American Politics Discussion Thread

[AdrienIer]

No offense, since you took them seriously, but this once again demonstrates that the polling industry are utterly incompetent subliterate apes. Nate Cohn should be cleaning my toilet.

It's popular to bash on the pollsters this week... but what were they supposed to do?  People were obviously supporting Trump but simply refusing to say so... how is a pollster supposed to know that their audience is outright lying to them?  If any pollster had applied a correction as large as the result turned out to be, they would have been slagged for outrageous bias.

Kinda agree, but also there wasn't such a difference between polls and results in many swing states. Many polls with Trump +1 where he won by 1 or 2, some pollsters actually overstating his lead (I remember some Trump +4 polls in states where he won by less than that). Some pollsters probably suffered from what you say, but frankly it's a pretty good US election for many pollsters. Much better than 2012 for example, where they underestimated Obama by miles.

[greenline]

Beyond the social pressure to not express any support for Trump in public, which can't be avoided outside of the collective left wing getting a grip, what pollsters could focus on to get better results would be to adjust what kind of average citizen they get a response from. Current polls, especially polls conducted by the Democrats, are biased towards a particular type of respondent - someone nice, presentable, who considers it their civic duty to answer poll calls. This kind of whiter, older, upper middle classer demographic is where Kamala did score well with, but at the cost of doing poorly with nearly every other one.

This assumes that the goal of pollsters is to deliver accurate polls instead of propaganda, though.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Polls weren't that off this year. Expect for Selzer's faceplant. Maybe she got paid off to suppress GOP turnout? Edit: I'm joking about that.

[superdeath]

If Trump only attacks illegal immigration and leaves the legal side untouched that will be a massive disappointment.

There are some staffers influenced by Hanania's book that might look at curtailing Title IX or further nasty parts of Civil Rights law. If that goes through successfully it would be the only other long term win I could foresee from the next four years, but it is an even bigger ask.

Uncontrolled legal immigration, though bad, still compares a little better to completely uncontrolled immigration of all kinds, which was the Biden policy up until the election...

i would love to know how legal immigration is bad.

[greenline]

Legal immigration has resulted in America being introduced to, among other things, the Sicilian Mafia, Zionism, radical German revolutionaries and anarchists, and crazy Puerto Rican nationalists, who bombed Congress in the 70s. Places with large amounts of immigration, even legal immigration, almost always correlate with squalor. Americans have made their voices heard in saying that they do not want America to have yet more people coming in to take jobs and spit on them. The country has plenty of people already.

[Boro]

Legal immigration is also how you got a large chunk of your talent pool for nuclear physics, mathematics and computing.

[BING_XI_LAO]

No offense, since you took them seriously, but this once again demonstrates that the polling industry are utterly incompetent subliterate apes. Nate Cohn should be cleaning my toilet.

It's popular to bash on the pollsters this week... but what were they supposed to do?  People were obviously supporting Trump but simply refusing to say so... how is a pollster supposed to know that their audience is outright lying to them?  If any pollster had applied a correction as large as the result turned out to be, they would have been slagged for outrageous bias.

There's tactics like asking how they voted last time, asking who they think their neighbours will vote for, making your poll big enough to track ethnic and other social groups individually, tracking the previous error.

[Mjmd]

If Trump only attacks illegal immigration and leaves the legal side untouched that will be a massive disappointment.

There are some staffers influenced by Hanania's book that might look at curtailing Title IX or further nasty parts of Civil Rights law. If that goes through successfully it would be the only other long term win I could foresee from the next four years, but it is an even bigger ask.

Uncontrolled legal immigration, though bad, still compares a little better to completely uncontrolled immigration of all kinds, which was the Biden policy up until the election...

i would love to know how legal immigration is bad.

The answer is racism.

Greenline what ethnicity's are you? I'm definitely not asking so I can post articles of politicians saying the same things about your ancestors that you are saying.

You think it wouldn't be an effective political tactic as its literally been used for millennium and we can look back at all the other times it has been, but it is and will continue to be so.

[T-hawk]

Legal immigration has resulted in America being introduced to, among other things, the Sicilian Mafia, Zionism, radical German revolutionaries and anarchists, and crazy Puerto Rican nationalists, who bombed Congress in the 70s. Places with large amounts of immigration, even legal immigration, almost always correlate with squalor. Americans have made their voices heard in saying that they do not want America to have yet more people coming in to take jobs and spit on them. The country has plenty of people already.

Legal immigration is also how you got a large chunk of your talent pool for nuclear physics, mathematics and computing.

The way you reconcile both of these is merit-based immigration. Immigration of educated and technically and scientifically skilled workers is great for a country. Immigration of unskilled laborers and refugees is not.

Canada is always cited for its immigration system, though those citing it usually don't realize that that's because it's heavily merit based, with a scoring system based on education and skills and work experience.

The US doesn't have merit-based immigration because the left doesn't want to think that different people have different merit. The closest we get is to kinda fake it with H1-B and O-1 employment visas.

[Mjmd]

BTW I need a Trump wisperer to tell me if Trump is being smart by selecting Gaetz for Attorney General or is actually serious. Like to me its an obvious throw away so that whomever he actually wants looks good by comparison. Senate Republicans get to look good and reject one of Trumps picks. But part of me thinks he is serious. My bet is on smart (or at least someone around him came up with and he was smart enough to listen), but I can't shake that it might be serious.