Former Lancastrian

Why is Giantaxe showing me a picture of a No Entry Sign?

carcajou

Methodologies. I am not going to look back and find some sample polls, but if the polling companies had shifted to Mook-style analytics, that would explain why they were wrong and why they were wrong in that particular direction. Analytics, by their very nature, would have missed the shifts to Trump in certain demographic groupings. Exit polling uses traditional methods. They (the polling companies) have to correctly project party ID turnout to have a correct exit poll, which they did in 2016; it's a lot more complicated than just asking people who they voted for when they walk out of the voting booth. That indicates they had that part of the equation correct the whole way through and the failure was somewhere else.

carcajou

There's other parlour tricks that get done too. You really have to be careful when reading polling. Commissioning a poll is a very expensive exercise (think mid-five figures); having something with a large margin of error, say 4%, may sound reasonable but that is very large. A big polling company receiving a big payday, and a large media organisation making that payday, don't need a low-quality poll like that. However - a 4% margin of error allows a media organisation to bark that a 52-48% poll is a "tie" because "it's inside the margin of error."

Sometimes a campaign will deliberately instruct a polling company to put their thumb on the results, often done by messing with the sample (ie a higher or lower Party ID of likely voters than anticipated). Maybe a closer result than expected by someone actually well ahead, in order to shake complacency and goose fundraising, etc.

civilservant

The most accurate cartoon I have seen in a good while....

Hiro11

How exactly is Trump to blame for what's happening? Because of his Tweets? I'll remind you that local administrations in the US control policing, not the Federal government. I'll also remind you that Minneapolis and every other major city that has faced charges of police brutality and is currently mired in protesting and rioting have been controlled by Democrats for generations. Perhaps you'd argue that the President "sets the tone", in which case I'll also remind you that there were, if anything, more of these types of cases under the Obama administration. I know it's an election year, but not everything that happens in the US is Trump's fault.

civilservant

The fish rots from the head.

I agree that not everything is Trump's fault, and I'm not even especially blaming him for this incident, but I maintain that he is attempting to destroy the Democracy that the Republic was built on.

Roll on November,

spouse of scouse

Yes.

Hiro11

OK. Even though I disagree with you, that makes more sense.

It's interesting that this is a common refrain among Trump-supporters as well. With some evidence (notably: a historic increase in Executive orders under Obama), they see Obama as someone who tried to "destroy Democracy". Not saying they're right, just that this is more evidence that people live in different realities these days.

civilservant

The fact is that we have got away from the traditional idea of what the Presidency was supposed to be. The powers of the Presidency have expanded so much over the last 100 years that it has little resemblance to what the framers intended.

I am hardly an originialist, but I do not think the Imperial Presidency is good for the citizenry, and I really don't know what the solution would be reign it back in.

Giantaxe

You mean they claim Obama did. The reality is different.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...cutive-orders/

Steerpike

Your point is valid, in that Trump is not to blame for the cause of what's happening right now; the cop kneeling on the guy's neck is doing that thanks to policies / training / practices /attitudes developed under a variety of different leaders, many of which were Democrat. 'Ferguson' (2014) happened on Obama's watch, as did the root causes of that incident (shooting of Michael Brown). My issue with Trump is how he is reacting to the situation. I expect him to try to be calming, inspirational ... in short, 'Presidential'. Instead, his reaction tends to be inflammatory / divisive; exactly the opposite of what a President should be doing.

pejp

Maybe that's what he means by people inhabiting different realities!

You're wasting your time with Trump supporters. It simply isn't possible for a rational adult to still support this disgrace without being brainwashed. There is simply nothing that will persuade them. It's obvious to everyone that he is utterly unsuitable for office, but they'll persist with 'but Hillary! but Obama!!' no matter what happens. Anyone still supporting him at this stage, is not going to change their mind. They are just blind to reality.

moneypenny20

And according to Wiki Trump has so far signed 161. 41.5 per year, so more than Obama. Mind you Obama didn't spend his first year signing anything that did away with his predecessors name so it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Steerpike

Or maybe not ...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...-reform-304534
Still hope ?

Hiro11

100% agree.