Home » Early voting in Florida: fun with statistics

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Early voting in Florida: fun with statistics — 64 Comments

  1. Words I live by when digging into data after reading the headline (great job on this by the way, Neo): “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”.

  2. Woe betide our need for any examination or analysis of a furtive self-deception over against a gleeful self-deception . . . and yet, alas, where else must we arrive today?

  3. This reminds me of that dishonest bullshit about “Trump won more primary votes than any other Republican IN HISTORY!!!”

    …because more people voted than in history. Trump still only got 45%, which isn’t even equal to McCain.
    Lying through half-truths.

  4. The campaign at this point comes down to turn out. The MSM is trying to tamp down pro-Trump turnout. The pro-Trump blogs are trying to keep everyone’s spirits up and encourage turn out. Data will be misrepresented by both sides. Few are as analytical as Neo. Thus, all the cheerleading by both sides.

    Clinton’s campaign has gone into prevent mode. They are ahead and hope to turn their superior ground game into an easy victory. She is appearing less, staying out of the news, and using her superior money resources to concentrate on getting out her voters. The election is not won or lost by the eager voters for either candidate. It is won by making sure that the tepid supporters actually vote. That is where Hillary will win.

    I have accepted that scenario and am now moving on to the next stage. Surviving another four years of the regressive policy of the progressives.

  5. Donald Trump has received significantly more broadcast network news coverage than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, but nearly all of that coverage (91%) has been hostile
    ——————————————————————-
    the networks spent far more airtime focusing on the personal controversies involving Trump (440 minutes) than about similar controversies involving Clinton (185 minutes).
    ——————————————————————-
    Donald Trump’s treatment of women was given 102 minutes of evening news airtime, more than that allocated to discussing Clinton’s e-mail scandal (53 minutes) and the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play scandals (40 minutes) combined

    ——————————————————————-
    neither candidate was celebrated by the media but network reporters went out of their way to hammer Trump day after day, while Clinton was largely out of their line of fire
    ——————————————————————-
    Our analysts found 184 opinionated statements about Hillary Clinton, split between 39 positive statements (21%) vs. 145 negative (79%). Those same broadcasts included more than three times as many opinionated statements about Trump, 91 percent of which (623) were negative vs. just nine percent positive (63).
    ——————————————————————-
    Even when they were critical of Hillary Clinton – network reporters always maintained a respectful tone in their coverage / This was not the case with Trump
    ——————————————————————-
    Reporters also bluntly called out Trump for lying in his public remarks in a way they never did with Clinton, despite her own robust record of false statements
    ——————————————————————-
    Out of 569 such statements about the health or prospects of Trump’s campaign, 85% (486) were negative, vs. 15% (83) that were positive. For Clinton, the spin was reversed: out of 432 assessments of her status in the race, 62% (268) were positive, vs. just 38% (164) that were negative
    ——————————————————————-
    judging by their own coverage, network reporters have consistently painted Clinton as the most likely to win, but they have inexplicably spent most of their time trying to dismantle the underdog in the race while giving the frontrunner much lighter scrutiny
    ——————————————————————-
    the networks spent about 40 percent more airtime covering Trump (785 minutes) than they did on Clinton (478 minutes).
    ——————————————————————-
    more than half of Trump’s coverage (440 minutes, or 56%) focused on the various controversies surrounding his candidacy, while only about 38 percent of Clinton’s airtime was spent on her controversies (185 minutes).
    ——————————————————————-
    Add it all up, and Trump’s alleged sexist behavior or rhetoric has totaled 102 minutes of news coverage since the conventions. In contrast, references to Bill Clinton’s past treatment of women, and Hillary Clinton’s role in covering up her husband’s wrongdoing, amounted to less than seven minutes of coverage during this same period, a roughly 15-to-1 disparity
    ——————————————————————-
    Other Trump controversies were given robust coverage: the issue of his tax returns (33 minutes), his concern that the November election could be “rigged” (27 minutes), and suggestions that Trump and his aides are too close to Putin’s Russia (22 minutes).
    In contrast, controversies involving Hillary Clinton received far less attention. Her “basket of deplorables” comment received just seven minutes of total coverage, while barely two minutes (134 seconds) was spent talking about her handling of the 2012 attack in Benghazi when she was Secretary of State

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    with THAT much skew, how does anyone know what they see matches what they believe, or what they see makes them believe? [what do you think the millions theyh spend on TV are for? fairness? what do you think cinema can do given it exploits our biology to make feelings to images, and the people behind them make billions doing so… most people would be aghast if they knew the reality of it!!!!!!!!

  6. so those September 23 statistics can’t be referring to early voting

    Those are absentee ballots by mail. A significant number of requests for such ballots have been received by the voters, and also returned.

    There’s still a number of such ballots that have not been received by the relevant supervisor of elections. I’m going to suspect that those are going out of country and will take a bit longer to make the round trip.

  7. Matt_SE Says: This reminds me of that dishonest bullshit about “Trump won more primary votes than any other Republican IN HISTORY!!!”

    Because more people voted than in history. Trump still only got 45%, which isn’t even equal to McCain. Lying through half-truths.

    Thats not half truths sir…
    in absolute numbers he won more..
    and even if you adjust them by volume he wont more

    and can you mathematically explain your 45% comment..
    45% of what… the total? the republican total? all voters? etc.
    without what its applied it means nothing…

    The previous record for most votes for a Republican in the primaries was held by George W. Bush in 2000. Trump blew that out of the water.

    see graph here… mccain was beat by bush, trump and romney nearly tied with mccain.
    https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2016/06/VoteTotals_For.jpg&w=1484

    he also wins most votes against because of those large numbers. but remember, Obama broke record for the most votes for president ever… so the republicans that lost those two knew to turn out

    its like deciding how to divide up expenses between you and your wife… do you cover it all, and she keeps hers (as it is in muslim world)… do you pay half and she pay half even if she or you make less? or do you pay proportionally based on earnings…

    ALL are valid math items and ways of splitting things…
    none of them are lies, it just depends on what you value
    do you think fairness is absolute (50/50 regardless of earnings)… or relative (60/40 based on earnings difference)… or communal (men pay, women play – or under islam, he pays, she saves her own for her own future)

    none of them are unfair, wrong, etc.
    the point your making is that they did not pick which of the three YOU value more… and you know what? thats just cause we are not the same, and equal, but have different ideas of what things should be.

    get used to it.

  8. first day of early voting in Broward COunty Florida. Lines, not long, but lines on a weekday. Absentee ballots can be turned in at most early voting sites, not necessary to stand in line. County republicans have managed to get early voting sites covered by Poll Watchers and there is so far no sign of troubles. THe day to watch is election day. In 2012, there were precincts where ballots ran out (oddly in majority Rep. areas) and difficulty with machines (optical character readers) going down.
    Most of FLorida went to paper ballots (pushed and partially funded by state legislature after 2000). However, we know there are any number of double voters who claim residence in a northern state in addition to FL and boast about getting two votes…..Nothing we can do about it. In 2012, the party did research with the SSA database and found 44,000 dead people on the rolls. In some counties, the SOE was required to process these. In others, the D’s litigated until after the election, at which point I think the whole thing was dropped.
    Anybody who walks their precinct knows that there are 2-3 different family names per address, most of whom are unknown to the current resident. Seems like an easy way to get an absentee ballot and vote it.

  9. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    One of them will probably end up being accurate in the aftermath (stopped clock and all that), but when they look like a shotgun scatter pattern they tend to lose their predictive value (or am I being too harsh here /sarc off).

  10. These big rallies must mean something.

    People are very, very enthusiastic for Trump. In Omaha, people wouldn’t walk across the street to see her.

  11. Chambers County election officials have executed an emergency protocol to remove all electronic voting machines available during early voting until a software update can be completed to correct problems experienced by straight-ticket voters. Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne told Breitbart Texas Tuesday morning that all electronic voting was temporarily halted until her office completes a “software update” on ES&S machines that otherwise “omit one race” when a straight ticket option is selected for either major party. The Texas 14th Court of Appeals race was reported to be the contest in which voters commonly experienced the glitch

  12. Cornhead Says: These big rallies must mean something.

    they do. they mean the press went all out and was willing to show you that there is no right wing press, there is only liberal and liberal light (good cop, bad cop).. .and like a window on a ruler, they maintain their difference locally, but shift down the scale together… so we dont notice.

    meanwhile. even Micheal Moore is voting for Trump.
    for some reason, he figured out that the left was the problem and the right was the solution? sort of, in that he saw trump tell the auto companies in michigan that if they think they can manufacture in mexico, and ship tax free, thats going to change…

    when hillary was asked about the constitution, she went on about LGBT, but Trump said he wanted return to the constitution, and would sign the protection of first amendment… (returning to protect speech and concious choice over lgbt, and pc) and even said we would move away from PC for the military

    but we are getting bombared 10 to 1 in bad press
    they control which images you see or dont see
    they control the camera angle
    they control the pauses and outakes
    they control the time devoted to which
    they control the questions with hillary geting a peek

    unlike neo, i see it as heartning that the american public left and right seem to have woken up to being lied to, and they dont like it even if its for their side.

    they were not tricked, they were emboldened by such effort to unseat a loser… who isnt losing… but its also informative to see the people who are elite in our society, the profesionals, and others who feel superior to their inferior others, all got tricked into believing that what they see presented to them, they could wade through 91% bad press and see the goodness within, except that they took that 91% bad press and thought it truthful to their non lying eyes.

    people are waiting 12 hours to vote trump
    clinton is in hiding, with another injury
    even her own people dislike her, but she is theirs

    i live in a very liberal city (ny)
    and work in a very liberal college (censor)
    and they just found out what their vote for obama and ACA got them… our rates are up, our deductibles are doubled next year, the medical copays are up, the choices are down, and we are self funded… so it could be worse.

    right before the election is open enrollment and they are going to see the sticker shock of what Obama, hillary, and others did.

    yes… it means something
    but if your reality is defined by your looking to news and following the images and things as you alway did and trusted, your out of the loop

  13. forgot to mention, did you notice that all the polling now puts hillary in as winner 7 to 10… howevr they have all turned off comments so people cant talk and let others know that this is not a valid poll… you can read podesta emails on how they worked with the poling to make it favor clinton by oversampling and other games.. and how they birdogged to make trump seem more violent than they are.. and so on.

    but note… when they turn off the discussion, is when they are reporting something against the mainstream and dont want the public voicing that. they do it with certain polls, and they do it when they report about TEENS (tired of the amish teen gang murder problem sarcasm), and so on

    meanwhile the minute the left got violent, ripped up signs, destroyed cars, and more… no poll would be accurate… as it was too easy to just say what would be safe to say, and go on your way.

  14. Cornhead:

    I fell for the big rallies happy talk in 2012. “We won’t be fooled again.”

    The big rallies are just that. Will it matter this time? Probably not. You may be fooled again this time too. 🙂

  15. Art,

    I searched for “Chambers County election officials have executed an emergency protocol” on Google (with and without quotes). The top hit was from Breitbart, and pretty much all the hits were from Pro-Trump sites. I scanned through the actual Chambers County election information site and didn’t see anything about this. No news sites either (not even Fox)

    Now, of course, I don’t trust Breitbart as far as I can punt them.

    Maybe I’m wrong – is this real news or something ginned up?

    I’ve already expressed my extreme dislike of voting machines.

    I’ve also seen the one (video on a very alt-righty pro-trump twitter) of someone voting for a GOP candidate and it shows them trying to hit the GOP button and it keeps clicking on the dem. Again – if someone was trying to fraud the machines they wouldn’t have it click the wrong person right there in front of the voter.

    Also – I have a suspicion this one was an angle thing – looking straight down on the machine you’re voting dem, but filming from a weird angle it looks like you’re pressing on the repub button.

    Skewed polls, crooked machines, etc. These are all battlespace prep for riling up the Trump masses that the election was rigged. That’s why he needs to lose by millions.

  16. Also – re my earlier comment. I didn’t spend a long time searching so it may be that I missed some crucial link. Ready to be wrong . . .

  17. “The campaign at this point comes down to turn out. The MSM is trying to tamp down pro-Trump turnout. “ – JJ

    I highly encourage trump supporters to vote, we must make sure our down ticket numbers stay up, win/draw/or lose with trump.

  18. “Thats not half truths sir…
    in absolute numbers he won more..
    and even if you adjust them by volume he wont more”
    – Art

    Gosh. You miss Matt SE’s point – something about looking at the tree but not seeing the forest.

    Raw numbers are fine to a point, but using them as if that means what the user implies it means is false.

    Half-truth because it is a true fact, but is used falsely because it misses an important aspect of detail.

    What matters is numbers relative to what? If we account for population growth we find that trump’s numbers are not at all extraordinary.

    I wrote a comment somewhere in the past providing more detail, but if you want to rebut this point, please check for it first.

  19. Most likely Clinton will win. The left and the world will “make history.” I’ll prepare for their gloating. Of course, I hope I’m wrong (about the win).

  20. Scott Adams wants Trump to win because he’s against bullies.

    I don’t even know what to say anymore.

    I read the entire post – I also don’t understand what just changed. He said “Something just changed”. What?

  21. Dilbert is a truly wonderful strip, but I am reluctant to see Scott Adams as the Oracle of Delphi. I also see the rally hordes as a part of Trump’s reality tv star, over the top public persona. Many people flock to hear the sales pitch of a snake oil salesman. (bho for example)

    I saw a headline somewhere today that djt’s NYC buddy Howard Stern has announced he is voting for hrc; while Susan Saradon (sp?) has proclaimed hrc more dangerous than djt. Weird and YUGELY , BIGLY weirder day by day.

  22. @Brian E – are you a “meat puppet” or a “master persuader”? – the two categories adams sorts people into.

  23. Big Maq-

    Alas, neither. Just someone who sincerely believes the country is at a tipping point. It may have already tipped, but I’m not willing to concede that.

  24. @Brian E – you fall outside adams’ model, demonstrating the flaw behind his arguments you quote.

    One must ask, tipping point to what?

    Many argue a tipping point, yet most of the signs they give (e.g. Obamacare, SCOTUS) very much look like what is in place in some European countries.

    I wholeheartedly agree that is not a good direction to take.

    But, we continue to have the opportunity to change it.

    Some claim gulags is the end result, but that only becomes true if we sit back and concede it, election after election, not bothering to take action, being lulled by our sense that “all is lost”.

  25. Advice to all who have not yet voted:

    Ignore the polls and still go out to vote!

    Even if your gal – or guy – doesn’t win it is important for you to be part of the process. ‘Downstream’ and local elections can affect your life as much as, or perhaps even more, than what happens at the top of the ticket.

    May G-d continue to bless The United States of America.

  26. It’s hard for me to tell if this denial with respect to the polls is part of a strategy to prevent discouraged voters from staying home or if it is a continuation of the epidemic of people believing what they want to believe when it comes to Trump, which we’ve seen so much of throughout this election. There’s been a lot of gambling with people’s credibility during this entire process, and I think the fallout will reverberate for years to come. Even so, I can’t help but hope that the naysayers of the polls are right just so that, at a minimum, I can see the Stepford smile wiped off of Hillary Clinton’s face.

  27. CW,

    I don’t know about the polls – my lesson learned in 2012 is talk about skewed polls is what people do when they are losing, but I do take election fraud seriously. I haven’t researched the Podesta emails but I think that’s a big story.

    (Funny how the GOP now considers Wikileaks and Assange heroic now that it’s their bread being buttered, though)

    But what’s diluting all this is that there is – I believe – ginned up stories. Art had one above – a breathless story about Chambers County and voting machines and what not. I researched it (briefly) – all the “news’ looked like it was originating from Breitbart. There wasn’t anything on the actual Chambers County election website.

    My comment/findings here
    http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/25/early-voting-in-florida-fun-with-statistics/#comment-1819539

    There’s been no follow up.

    One reason I tend to believe the polls at this point. You cannot win an election in this country by alienating women, minorities, and the young. You just can’t. Trump’s entire public life for decades has been alienating in many ways to those three groups, and he’s gone out of his way during the campaign to make things worse.

    I don’t claim to be able to predict what will happen in this crazy election cycle. Maybe he’ll win.

    We’ll know in 2 weeks (unless we don’t – some people in this space have already indicated they won’t believe the results if Trump is the loser)

  28. Bill,

    Donald Trump was the wrong candidate from the get-go, IMHO, but as far as the alienation of women goes, I find it a bit perplexing that the ladies are so offended by Trump and yet embrace a woman who, if we are to believe this political partnership masquerading as a marriage, sleeps next to a rapist every night. Does that strike anyone else as odd? And what about the popularity of Bill Clinton himself? There’s a double standard when it comes to what behavior offends the ladies when it comes to Republicans and Democrats and there always has been, so color me skeptical of any gal who votes for Hillary as a way of protesting Trump’s behavior. Nevertheless it was a predictable and unforced error by those who gave us Trump as the nominee.

    With regards to this comment: “Funny how the GOP now considers Wikileaks and Assange heroic now that it’s their bread being buttered, though),” is that really true? I don’t frequent that many blogs but haven’t heard anyone hailing him as a hero. They’re making good use of the info that Wikileaks is putting out by why shouldn’t they? There’s been a lot of piling on the GOP this election cycle, most of it well-deserved, but let’s be fair about what they’re saying and what they’re not saying.

  29. CW –

    Women don’t have to vote for Hillary to express their distrust/dislike of Trump. Many just won’t vote, or will vote third part (or will vote for HRC).

    The issue with Bill Clinton’s infidelities is that it was fully and exhaustively gone over in the 90s. It’s not like it’s a surprise. It’s baked in. In fact, it helped Hillary back in the day.

    Part of the double standard is because the GOP has long represented itself as the values party. So it gets more criticism for hypocrisy than do the dems. Deservedly so.

    I searched just a bit regarding your Wikileaks question:
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/17/politics/jeff-duncan-wikileaks/

    Hannity has also been positively tweeting about WL and Assange.

  30. Crowds as indicators of majorities:

    Short answer: They aren’t very good.

    Two famous examples: In 1960, John F. Kennedy drew enormous, enthusiastic crowds in Ohio — and lost the state to Richard M. Nixon. In 1896, William McKinley ran a “front porch” campaign, and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan, who was drawing big crowds to his rallies.

    And I believe that Bernie Sanders often drew quite large crowds during this last year.

    Incidentally, those big rallies may be hurting the Trump campaign, slightly. Reporters, who were not all that fond of Trump to begin with, now often feel menaced, and so their stories are likely to be even more negative than before. As far as I can tell, the rallies are not attracting and converting the undecided, in any large numbers.

  31. The screaming headline at Drudge this am is the new Bloomberg poll in Florida with Trump up 4% over Clinton. Maybe Dilbert is right that something has changed. If so it’s probably that the Bradley effect is wearing off and people are coming out of the closet to state their until now secret but real views. Another factor may be the Wiki releases exposing the depth of Clinton’s corruption.

  32. The “huge crowds” at rallies and the “Bradley effect” wrt the polls are seemingly incompatible / contradictory explanations.

  33. On whether crowds predict anything about an election: no, they don’t.

    They are an indication of the enthusiasm of a candidate’s supporters and can also have something to do with curiosity, but they don’t have any relationship with who wins an election.

  34. By the way, so my question is not misunderstood:

    It seems to me that an interesting article on “conservatism” itself, and on the various pre-suppositional stances nowadays involved could be written by someone with an investment in the “conservative” game.

    I am not a conservative, at least as it might be understood by many. But I have been fascinated recently to see how deeply various emotion laden social themes [the primacy of inclusion for example] as opposed to the issues of personality or attitudes which Neo has been discussing have become incorporated into the very fabric of some conservative discourse and moral evaluation.

    It probably bears treatment by someone with both enough critical distance, and the temperament, to do it justice: though it is not the kind of analysis that most here would find interesting.

    Just was meant to be a constructive suggestion …

  35. Neo, correct about crowd size. When Ron Paul was running he had huge crowds of both curious and enthusiastic people. They never translated into the necessary votes.

  36. Bill,

    >>”Women don’t have to vote for Hillary to express their distrust/dislike of Trump.”

    That’s true and good point.

    Re Bill Clinton, I know that the Clintons survive their scandals by relying upon Americans’ short-term memories but the fact that Bill’s misdeeds are old news doesn’t excuse people for ignoring them or for applying a double standard. It’s not “baked in.” It’s intentionally ignored and left out of the cake.

    I don’t want to nitpick over it by I don’t think one pol thanking God for WikiLeaks justifies the original charge that the GOP is making a hero out of Julian Assange. And Sean The-Enemy-of-my-Enemy-is-my-Friend Hannity? Well, consider the source. He doesn’t speak for the entire GOP, especially not in this election.

  37. “the fact that Bill’s misdeeds are old news doesn’t excuse people for ignoring them or for applying a double standard.”

    I would agree with you wholeheartedly if Bill were running for the Presidency.

    Regarding Hillary’s treatment of Bill’s mistresses – I am not excusing it, but a woman recently said to me something to this effect: “what did you expect her to do, hug them? If someone had an affair with my husband I’d go after them too” – it was a view of the situation I hadn’t thought of before.

    Hillary’s positives rose in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal, if memory serves. She got the sympathy vote.

    Like almost everything else in this election – if Trump didn’t have such high negatives, wasn’t sucking all the oxygen out of the room, hadn’t said many of the things he’s said in the campaign and didn’t have a long vapor-trail of bad words and behavior going back decades, a lot of Hillary’s negatives would be more front and center. A skillful Republican nominee would be making great hay out of them at this point. Trump is not a skillful Republican nominee (I don’t even think he is *at heart* a Republican, but that’s my opinion). It’s a real shame.

    Primaries have consequences.

  38. I want to clarify a statement I made above, re Hillary, quoting the woman who said this: “If someone had an affair with my husband I’d go after them too”

    I am not discounting the awfulness of what happened, and I also know that a good number of Bill’s “women” didn’t have affairs with him and were unwilling participants in his sleezy advances. I’m just pointing out that the wronged wife might not have been real susceptible to empathetic thoughts toward any of them. Plus I think HRC is pretty ruthless anyway.

    Not excusing it, but Trump’s own problems with sexual history and treatment of women have blunted that line of attack pretty well.

  39. “@Brian E — you fall outside adams’ model, demonstrating the flaw behind his arguments you quote.

    One must ask, tipping point to what?

    Many argue a tipping point, yet most of the signs they give (e.g. Obamacare, SCOTUS) very much look like what is in place in some European countries.

    I wholeheartedly agree that is not a good direction to take.

    But, we continue to have the opportunity to change it.” – Big Maq


    I think the left has two immediate goals. Destroy the nuclear family and remove Christianity from the public square.
    This is, of course, outside the “control” of the president, but right now it has been made clear that the left considers the Supreme Court the final, veto-proof super legislature.
    Since the left believes in a “living” constitution that can say whatever they want it to say– they are using it more and more to short-circuit the legislative process. And nothing demonstrates that more than the Obergefell decision.

    As society adopts a post-Christian materialist philosophy the tipping point may have already been reached. Doesn’t mean that judges in the mold of Scalia can’t slow the descent.

    It’s possible the first real constitutional crisis will come when the Supreme Court passes a new law and its ignored. A law is only a law if it’s enforced- otherwise it’s just a suggestion. But that is doomed to failure.

    Those on the right that think there will be some sort of armed revolution to retake the country are delusional. We’ve militarized law enforcement and there is plenty of fire power and people ready to squash any uprising. And of course as a final prize, the left has been busy politicizing the military as a backup plan.
    Fascism will come from the left, not the right as Goldberg rightly stated.

  40. BrianE:

    And where does Trumpism and the alt-right fall in your two categories? Some would say they are just authoritarians not true blue Fascists or Communists. Distinction without a difference. counting the dancing angels (or devils) on the tops of pins.

  41. “Not excusing it, but Trump’s own problems with sexual history and treatment of women have blunted that line of attack pretty well.” – Bill

    I’d go one step further. It makes an hypocrisy of all those groups who were most vocal about bill c’s failings to the extent that highly visible representatives from those same groups are excusing trump (in one way or another).

    The challenge then becomes, where we might be members of those groups, credibly separating our individual arguments from theirs, as the water has been muddied, so to speak.

    The left could not have done a better job of discrediting a large swath of “conservatives”.

  42. “I’d go one step further. It makes an hypocrisy of all those groups who were most vocal about bill c’s failings to the extent that highly visible representatives from those same groups are excusing trump (in one way or another).”

    I think this election has helped expose how a lot of our thinking (I say “our”, because I know I’m susceptible to it too) is shaped more by tribalism than truth and consistency.

    Same thing in sports. How many Patriots fans believe Brady had the balls deflated versus non Patriots fans?

    We’re in the midst of heavy blue-team versus red-team cultural wars right now. I think if we admit it we generally believe something based on tribe/team (Trump is my choice/Hillary is my choice) and then gather the “facts” we need to support that belief.

    That’s how, say, James Dobson (Focus on the Family) denounced Clinton loudly in the 90s and now makes excuses for Trump.

  43. OM,
    I’m not sure what you mean by “Trumpism”. Trump has certainly talked like a business owner would, where he is the absolute boss. He is certainly going to have the power to direct the executive branch and if he uses executive departments to club opponents like President Obama has done, it might be an issue– but don’t forget, while he’ll name department heads, the day to day bureaucrats will remain solidly liberal, so I’m not sure how successful he would be.
    As to libel laws, I’m not sure how a president can affect those, since it will be the courts that will decide cases based on law. Now if he can get Congress to go along with him and change the law, that’s a different matter and possibly we’ve gone too far allowing public persons to be slandered. Should there be any limits to libel? It appears that public persons (public personalities have fought back successfully in a sort of “I’m not going to take it anymore” sort of way.)

    As to the alt-right, I do read Vox Day, mostly because he raises interesting points– is very intelligent and expresses a different Christian viewpoint. I don’t see him being particularly authoritarian, more libertarian.

    As to authoritarian/fascism/tyranny, I asked on another post, how would tyranny from the right be expressed? Give me an example of what it would look like.

  44. Bill, it seems to me people like Dobson have lost the courage of their convictions and their personal integrity. It isn’t a simple compromise on minor points, but a major case of blind, wishful thinking. Either that or they never believed what they preached from the beginning.

  45. “… tyranny from the right…what it would look like.”
    Nixon & Cheney on steroids. Wage and price controls, abandoned treaties, fully militarized local police, shoot to kill at the border, expansion of Bush’s Homeland Security, warrantless searches both physical and digital, torture. And if you think it’s hyperbole putting in torture, remember Abu Ghraib.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

  46. “That’s how, say, James Dobson (Focus on the Family) denounced Clinton loudly in the 90s and now makes excuses for Trump.”- Bill
    I can’t speak for Dobson (no longer with Focus on the Family), but there is a distinction between Clinton and Trump. But I don’t think he or I are excusing Trump’s behavior.
    I have just come to the conclusion that if we elect Hillary, we are essentially telling the elite political class that they can act without restraint. The level of lawlessness and corruption will grow. Which will have greater consequences?
    I think if Trump is convicted of a sexual crime, he should be impeached, or if there is credible evidence that as President, like Bill Clinton, he abuses his power, he should be impeached.

  47. Brian E, yes droning. Did you notice that several of the things mentioned have already happened to one degree or another under Obama, like warrantless searches, expansion of DHS, and the attempt at droning? The methods and means are the same, it’s the targets that would be different under a right or left tyranny.

  48. The Other Chuck Says

    Yes, but all of those can be remedied by a Congress that’s willing to exert leadership.

    I don’t see those so much as tyranny, but a creeping statism, since as you point out, they seem to continue with either a R or D administration.

    If Trump does nothing more than stop the growth of the federal bureaucracy, his presidency will have been a success. Good luck with that. Even Reagan couldn’t get rid of government bloat (Dept. of Education)

  49. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (and media attention).”

    Trump has managed to keep the election close while spending less than half of what Hillary has. It’s a sad commentary that his bluster has made up the difference.

    Hillary and super pacs have raised $950 million while Trump and his pacs have raised $450 million.

  50. “Keep the election close…” And his methods have pretty much backfired after the primaries, since all the press he generates is negative and keeps the spotlight away from Hillary and the Dems. Quite a plan that.

    Well we will find out next week.

  51. “It isn’t a simple compromise on minor points, but a major case of blind, wishful thinking. Either that or they never believed what they preached from the beginning.” – Other Chuck

    I’ll take answer: A, while suspecting a bit of B too.

    Most of those folks, like the “conservative” media, were/are more concerned about their “audience”, and saw an opportunity to boost themselves (power / prestige / etc) at the same time. What they believe(d) has become secondary – a means to that audience, that power, that prestige.

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