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Trump Versus Biden

Started by Jason Harvestdancer, July 03, 2020, 09:46:46 PM

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Baruch

Quote from: Hydra009 on October 30, 2020, 03:49:02 PM
Trump cancels election night party at Trump hotel, prepares to bunker down at White House

Good plan, the Dems plan on killing all White people and men next month ;-)

"Key Steele Dossier Source Revealed As Alcoholic Disgruntled Russian PR Exec In Cyprus" ... Mrs 40-year old Olga Galkina.  Bet she had the hots for Hillary.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

bob nelson

 The level of hostility on this thread is off the charts, but that's pretty much what I expected. Some of you seem to have a lot of time to do your "research" about who's going to win and what the aftermath will be. How much rent do you pay your parents? With this amount of hatred for any one who doesn't follow your every word, how do you hold down a real job? I'll just live my retirement years with my family and sleep well at night. Just promise that you won't go off the deep-end when trump is re-elected on tuesday.  P.S., I write like a 61 year old , not 16. I think you got your numbers mixed-up. See ya in 2021!

PickelledEggs

Quote from: bob nelson on October 30, 2020, 04:30:36 PMP.S., I write like a 61 year old with dementia , not 16. I think you got your numbers mixed-up. See ya in 2021!
fify

Blackleaf

Quote from: bob nelson on October 30, 2020, 04:30:36 PM
The level of hostility on this thread is off the charts, but that's pretty much what I expected. Some of you seem to have a lot of time to do your "research" about who's going to win and what the aftermath will be. How much rent do you pay your parents?

OMG. The lack of self-awareness here is astonishing. We're the hostile ones? Yeah, sure.

And seriously? You're going to make fun of people for doing their research? As if that's a...bad thing? Okay... Welcome to my ignore list, you hopeless moron.

Also, not that it's any of your business, but I haven't lived with my parents for a long time. Not that that has anything to do with the validity of our arguments. But I suspect you know that. You're just being an asshole, while trying to paint us as the nasty ones... Maybe one day you'll grow a brain, but I'm not holding my breath.

Quote from: bob nelson on October 30, 2020, 04:30:36 PMWith this amount of hatred for any one who doesn't follow your every word, how do you hold down a real job? I'll just live my retirement years with my family and sleep well at night. Just promise that you won't go off the deep-end when trump is re-elected on tuesday.  P.S., I write like a 61 year old , not 16. I think you got your numbers mixed-up. See ya in 2021!

"I'm too busy enjoying my retirement to waste my life here."

Five minutes later:

"Yup. Still too busy living it up here to contribute to this hate. So...so busy."

Ten minutes later:

"Just so you guys know, I'm not going to be posting here any more. All this hate is really putting me down."

Thirty minutes later:

"Just checking to make extra sure you guys know, I'm not going to bother with you guys any more. I'm enjoying my life too much to let you guys bring me down with your hate. Just thought I'd make sure you knew that."
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Baruch

@bob nelson .. nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, let alone with the election and its aftermath.  And nobody knows if that will be good or bad ... until a year from now, maybe ... and that depends on your POV.  So think of this as a hooligan fight at a British soccer match, between fat guys who couldn't get a ball past the goalie ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

Quote from: bob nelson on October 30, 2020, 04:30:36 PM
The level of hostility on this thread is off the charts, but that's pretty much what I expected. Some of you seem to have a lot of time to do your "research" about who's going to win and what the aftermath will be. How much rent do you pay your parents? With this amount of hatred for any one who doesn't follow your every word, how do you hold down a real job? I'll just live my retirement years with my family and sleep well at night. Just promise that you won't go off the deep-end when trump is re-elected on tuesday.  P.S., I write like a 61 year old , not 16. I think you got your numbers mixed-up. See ya in 2021!
No, no mix-up.  You seem to possess an emotional age of probably closer to 12 going on 13.  You came here complaining about your family--now that is what you enjoy.  Make up your mind.  And remember, you came here--nobody forced you to come or stay.  So, quit your sniveling and engage in a dialogue instead of trying to make us the bad guys.  Or better yet, simply stay off this forum, enjoy your family more and listen to the music of a person 12 going on 13--death metal--yeah, good healthy stuff, alright.  And maybe spend some time with a shrink.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

PickelledEggs

Isn't it funny that children always think they're more mature than they are?

Draconic Aiur

Quote from: bob nelson on October 30, 2020, 04:30:36 PM
The level of hostility on this thread is off the charts, but that's pretty much what I expected. Some of you seem to have a lot of time to do your "research" about who's going to win and what the aftermath will be. How much rent do you pay your parents? With this amount of hatred for any one who doesn't follow your every word, how do you hold down a real job? I'll just live my retirement years with my family and sleep well at night. Just promise that you won't go off the deep-end when trump is re-elected on tuesday.  P.S., I write like a 61 year old , not 16. I think you got your numbers mixed-up. See ya in 2021!

Pretty much said every republican ever.

SGOS

Quote from: Hydra009 on October 29, 2020, 10:38:48 PM
That's a great question!  And the full answer could and likely will be a best-seller.  But we don't have that kind of time, so I'll try to be as brief as possible:

1) 2016 had more undecideds and less turnout than 2020, with generally poor favorability ratings for both candidatesThat has changed.
2) Biden has a larger lead than Clinton ever did, it's consistent, and the gap hasn't narrowed nearly as much, though it has narrowed in some of the battleground states, it's very different than 2016
3) Pollsters didn't weight the No College Degree category correctly in 2016, they've since corrected that.
4) Pollsters flubbed the Great Lakes states in 2016, they've since corrected that.

A lot of information there, honestly too much to really deal with all at once, so mull over it at your convenience and I'm more than willing to provide more info or take questions on specific points.
Number 4 was the one I could keep up with. It actually spoke to my issue by saying how groups are weighted has changed. But to find out if that and other changes will be more accurate this time around, I think we will have to wait until election night.

I probably made too much of my issue.  Polls are subject to error.  We all know that, and I knew that.  Polls have been around long enough and experts have figured out about as much as they as can by now.  There will probably never be a reason to say, this year or any other year, they suddenly got it right.

Hydra009

#594
Quote from: SGOS on October 30, 2020, 09:00:05 PMI probably made too much of my issue.
Au contraire, it's a very important thing to bring up.  In 2016, a lot of people looked at the political sites like CNN and HuffPo with their 90-95% Clinton predictions and Clinton national lead and got the shock of their lives.  And people understandably don't trust polling nearly as much as they did before.  And now, with new polls coming out every day and making headlines, and people getting a lot of deja vu, it's super important to understand both the fallibility of polling and (paradoxically) the reliability of polling.

A fair amount of polling skepticism might actually be a good thing because people won't assume it's in the bag and stay home.  And Dem campaigns are likely to urge their supporters to work towards such a large lead that it far exceeds any realistic error bar or shy Republican vote.  This greater participation and leaving nothing to chance are good strategies whether the polls are accurate or not.

Don't count your chickens till they lay eggs themselves!

SGOS

#595
Quote from: Hydra009 on October 30, 2020, 09:24:24 PM
In 2016, a lot of people looked at the political sites like CNN and HuffPo with their 90-95% Clinton predictions and Clinton national lead and got the shock of their lives.  And people understandably don't trust polling nearly as much as they did before.
I don't trust polling anymore or any less than I did in 2016.  Some college course I took spent time teaching about taking surveys, and while I had seen surveys with obviously flawed methodology, I was surprised by the number of things that can affect the accuracy of a survey, and I imagined that the actual list went on more or less endlessly.  The point being that experts can only do the best they can within their area of knowledge and expertise.  The polling environment is also fraught with charlatans trying to influence public thinking by wording questions that are obvious political ads, rather than seeking to understand a person's thoughts.

I read one pollster in 2016 say they failed to determine how many people said they were voting for Hillary but would actually stay home, possibly for the very reason that they read in the polls that Hillary would win.  No doubt many people don't vote when they think their choice is in the bag.  Apparently the pollsters did not weight for that.  I haven't seen how that has been corrected this year.  My bias is that factor alone was enormous.  But I don't know that, because no poll was ever taken to determine who will actually stay home.  It may be a bigger factor this year than 2016, because pollsters are saying Biden has a bigger lead, not only overall, but in "such and such" special cases.  And all of those cases are cherry picked to support today's accuracy of the new polling, which means more pollster bias.

OK, enough of that.  Polls are not reliable, especially when what they are predicting depends on a minute difference in the data. Presidential elections are won by 51/49, not 80/20, so political polls are especially unreliable because they can't cut it as close as the actual vote that is inevitably going to be a photo finish.  The media often treats 54/46 as a political landslide which never strikes me as a land slide.  Throw in some monkey business like gerrymandering, fucking with the mail, or depending on the electoral college, and polls are even less important.

One last thing.  I did not vote in 2016.  It was not because I thought Hillary had it in the bag.  I wasn't interested in Hillary.  The reason I didn't vote was because I thought Trump was a jerk and Clinton was a status quo Democrat. Neither of which would do anything positive for the country.  I voted this year, not because I think Biden is better than Clinton.  My goodness, they asked him to stay out of the race so they could run Hillary as the stronger choice 4 years ago.  Biden is still status quo, every bit as much as Clinton.  It's just that Trump turned out to be a far bigger jerk than I ever imagined, and I already had a horribly low opinion of him in 2016.  It's pitiful voting for the person that isn't supposed to be as good as the last person I didn't vote for.  There's nothing positive about any of this process when the only upside is knowing it could be worse.  That should be the Democrats bumper sticker:  "It Could Be Worse!  Vote Blue!"  But that's not my idea of being "progressive."

SGOS

#596
Something I thought was really interesting in 2016 that is only tangentially related to election predictions is that I watched the election returns until the wee hours.  The streaming service I watched was highlighted by an on-screen digital dial, made to look like an analog meter that was never taken off the screen even during the clips and commentary that made up most of the night, but was punctuated only occasionally with incoming data from the states.

The dial put Trump on one side, and Hillary on the other and showed NOT who was winning, but what the incoming data was predicting who WOULD win by the end of the night.  Before any data at all came in, the needle on the dial pointed almost straight at Hillary.  That kind of made sense, because it supposedly reflected what polls suggested.  Then the data started to come in, sometimes it favored Hillary and sometimes it favored Trump, but it was early so the needle jiggled a little, but seemed to keep coming back to Hillary like it was magnetized.  Apparently, data that favored Trump was not consequential enough to swing the needle that much, so it kept bouncing around Hillary almost to the very end.  Even when the electoral college showed the same number of votes for both candidates, the needle was stuck on Hillary.  Like some component in the innards of the dial was calculating some other probabilities.   When everyone could tell that the electoral college already had decided the outcome, the needle began to point more toward the Trump side of the dial, as if there was more to come, like maybe the electoral college data would somehow shift again toward Hillary.  With in a half hour of the end of the program, the needle finally went to Trump, long after the votes said he had already won.

Then they brought in in some Trump supporting talking head, who had looked like she had been having menstrual cramps all evening, but now she was all animated and claiming that she knew Trump was going to win all along, because he cared so much about the working man, and the health of the nation, and bla, bla, bla.  Now I can understand her joy.  What right winger wouldn't have been in a state of jubilation by then?  I got that, but the rest of her reason was based on nothing that was known to anyone, and still isn't today.

OK, I was shocked by the outcome, not because the polls were wrong, but because I also thought Hillary would win, but based only on the belief that everyone could certainly see that Trump was nothing more than some wealthy clown.  So this year if Trumps wins, I would probably be even less surprised, because I now have a clearer understanding of my lack of perspective about the country I live in.

Baruch

Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hydra009

#598
Quote from: SGOS on October 31, 2020, 06:50:14 AMThe polling environment is also fraught with charlatans trying to influence public thinking by wording questions that are obvious political ads, rather than seeking to understand a person's thoughts.
That's why the poll themselves are rated and weighted accordingly.  And anytime I see an online-only poll, I take it with a heaping helping of salt.

QuoteI read one pollster in 2016 say they failed to determine how many people said they were voting for Hillary but would actually stay home, possibly for the very reason that they read in the polls that Hillary would win.  No doubt many people don't vote when they think their choice is in the bag.  Apparently the pollsters did not weight for that.  I haven't seen how that has been corrected this year.
Pollsters of course can't correct for people getting overconfident and complacent because their whole purpose is to say who's leading and who's not, how people use that info is on them.  If the poll results show Biden in the lead, they have to say Biden is in the lead.

What the Biden campaign and people in general have done is to urge people to vote regardless of what the polls say, to not get complacent.  That's all you really can do.

QuoteIt may be a bigger factor this year than 2016, because pollsters are saying Biden has a bigger lead, not only overall, but in "such and such" special cases.
If voting this year was at or below 2016, then the idea that people are over-confidently staying home would be a legitimate concern.  But this year's turnout blows 2016 out of the water.  So I don't see how there's a stay-at-home problem.

And yes, the polls could be off at specific battleground states, which is worrisome.

QuoteAnd all of those cases are cherry picked to support today's accuracy of the new polling, which means more pollster bias.
I dunno what you're saying here.  Are you saying that the pollsters are picking and choosing which polls to publish and only publish polls favoring Biden?

QuotePolls are not reliable, especially when what they are predicting depends on a minute difference in the data. Presidential elections are won by 51/49, not 80/20, so political polls are especially unreliable because they can't cut it as close as the actual vote that is inevitably going to be a photo finish.
Presidential elections typically have a close popular vote, but the electoral college swings wildly.

In 2004, the popular vote was close at ~51%/~48%, but the electoral college was 286 to 251
In 2008, the popular vote was close at ~53%/~46% but the electoral college was 365 to 173.
In 2012, the popular vote was close at ~51%/~47%, but the electoral college was 332 to 206.

So I agree that a national lead isn't a terribly reliable indicator (even a flawless reading of the general public isn't particularly useful since our electoral system isn't a straight popular vote)

QuoteThe media often treats 54/46 as a political landslide which never strikes me as a land slide.
You're right, it's not. 

QuoteThrow in some monkey business like gerrymandering, fucking with the mail, or depending on the electoral college, and polls are even less important.
I agree with that.

QuoteOne last thing.  I did not vote in 2016.  It was not because I thought Hillary had it in the bag.  I wasn't interested in Hillary.  The reason I didn't vote was because I thought Trump was a jerk and Clinton was a status quo Democrat. Neither of which would do anything positive for the country.
I don't blame you for that.  I did vote in 2016 and my reasoning (which I posted here) is that Hillary Clinton would control Supreme Court nominees.  As Trump said, elections have consequences and we're seeing those consequences right now.

QuoteMy goodness, they asked him to stay out of the race so they could run Hillary as the stronger choice 4 years ago.
A similar incident happened with Sanders.  I dunno how that would have played out, but we all know how it played out with Clinton.  It's pretty galling to see the DNC get upset about Trump's attempts to alter the course of this election considering how they run their primaries.

QuoteBiden is still status quo, every bit as much as Clinton.
Eh, I dunno about that.  I guess we'll see.  He's no socialist, that's for sure.  And sadly, no matter who wins, a lot of much-needed reforms are a dream deferred.  But I do like Biden's energy plan (though obviously I wish he would go further).  Gotta start somewhere, I guess.

QuoteIt's just that Trump turned out to be a far bigger jerk than I ever imagined, and I already had a horribly low opinion of him in 2016.
I had a very dim view of him throughout the 2016 campaign season (global warming as a Chinese hoax was especially infuriating) but I thought he might follow through on some of his more reasonable ideas, like overhauling infrastructure and stamping out corruption.  Brutally disappointing, and that's an understatement.

Honestly, if 2020 me read today's headlines to 2016 me, I'd think it was some sick joke.

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers