A Perfect Storm | 157 comments (157 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Does this look like the graph of a President losing popular support to you? Far from Trump losing support, America is becoming Trumpified.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 03:30:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (4.00 / 2)

Can't wait for Vladimir Putin to steal Hillary's presidency again.
But seriously, Trump is just very boring if you look beneath the bombast and bad grammer. Is there anything he did that you couldn't see Bush doing? Except maybe letting the Korea peace deal go ahead?

by generic on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 03:58:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 0)

Ditching Iran Deal
Starting Trade War
Needless pissing off almost everyone
Doing deals with dodgy Russians to build Trump tower in Moscow etc.

And what alternative are the Dems offering? Three septuagenarians? Hillary? Sanders? Pelosi?

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:21:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Democrats"? (none / 1)

Frank, did I predict that a Democratic nominee would replace Trump?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:31:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Democrats"? (none / 0)

When was the last time a sitting President failed to win his party's nomination? How well are anti-Trump Republicans doing at the moment? Evidence please...

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:47:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Democrats"? (none / 0)

G.W.H. Bush

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:51:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Democrats"? (none / 0)

As I recall, he was the official Republican nominee in the election he lost to Clinton. You are confusing the primary with the general election.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Jun 7th, 2018 at 08:51:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "Democrats"? (none / 1)

Whoever wins the Rethuglican primary, and it's Der Drumpfenfuehrer Little Donny Dreckwerfer's if he wants it, will win the presidency. The neoliberal arsefardles of the DNC/DLC/DCCC will make sure of that.

by rifek on Fri Jun 15th, 2018 at 01:24:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (4.00 / 3)

I still remember how we, or at least I, thought more than ten years ago that Europe will finally have to get out from behind the US' skirts because the relationship was getting so poisonous. Freedom Fries and all. Came to nothing in the end.
Ditching the Iran deal seems very much in line with prior policy. Bush also needlessly agonized Iran after they helped him out with the Taliban. Hero of the Resistence™ David Frum wrote them a nice thank you note. And the sanctions were always inimical to European economic interests.
The trade war is certainly a lot more blatant than in the old days.

by generic on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 05:01:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 0)

Three? What happened to Biden?

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Jun 7th, 2018 at 08:58:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 1)

Forgot my actual point: Bush got reelected with broadly similar policies. He had his folksy persona and the warpresidency™ and his handlers just managed to fob their product off before both of those passed the sell by date. Trump is blessed with enemies that might just assemble a broad enough front of ex bushie ghouls and spooks that he can run against the establishment as a sitting president. They think still think that would be bad for him.

by generic on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:38:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 0)

So did your boy Obama.
This subthread supposedly is seeking a bottom. Why would you benchmark the current zeitgeist to the top of US venality and stupidity?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:54:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 1)

Frank. Step away from the pollsters' "polls of polls", n=400, N=168M.

Many are venal and stupid, but they are not that venal and stupid.

The final 18 months of "Trump" trade will concentrate the two brain cells between them to vote up --by ballot or bullet-- anyone but.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:07:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 1)

Has anyone ever lost money betting on the venality and stupidity of the American people? Your faith is touching...but Ihaven't seen much evidence to support it.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:24:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 0)

in the Irish Times or the Irish Times?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:29:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 0)

You have the advantage on me in being an actual American living in America with lots of American sources and contacts. I ended up relying on stuff like Pollster's poll of polls which didn't do me any favours in Trump vs. Hillary, although she did win the popular votes by 3 points. It takes spectacular incompetence to lose Michigan and Pennsylvania with numbers like that. But then who ARE the republicans and Democrats (or Independents) going to put up against Trump? I'm not seeing either a rising star or a winning hand.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:54:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 0)

>It takes spectacular incompetence to lose Michigan and Pennsylvania with numbers like that
One of us is a little fuzzy on the difference between state delegates to the DNC and state electors in a presidential election. Your boy Obama and Who? connived to disqualify MI and FL primary results in '08. Wouldn't it be comical if that episode informed --without aid of foreign agents-- Michiganders' preference for "spectacular incompetence". So it is. Trump won the MI popular vote by 10,704 and 16 electors in 2016, as is the custom.

>who ARE the republicans and Democrats (or Independents)...
The uniparty is already floating favored POTUS candidates. Why don't you know them? For example, Sen. Flake, one of the least distinguished in the wave of incumbents retreating from RNC #NeverTrump'16 to temporary obscurity, while Democrats besmirch the mid-term congressional recycle derby. What is Mr Flake's hook in I, D, R voters, Frank?

Independent a/k/a unaffiliated registered voters is NOT a partisan organization or incorporated enterprise. As such independent voters as a group do not raise capital or nominate candidates and are not regulated as such by the FEC and states' election boards. But individual independent voters are subject to FEC regulation limiting "donor" gifts to any party campaign. Further, independent voters are permitted only to vote for partisan candidates in open primary and general elections. Independent voters don't "put up" candidates. They make or break them.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 08:24:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 0)

I doubt that Flake or any other Republican can deny Trump the republican nomination in 2020 unless Trump starts and loses a major war. I am aware than Independents aren't an organisation as such (by definition!). However voters voting for an independent candidate can influence the outcome. For example Ross Perot made it possible for Bill Clinton to win with 43% of the vote by taking 19% of the vote many of which might otherwise have gone to Bush snr. So if Flake (or someone similar) ran as an Independent and attracted a significant number of otherwise Republican leaning votes, it would be easier for the democratic nominee to win.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 10:21:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 1)

Did I predict Trump would not be nominated? No.

Let's recap.
I said he would not be elected again. Any one but:

I suggested that regardless of binary statistical descriptions of voter preferences, the true "margin of error" --independent voters-- will be the instrument of Trump's defeat. They will join with Trump opposition constituents in both parties to form a majority "for love of money."

Independent is a party of one. Squabbling over profits lost, jobs saved or created.

Now, you've pointed out --to the size of the minority faction with no indication of irony-- that splitting 56% of the remaining electorate (hidebound, middle-class, "Reagan" republican voters) lost the incumbent (G.H.W. Bush) the seat.

Case closed.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 11:55:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 1)

There aren't any independents positioning themselves to run (Howard Schultz rumors to the contrary, and besides, how likely is it that Starbucks is going to mobilize the masses?), so it will be D vs. R in 2020, and the DNC will make sure R will win. In a sane system, the DNC would be foaming at the mouth over all the disenfranchisement plots, such as the one our glorious SCOTUS just upheld in Ohio, except for one, small thing: Those plots help the DNC. The folks losing their voting privileges would be voting for progressives, not the neoliberal stooges the DNC keeps foisting on us, so the Rethuglican vote suppressors are actually helping the DNC tools maintain control over the Democratic Party.

by rifek on Fri Jun 15th, 2018 at 01:39:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "evidence" ? (none / 1)

No one has declared for POTUS 2020. No sane or sincere candidate would want to position him or herself now for two more years of Trump "troll" tweets with schmears and streaks of MSNBC and FOX.

Look what happened to Flake.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Fri Jun 15th, 2018 at 01:41:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "a bottom" (none / 1)

Does that poll fit this "demographic"? This "margin of error?
42% I, 29% D, 27% R.
"coming together for the love of money": Focus, Frank.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:25:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: FOCUS (none / 1)

Ima tell you. I was not raised on religion. My family is secular through and through. I have not had any "conversion" to faith. What I know and understand about the polity of US America comes from 55 years walking this earth, this land, and studying the instrumentality of ecumenical institutions in US politics. IF Dwight D. fucking Eisenhower rose from the dead November 4, 2020, he'd win in a LANDSLIDE.

FOCUS, Frank.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:47:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Too Far From the Election (none / 1)

National polls are meaningless in mid-terms. The action is at the congressional district and state-wide offices. Granted most of them are locks for the incumbent. Even so there are something like 119 GOP House seats in-play this year. Democrats need to take 24 of them.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 04:58:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Too Far From the Election (none / 0)

I.m not trying to make predictions about the next Presidential elections, much less the mid-terms. I'm just asking what evidence we have of a wave election against Republicans, because I'm not seeing it.

We don't even know who the Dem candidate will be. I'm just using the graph to illustrated there is very little evidence that Trumps appalling record to date is causing any meaningful erosion of his base at the present time.

What happens in two years time is another matter, and depends on how the US economy fares after a trade war and whatever other wars Trump starts. BTW did the EU just target only Republican owned businesses?

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 05:02:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Too Far From the Election (none / 0)

The betting markets give the Dems a 58% chance of taking the House. I think Hillary had better odds...

Per betting markets, Democrats' chances of winning the House have decreased from ~66% to ~58% over the past few months. It's a change worth noticing if you're an electoral junkie I guess? But either way the uncertainty remains super high. Polling isn't too precise in House races.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 4, 2018

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jun 4th, 2018 at 05:21:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Too Far From the Election (none / 1)

>We don't even know who the Dem candidate will be.

"It is the economy, stupid."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Jun 5th, 2018 at 12:19:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Too Far From the Election (none / 1)

What that graph says to me is Trump's voter base is constant.

However, looking 'behind' the graph are some known GOP propaganda outfits such as Rasmussen whose "results" (sic) are keeping Trump's numbers high. When Gallup has a 12 to 15 point gap in approval and Rasmussen reports a 1 point gap something isn't kosher.

I think Trump and the GOP are in deep trouble.

IF people get off their asses and vote ... always a 'sometime thing' in midyear elections.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Tue Jun 5th, 2018 at 03:35:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Phoning it in. (none / 0)

ME: So what's your schedule next semester?
BUNNY: blah yadda yadda blah psyche statistics.
ME: Waitwut. Psyche statistics?
BUNNY: Yeah. I know.
ME: Data collection prats and pitfalls.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Tue Jun 5th, 2018 at 04:42:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Phoning it in. (4.00 / 4)

As a numerical incompetent and math-phobe, I found psych statistics to be one of the few classes that has had a long-term positive effect on my thinking. I actually learned how to do some basic correlations, thought about what they might mean, and considered the applicaitons of analysis of variance.

Was it mathematically rigorous? Well, no, but if it was I would have failed. The formulas simply make no sense in and of themselves, and the class was happy to treat them as mysterious black boxes. I would not trust myself to use them in real research situations, then or now. However, it helped sharpen up my general thinking a little bit, and I remain far more aware of research design issues and the various potential flaws of data than most of my humanities-oriented peers. It's an incredibly low bar, but still.

by Zwackus on Thu Jun 7th, 2018 at 01:39:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

< wipes tears > (none / 1)

House Dems seethe over superdelegates plan

And that's what set the House members off, because none of them believes there will be any more than one roll-call vote for the nominee.
In their view, that means elected Democratic officials -- who have been put into office by hundreds of thousands or even millions of constituents -- won't play a role in nominating their party's presidential candidate.

you don't say

"I believe this decision, if they go forward, is going to do terrible damage to party harmony," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who raised his objections with Perez during Tuesday's dinner. "It disenfranchises the elected leadership of the party. The last time we allowed that to happen was 1972, and we had the worst landslide in our history."

chumps

:: Hello!
The Modern History of the Democratic Presidential Primary, 1972-2008
"Most political observers consider 1972 the beginning of the "modern era" of presidential politics. After the controversial 1968 presidential cycle..."
The Modern History of the Republican Presidential Primary, 1976-2012
"While the Republican Party also went on to adopt [']many reforms['] as well, it importantly has never adopted proportionality as a universal rule, largely leaving delegate allocation methods to the state parties."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Thu Jun 7th, 2018 at 08:38:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

UH OH (none / 1)

I did not see this coming.

20/20 hindsight: 13 April 2018 besides 54 bills (both chambers, both parties).

All things equal, I have to change my call from SELL to HOLD. The "trade war" will have to tank the economy hard and fast for to take the edge off Trump signing any of them.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sat Jun 9th, 2018 at 02:35:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

A Perfect Storm | 157 comments (157 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Top Diaries

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - December 2023

by gmoke - Nov 28

Clean Energy Wire's Fact Sheet on Upcoming Dutch Election

by gmoke - Nov 12
7 comments

Top Diaries

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - December 2023

Clean Energy Wire's Fact Sheet on Upcoming Dutch Election

Recent Diaries

A Sort-a Truce Extended 24 Hours

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - December 2023

NeXiT the Trump Era of Dutch PM Wilders

Erasure of Palestinians the Zionist Dream

21st Century Pax Americana and Violence

Dublin Far Right Riots After Knife Attack

Clean Break From Peace to War

Woodrow Wilson's Collapse and the Peace Movement

A Children's Sing-Along Annihilate Everyone In Gaza

Xi - Joe Launch a New Communication Probe

The Israeli War Hoax of 40 Beheaded Babies

If Palestinians Are 'Animals'? What Are the Israelis?

Gaza Atrocities and the UN Fail

Clean Energy Wire's Fact Sheet on Upcoming Dutch Election

Broadening the War to Lebanon and Syria-Iraq

Dishonest Hope and Trust In a Two-State Option

Gaza Massacre, Biden Funding Ethnic Cleansing

Dominique de Villepin Israel's Security Not by War

NATO Is Losing the Proxy War In Ukraine

Stealth Visit for Talks About Gaza Future

Occasional Series