Well, he seems to manage a weird kind of charisma to a great many people.
Both Winston Churchill and P.T. Barnum did so, but in very different ways.
The important difference, of course, is that both Churchill and Barnum achieved things. Trump just makes everything worse.
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Donnie was out-voted by Clinton by ~3m votes.
Things are worse now and I’m happy to bet the economy will be worse in 17 months thanks to Donnie’s economic leadership or, more precisely, crapping on the economy. Donnie’s incapable of doing anything for people. All he can do is to crap on them to succeed for himself. (One of the reasons he’s historically unfit to be POTUS and/or is just another modern Republican is his complete selfishness.)
In other words, this poll isn’t all that surprising. Maybe more interesting about is the name recognition of the Dems. It’s like once one’s known, being known is enough to kick Donnie’s obese ass.
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I’m pretty sure that some places were saying 99% chance of winning at some point, just not the day before the election. A lot of analysis of chances of winning comes with an implicit (hopefully explicit) “if the election were held during the three day period over which we conducted the poll” rider. There’s a big difference between a prediction and a snapshot of current mood.
I think it’s unfair to say the polls got it wrong or that polls don’t work. I think part of the problem is that we act like an understanding of statistics is something people can just pull from the ether. I’m confident that American nationwide political polling is quite sound, and that the model they use at 538 is impressively accurate (they even ran articles going over their past predictions to see if they got things right - that is, if 70% of the things they said would happen 70% of the time happened - and were awfully close [which is to say not that close]).
But if I had to explain what that means to someone who hasn’t actually taken courses in stats, I think my best bet would be, “If Nate Silver says they have an 24% chance of winning and the bookies are giving you 6 to 1, put $10 on it (but only if you can afford to lose $10).”
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Definitely, but I can understand it. The word populist is usually used derisively, but the fact is that both he and trump were both talking about populist policies and upending the status quo, albeit from different sides of the spectrum. Honestly, I don’t think the voters from either side are terribly well informed, so in this case I think it comes down to somebody promising to do something drastic to shake up a stagnant system.
And it worked. trump is doing his shit which is wildly popular with the hate and fear motivated set while nearly the entire Democratic field has lurched so dramatically left it’s unrecognizable from 2015/16’s group.
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“Never tell me the odds!”
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I guess, to be fair, that is still technically an achievement.
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Polls aside, I think it’s likely that if the Dems run Biden, he’ll lose to Trump.
That aside, if any of {Trump, Biden, Buttigieg} wins, the rest of us lose.
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None of those candidates are perfect, but it would be ridiculous to imply that they are all equally (or even similarly) imperfect.
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Yeah, none are my top choice, but if the election were between Buttigieg and Biden I’d be thrilled for Buttigieg to win. And if the election is between Biden and Trump I’ll be deeply relieved to have Biden.
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Yeah I’m kind of curious why Buttigieg is in the set with Biden and Trump.* Personally I think I don’t trust him totally, he seems a bit naive and sheltered, a bit hollow. Hell is paved with good intentions and all that, and I’m pretty sure they make the spikes for all the skulls along the way specifically out of platform promises. I’m a pragmatist by nature. I’d still put him in the set of slightly weaker candidates who I hope will continue in politics, but has he proposed something as objectively awful as the proposition of Trump v Biden for “America’s Last Hope” the stunning election drama set to overtake your screens?
- edit for clarity: I mean I don’t see why he’s being included as a guaranteed negative such that “everyone loses” The choice between Biden and Trump feels to me like asking whether I’d like to be buried alive with a nazi marching band playing over me or buried alive with my feet sticking out and an old man licking them muttering “so niiice” the whole time. I’d rather not be buried alive, but apparently that’s not on the menu.
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Several of things things Buttigieg has said have seen firmly neo-liberal to me, which I don’t love. That said there are definitely things to like about Buttigieg. I like politicians with solid municipal experience because municipal politics is usually about actually delivering things to people. I like the idea of electing a president who is likely to live through two terms. And there’s nothing wrong with cheering on America’s first openly gay president. Personally I was so looking forward to the media getting all confused about how to react to “first gentleman” when Clinton was running, and having one that isn’t famous in their own right would be even more baffling for them.
ETA: I also ageist-ly expect that a young person with some neo-liberal seeming ideas is going to be more aligned with me than an old person who has a track record of full-on neo-liberalism.
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Could be, but I think the most common flaw was a simplistic reading of what margin of error is. “Oh, they are about the same, they cancel out”, or “meh, only a few percent, who cares?” You need to account for the times where things are in the margin of error but all off by the same direction.
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Yeah. Apologies for repeating this, but any Democrat, definitely including Buttigieg or Biden, is worlds better than Trump, or any hypothetical Republican if the Orange One blows a fuse, is impeached, or quits in a fit of pique.
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They’re all Republicans of some sort.
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