Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[scooter]

Trump's approvals scraped 45% around inauguration, and it's now hovering around 38%. A 7% drop in 9 months despite a healthy economy is pretty rare.

What people and polls constantly miss about numbers like these is that those 7% or even more may disapprove of Trump but vote for him anyway.

To be clear, the only thing we were commenting on were approval ratings and not votes. I disagree with the sentiment that he'll never dip below 30%. I think it's a little more likely than not that he will.

[Mr. Cairo]

Trump's approvals scraped 45% around inauguration, and it's now hovering around 38%. A 7% drop in 9 months despite a healthy economy is pretty rare.

What people and polls constantly miss about numbers like these is that those 7% or even more may disapprove of Trump but vote for him anyway.

Fred On Everything nails it in a paragraph here:

I think Trump is a horse’s ass, dangerous, naive, uninformed, and a thoroughgoing damned fool. I detest the KKK (which barely exists, but never mind) and disagree with the Alt-Right on many things. Yet when I look at the other side, the armed bands, the censorship, thought control, indoctrination, the re-writing of history, their media arm, the identity politics, the push for control, control, control—I think,“I’ll take Trump—gack–and certainly the Deplorables.”

That sums up my viewpoint and that of just enough voters on the margin to have elected Trump.  He doesn't need approval ratings, he just needs less disapproval ratings than the other side.

How is it that right wing "moderates" in America complain about being likened to fringe groups like the KKK or being associated with the Alt-Right, yet have no problem associating a bunch of anarchists with the entire progressive/liberal movement in the USA? 

Also, Hillary wasn't even progressive. Voting Trump in has just forced the Democrats even further to the left; their next presidential candidate will be much more progressive that Hillary was/is. So if you really do oppose what you think progressivism represents you'll be forced into continuing to side with people you detest like the KKK and Alt-Right. Or you can go to other countries and see that none of the stuff you mentioned really happens in liberal countries.

But I forget, the USA is exceptional and has nothing to learn from the rest of the world.

(one final thing, I find it absolutely hilarious that you're complaining about armed bands, when the 2nd amendment is the cornerstone of right-wing ideology in the USA.)

[Ichabod]

Did Yeltsin really hit 2%?  That's crazy.

Michel Temer, Brazil's current president, is currently at 5%. And that poll is from before he was indicted of corruption...

We are waiting to see if he'll reach 0%.

[darrelljs]

Michel Temer, Brazil's current president, is currently at 5%. And that poll is from before he was indicted of corruption...

QotM?

Darrell

[scooter]

Did Yeltsin really hit 2%?  That's crazy.

Michel Temer, Brazil's current president, is currently at 5%. And that poll is from before he was indicted of corruption...

We are waiting to see if he'll reach 0%.

Dumb question I'm sure I could answer with some googling, but how difficult is it to remove a president from office in Brazil? Is there a reason he's still in office? I would guess it'd be near impossible to drop below 20% in the US without being removed from office (Nixon was low 20s), so 5% sounds impossible to me.

[pindicator]

Trump's approvals scraped 45% around inauguration, and it's now hovering around 38%. A 7% drop in 9 months despite a healthy economy is pretty rare.

What people and polls constantly miss about numbers like these is that those 7% or even more may disapprove of Trump but vote for him anyway.

Fred On Everything nails it in a paragraph here:

I think Trump is a horse’s ass, dangerous, naive, uninformed, and a thoroughgoing damned fool. I detest the KKK (which barely exists, but never mind) and disagree with the Alt-Right on many things. Yet when I look at the other side, the armed bands, the censorship, thought control, indoctrination, the re-writing of history, their media arm, the identity politics, the push for control, control, control—I think,“I’ll take Trump—gack–and certainly the Deplorables.”

That sums up my viewpoint and that of just enough voters on the margin to have elected Trump.  He doesn't need approval ratings, he just needs less disapproval ratings than the other side.

As a left-leaning American I was really hoping that Trump's victory would cause Dems and the Left to do some soul searching. Instead I've just been disappointed at how many of my liberal friends just want to vilify the Right and ignore perfectly valid viewpoints like Fred"s. I think the only lesson the Left seems to be learning is that if obstructionism and villifying the other worked for Republicans then it must be the way to go for.

[Ichabod]

Did Yeltsin really hit 2%?  That's crazy.

Michel Temer, Brazil's current president, is currently at 5%. And that poll is from before he was indicted of corruption...

We are waiting to see if he'll reach 0%.

Dumb question I'm sure I could answer with some googling, but how difficult is it to remove a president from office in Brazil? Is there a reason he's still in office? I would guess it'd be near impossible to drop below 20% in the US without being removed from office (Nixon was low 20s), so 5% sounds impossible to me.

He's actually in office because the previous President (Dilma Rousseff) was removed through an Impeachment, so there are ways to remove a president (I can't say for sure, but my guess is our Impeachment rites were taken straight from how things work in the USA). But Temer has enough support in the Legislature to avoid the start of an Impeachment process, so he'll stay no matter what happens with his popularity. And since he's passing a lot of legislation that helps the people in charge of Brazil, he keeps the support from the people that matter.

To be fair, polling in Brazil is way more loose and without proper method than in USA. So, I wouldn't put that much stock in the 5% figure. I don't think he'd be that low if a proper poll was done.

[Bobchillingworth]

Trump's approvals scraped 45% around inauguration, and it's now hovering around 38%. A 7% drop in 9 months despite a healthy economy is pretty rare.

What people and polls constantly miss about numbers like these is that those 7% or even more may disapprove of Trump but vote for him anyway.

Fred On Everything nails it in a paragraph here:

I think Trump is a horse’s ass, dangerous, naive, uninformed, and a thoroughgoing damned fool. I detest the KKK (which barely exists, but never mind) and disagree with the Alt-Right on many things. Yet when I look at the other side, the armed bands, the censorship, thought control, indoctrination, the re-writing of history, their media arm, the identity politics, the push for control, control, control—I think,“I’ll take Trump—gack–and certainly the Deplorables.”

That sums up my viewpoint and that of just enough voters on the margin to have elected Trump.  He doesn't need approval ratings, he just needs less disapproval ratings than the other side.

As a left-leaning American I was really hoping that Trump's victory would cause Dems and the Left to do some soul searching. Instead I've just been disappointed at how many of my liberal friends just want to vilify the Right and ignore perfectly valid viewpoints like Fred"s. I think the only lesson the Left seems to be learning is that if obstructionism and villifying the other worked for Republicans then it must be the way to go for.

Fred's viewpoint is an intellectually lazy & self serving exercise in attempting to justify his support for the unconscionable by favorably adjudicating actual problems against a collection of strawmen and outright fantasy (armed bands? "Thought control"???)

I have nothing but contempt for it, and at this point I don't really care to pretend to feel otherwise.

[T-hawk]

I have nothing but contempt for it

Do you understand that this is exactly the problem, blowing off an entire side of the argument without even trying to engage? That is the attitude that drives support to Trump.

[AdrienIer]

I have nothing but contempt for it

Do you understand that this is exactly the problem, blowing off an entire side of the argument without even trying to engage?  That is the attitude that drives support to Trump.

I'm sorry but this :

when I look at the other side, the armed bands, the censorship, thought control, indoctrination, the re-writing of history, their media arm, the identity politics, the push for control, control, control—I think,“I’ll take Trump—gack–and certainly the Deplorables.”

is not an argument. It's completely empty.

Putting "armed bands" on the left is laughable, even more so since Charlottesville.
There is no censorship in the US.
I don't even know what is meant by thought control in the case of 2017 USA, it's just empty vilifying of the other side.
Re-writing of history I suppose is about the civil war ? There are no statues of Rommel in Germany, I don't see why there are statues of Lee in Virginia.
Media arm is ridiculous, Fox is the biggest TV channel and 90% of the radios are very conservative.
Identity politics is the only debatable one. I think that it's more about republicans and the right in general completely forgoing the black vote since Nixon, and forgoing the non-straight vote since forever.
Push for control of what exactly ? This is clearly not a meaningful argument, unless there is a specific thing I'm missing.

I think this Fred guy was looking for every reason he could find to justify his awful vote, not trying to argue in good faith. Or there wouldn't have been that meaningless "control control control" part at the end.
When Fox tells you the other news channels are the "media arm" of the democrats they're just trying to make it even in the eyes of their public because they are clearly the media arm of the republicans and have been for 20 years. That anyone smart would fall for such a trick baffles me.