important and didn't achieve recognition from being vice-president. But since at least Mondale in Carter's term, the vice-president has been given more to do, and this is also because of how much burden falls on presidents today. So Biden is getting some incumbency benefits, even though Trump gets Key 3. When we have an un-presidential president, people are looking to the former vice-president that they know to bring a real president back into the Office.
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(08-07-2020, 02:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: There is one assumption that we ordinarily make about Presidential elections: that those elections will be free and fair. Electoral tampering (rigging) by the Party in power would be good for reversing a key turned against the incumbent's party. Note well that this seems to have never have happened before. This would hold true if the incumbent's Party manipulated the results of primaries of the challenger's party to select a sure loser.
Foreign interference in the electoral process on behalf of a challenger would be a key turning strongly against the incumbent. This includes fake news and hacking of electoral databases.
Apparently, agents of the Trump campaign have been working hard to get Kanye West on the ballot for President in every state where it might matter (scroll down to the article). I doubt it will work very well in most places, but it might siphon away enough voles, mostly from young black men, to tip the balance to Trump in a close race.
Some of the GOP agents are already identified as legal representatives of the GOP or Trump for President --not that scumbaggery has ever limited them in any way.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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I see that the thread is mostly given over to how much certain people hate Trump and his supporters. Whatever.
Modifications to my model:
I'm going to keep the 1.059 multiplier over 2016 (modeled on the 2004 election), even though it doesn't seem to be the conventional wisdom ?:
538:https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
Sabato 2020:https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/
Cook 2020:https://cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/EC%20Ratings.102820.pdf
Realclearpolitics: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/2020_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html
With the 3rd party/write-in/"none of the above"/etc. getting 1.60% of the vote, a 1.059 modifier shakes out to Trump getting 48.63%(vs. 45.93%) and Biden getting 49.77%.
On a state by state (or district by district) basis, the minimum deviation (i.e., the worst result for Trump out of 45) for each state of district would be adivisorof 1.049 vote for one state, a maximum multiplier of 1.211 for Trump's best performing state, and a median multiplier of 1.045 (i.e., 50-50). Example: In 2016, Trump got 48.18% of the vote in PA. If the national vote improves x 1.059, then there is a 1/45 chance that he only gets 45.93% of the vote in PA, a 1/45 chance that he gets as much as 58.35%, and the median gain would be 50.35%. In all cases, if the miscellaneous vote were larger than 1.6%, then Trumps chances would improve a little (since the percentage needed to win PA by a plurality would decline), and if it were smaller, then the percentage needed to win a plurality would increase, and Trump's chances would decline.
I'd like to integrate the idea of elasticity into my model:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ele...onal-mood/
...but I haven't done it yet. Maybe another day. It's largely covered within the standard deviation anyway, with teh more elastic entities having the wider swings and the less elastic ones being closer to the median.
My guess is that the chance I give Trump of winning UT is a bit low (36/45 i.e., 80%). This is an artifact of McMullen's 2020 run, where he got 21.54% of the vote, and Trump got 45.54%. To some extent, my model takes that into account (in my model, a candidate can win UT with a 46.41% plurality), but I suspect it underestimates his chances. Oh well. Que Sera Sera for now. It's only six EVs anyway.
The modifications to the model: I assume (partly based on his performance in 2008 as a VP candidate) that Biden puts at least a 1.030 divisor to Trump's chance of reelection in DE, knocking Trump's chances of winning DE from 2/45 to 0/45. Without modifications, my model gives Trump a 0/45 chance of winning CA. With Harris as Biden's running mate, well, I assume it's still 0/45. I really don't know about how to handle Trump's shift of home state to FL. I gave him a 1.010 modifier for FL, which increases his chance of winning FL from 42/45 to 43/45. Pence is still Trump's running mate, but taking the precedence of Cheney and Biden, VP's don't have the same effect on their home states the second time around as they do the first time, but Trump still probably has a 45/45 chance of winning IN. Result: Electoral Vote count: "R" about 293; "D" about 245.
Extrapolating, I calculate that Trump needs to improve his 2016 popular vote by a 1.045 modifier (from 45.93% to at least 48.00% of the national vote) for a likely win (about 278 EVs). This would assume that Biden gets 50.40% of the popular vote, and that the miscellaneous vote is still 1.6%.
If Trump does no better than he did in 2016 (45.93%), then Biden gets 52.47% of the popular vote, with the miscellaneous vote at 1.6%. Result: About 217 EVs for Trump.
I guess we'll see how everyone's predictions went in less than 36 hours.
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11-02-2020, 05:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-02-2020, 05:34 PM by Eric the Green.)
Going by my astrological crystal ball, I streamlined and updated my calculations and scales. Based on aspects (alignment, opposition, 90 degree squares, 120 degree trines, etc.) in the charts of all the viable candidates for USA president since the republic began, including a win for Biden and 8 new losing candidates, I found that if Biden wins it shows retroactively that Biden has a higher score than Trump. Biden's score improves to 16-6 and Trump stays at 9-4. Biden's old score was 14-7 or 14-8. It was close, %-wise, and still is.
Other methods gave some conflicting indications. The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction every 20 years happens on Dec.21. It means a new era for the Establishment, our political-economy, is to start. That often signifies a change in the party in power, but not always, and used to mean the president elected near the time of the conjunction would die in office, but not anymore.
Taken all together, I finally decided on Oct.15 that Biden would win.
I have posted the polls on the Election 2020 threads. Here is the latest map. This serves as a "prediction" by the polls, chiefly fivethirtyeight, which now gives Biden a 90% chance to win. They say he is "favored" to win, but that is not a prediction. I thought Biden could win 357 electoral votes, but Iowa has gone over to Trump now so it looks like it will be 351 now. But several states are still only tilted-tossups: Arizona (Biden +2.6), Florida (Biden +2.5), North Carolina (Biden +1.9), Georgia (Biden +1.0), Ohio (Trump +0.6), Texas (Trump +1) and Iowa (Trump +1.4). PA, which I assume JDG gives to Trump, is now +4.8 Biden).
![[Image: lAmex]](https://www.270towin.com/map-images/lAmex)
0 to +3 tilting, +3-9 leaning, +9-15 likely, +15+ solid. blue=Democratic, red=Republican
map from 270towin, using fivethirtyeight poll averages
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pol.../national/
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11-02-2020, 07:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-02-2020, 07:28 PM by pbrower2a.)
(11-02-2020, 03:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: I see that the thread is mostly given over to how much certain people hate Trump and his supporters. Whatever.
Modifications to my model:
I'm going to keep the 1.059 multiplier over 2016 (modeled on the 2004 election), even though it doesn't seem to be the conventional wisdom ?:
538:https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
Sabato 2020:https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/
Cook 2020:https://cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/EC%20Ratings.102820.pdf
Realclearpolitics: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/2020_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html
With the 3rd party/write-in/"none of the above"/etc. getting 1.60% of the vote, a 1.059 modifier shakes out to Trump getting 48.63%(vs. 45.93%) and Biden getting 49.77%.
On a state by state (or district by district) basis, the minimum deviation (i.e., the worst result for Trump out of 45) for each state of district would be adivisorof 1.049 vote for one state, a maximum multiplier of 1.211 for Trump's best performing state, and a median multiplier of 1.045 (i.e., 50-50). Example: In 2016, Trump got 48.18% of the vote in PA. If the national vote improves x 1.059, then there is a 1/45 chance that he only gets 45.93% of the vote in PA, a 1/45 chance that he gets as much as 58.35%, and the median gain would be 50.35%. In all cases, if the miscellaneous vote were larger than 1.6%, then Trumps chances would improve a little (since the percentage needed to win PA by a plurality would decline), and if it were smaller, then the percentage needed to win a plurality would increase, and Trump's chances would decline.
I'd like to integrate the idea of elasticity into my model:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ele...onal-mood/
...but I haven't done it yet. Maybe another day. It's largely covered within the standard deviation anyway, with teh more elastic entities having the wider swings and the less elastic ones being closer to the median.
My guess is that the chance I give Trump of winning UT is a bit low (36/45 i.e., 80%). This is an artifact of McMullen's 2020 run, where he got 21.54% of the vote, and Trump got 45.54%. To some extent, my model takes that into account (in my model, a candidate can win UT with a 46.41% plurality), but I suspect it underestimates his chances. Oh well. Que Sera Sera for now. It's only six EVs anyway.
The modifications to the model: I assume (partly based on his performance in 2008 as a VP candidate) that Biden puts at least a 1.030 divisor to Trump's chance of reelection in DE, knocking Trump's chances of winning DE from 2/45 to 0/45. Without modifications, my model gives Trump a 0/45 chance of winning CA. With Harris as Biden's running mate, well, I assume it's still 0/45. I really don't know about how to handle Trump's shift of home state to FL. I gave him a 1.010 modifier for FL, which increases his chance of winning FL from 42/45 to 43/45. Pence is still Trump's running mate, but taking the precedence of Cheney and Biden, VP's don't have the same effect on their home states the second time around as they do the first time, but Trump still probably has a 45/45 chance of winning IN. Result: Electoral Vote count: "R" about 293; "D" about 245.
Extrapolating, I calculate that Trump needs to improve his 2016 popular vote by a 1.045 modifier (from 45.93% to at least 48.00% of the national vote) for a likely win (about 278 EVs). This would assume that Biden gets 50.40% of the popular vote, and that the miscellaneous vote is still 1.6%.
If Trump does no better than he did in 2016 (45.93%), then Biden gets 52.47% of the popular vote, with the miscellaneous vote at 1.6%. Result: About 217 EVs for Trump.
I guess we'll see how everyone's predictions went in less than 36 hours.
538: Nate Silver shows President Trump as having possibilities in 100 as ten outright wins, one nominal tie (269-269, which would be decided in the House and that would go for him), and 89 losses. The range of electoral votes for Trump ranges from 55 to 328 electoral votes. The 55 would be a defeat in the Electoral College somewhere between Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Herbert Hoover in 1932, and that suggests that Trump would lose everything east of the Mississippi except for Kentucky and West Virginia, among other oddities. If the 100th-worst result for Trump is to be seen as absurd as him winning 328 electoral votes, then it is about as absurd as Trump faring 3% better in an even shift of 3-4% of the popular vote that would net him all of his wins of 2016 and any 2016 loss closer than 4% and give him Maine at large, Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Such would be far closer to his median possibility if he were a reasonably-effective President who could bring over some new voters who voted against him the first time. It is hard to see anyone suggesting this as the 2020 result. People who did not vote for Trump have gotten no reason to vote for him on the whole.
Results within fifteen electoral votes (basically a similar electoral result) are his second, third, and fourth best results. In the second he adds Minnesota to his 2016 victories and wins 315 electoral votes, which just isn't going to happen. In his third-best he loses Michigan only to pick up Minnesota, which is a net loss of six electoral votes for him. In his fourth-best performance he simply loses Wisconsin, which is a less-likely loss for him than some other states that he lost in 2016. Oddly no winning scenario for Trump has him losing Pennsylvania. Not so oddly, no winning scenario for Trump has him losing Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, or (ha! ha!) Texas.
Average 55 electoral votes and 328 electoral votes, and the average between them is just over 191.5 electoral votes for Trump (347.5 electoral votes for Biden).
Note that in the last three Presidential elections involving a re-election bid, the incumbent won with a map of victories fairly similar to those of the incumbent's original win. Five states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Montana) changed sides in 1992; three states (Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Mexico) changed sides in 2004 -- only fifteen electoral votes); in 2012, two states (Indiana and North Carolina) and one wayward district (NE-02) shifted away for Obama. Those elections involve three very different Presidents. Usually patterns have cause for repeating, but in view of how badly Trump is doing in all states that he lost except perhaps Nevada (which usually over-performs polling for Democrats and gives Biden a lead, then Trump will lose something from 2016 while gaining nothing. Biden would have to pick up Texas (not likely without a bunch of other states other than Texas) or
1. Florida and any other state with at least seven electoral votes (FL + IA puts Biden at a 269-269 tie) or Iowa and the second Congressional District of Maine or Nebraska. That is 270 for Biden.
2. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and either both ME-02 and NE-02 or any other state. That is at least 270 for Biden (Biden is not winning Ohio without also winning both Michigan and Pennsylvania, so I do not have Ohio as a key)
3. Two of Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina and any other state.
4. One of Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina, and two of Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Each case involves no more than three states switching -- and if any states shift then they will go from Trump to Biden. Trump has little room for losses because he isn't picking anything up.
Nate Silver has a wide range of possible results, but his analysis might be going outmoded. As the election becomes nigh, some possibilities fade. For example, I can see no reasonable way in which Biden gets more than 413 electoral votes. He's not campaigning at the last minute in South Carolina, Montana, Alaska, or Missouri, which he would have to do to win those states. He did try to make a campaign appearance in Austin, Texas but failed to show up because a caravan of Trump supporters blocked his approach to the venue.
(By the way -- blocking access to a campaign site is disgusting and loathsome behavior, electoral misconduct of the worst kind: physical interference with a campaign. That is the sort of thing that happens in dictatorships pretending to have a democracy but scrupulously falling short of democracy by making sure to win close elections instead of the ludicrous sorts in which, as in Commie and Ba'athist states, 99% of the people vote and 99% or so vote for the approved list. This is what I would expect of someone like the late Robert Mugabe.
I hate the Trump campaign almost as much as I despise Donald Trump himself. I find it unlikely that I could largely choose a Presidential nominee for some of the usual attributes that Republican nominees play up (devout Christianity, a conservative family life, and more respect for veterans and active-duty members of the Armed Services, but this time that means the Democrat). Donald Trump is something that I would never have accused either Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, George H W Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, or Richard Nixon of being: a demagogue. After so callow a demagogue as Trump the cure is someone from the Establishment. Biden is as Establishment as one gets. At some point we are going to need a conservative to halt and reverse the destructive radicalism of some left-wing demagogue.
Don't tell me that this is spontaneous behavior of over-zealous supporters. This sort of behavior is well-planned and carefully choreographed. Such behavior can only emerge from the Trump campaign with the approval of none other than you-know-who). This conduct gives me more cause to despise Donald Trump, and may we never see anything like this again!
.....
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball:
![[Image: 110120_Elec_College_Ratings_600.png]](https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/110120_Elec_College_Ratings_600.png)
I might disagree on one or two states (and I am not saying which), and never by more than one category. At this point (the day before the election) even a 3% lead is nearly impossible to shake. The question is on the whole how accurate the polls are.
....................
The Cook report doesn't contain a spiffy map, but it does show 188 electoral votes solid for Biden (all states that Trump lost by at least 8% in 2016), 24 likely for Biden, and 78 'leaning' toward Biden (Trump lost among these Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire but won the rest of them in 2016). Although a bare lean may have seemed within reach for Trump a couple months ago... well, it isn't summer anymore. With these Biden has 290 electoral votes nearly locked up, and Trump would have to pick off at least two of these states to win the election.
Politics is a timed contest, even if the timer is a calendar instead of the clock used in basketball, football, or hockey. I have seen 20-point leads dribble away in NBA games, and I have seen NFL teams (especially the Detroit Kittens) fumble away 20-point leads... but those were early leads. There are ball-control strategies that can force the team behind to get no fast breaks while the team ahead abandons the fast break to eat the clock in basketball; in pro football, a team with an early 20-point lead early in the game can often enforce a slow ground game for the offense with Tom Landry's "nickel defense" (five defensive backs in the zones in which passes might be thrown) that makes long passes suicidal due to a high chance of an interception that the defensive team can run back for a quick score that makes things worse for the team behind or puts the defensive team in good field position. With such a lead, the team ahead typically chooses to do low-risk running plays that devour time.
Trump had plenty of time in which to erode Biden leads and apparently failed to do so. Give credit to Biden for some excellent strategy and making feew mistakes.
......
Real Clear Politics has something close to my minimal expectation of a Biden win. That is all that I need say because I have said much the same before in this post.
JDG, I recognize and salute your ability to treat the likely defeat of President Trump with a calmness that I did not show when Trump won. Although I must await the results of the electoral results tomorrow to make any definitive predictions on how the defeat of Donald Trump will shape the generational pattern of American history, I can easily say that President Trump will be a one-of-a-kind President. A defeat of him will show that his style is a poor match for patterns of American history.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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I am generally optimistic about Biden, but have nothing about specifics.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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The Sabato prediction does jive with JDG's, so it looks like Mr. Glick has looked beyond bias this time and agrees with brower. My salute as well.
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11-03-2020, 10:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-03-2020, 10:28 AM by pbrower2a.)
(11-03-2020, 09:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Sabato prediction does jive with JDG's, so it looks like Mr. Glick has looked beyond bias this time and agrees with brower. My salute as well.
My salute to JDG, if not to myself. I never salute myself except when by accident I upvote my own post (and then in horror promptly remove that unfair upvote) on some Forums. I am not the issue.
This is a well-recognized model of how people deal with grief, but also financial losses, political defeats, defeats favorite sports teams, job losses, failing health, and even prison sentences.
Kübler-Ross originally developed stages to describe the process patients with terminal illness go through as they come to terms with their own deaths; it was later applied to grieving friends and family as well, who seemed to undergo a similar process.[9] The stages, popularly known by the acronym DABDA, include:[10]
- Denial – The first reaction is denial. In this stage, individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.
- Anger – When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"; "Why would this happen?".
- Bargaining – The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise. Examples include the terminally ill person who "negotiates with God" to attend a daughter's wedding, an attempt to bargain for more time to live in exchange for a reformed lifestyle or a phrase such as "If I could trade their life for mine".
- Depression – "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon, so what's the point?"; "I miss my loved one; why go on?"
During the fourth stage, the individual despairs at the recognition of their mortality. In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen.
- Acceptance – "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it; I may as well prepare for it."
In this last stage, individuals embrace mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. People dying may precede the survivors in this state, which typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable condition of emotions.
I congratulate JDG on reaching Stage 5. I have yet to fully get out of stage 3 with a bunch of things that have happened in the last five years(financial ruin, loss of parents, a job that I performed badly in, loss of a beloved dog, never latching onto the community in which I am stranded, and the Trump Presidency.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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