Hi @Gramps49, the Japanese never reached the Australian mainland as an invasion force. The closest that Japanese troops came was the Kokoda Track in Papua which was then an Australian territory, where they were stopped by a combination of Australian and native troops. The Australian mainland was bombed, especially the cities of Darwin and Broome, and minisubs made it into Sydney Harbour but without damaging any warships. The involvement of the US Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea was instrumental in turning back a Japanese invasion fleet.
The war in 1942 was in the seas to the north and east of Australia, and in Papua New Guinea, the large island that the tip of Queensland points to. We lost our shit completely when Singapore fell, along with a substantial number of Australian soldiers and nurses. My wife's Grandpa was one, and my wife's Grandma was a nurse who looked after him when he returned from the Burma Railway. When Singapore fell, there were no large British ships in the Pacific or Indian ocean, and the American ships were steaming for San Francisco.
The so-called Battle For Australia consists of three engagements: The Battle of the Coral Sea, and fights in and around PNG. There is some controversy around this, and documents from the Japanese side indicate that they did not plan to invade Australia. However, I am certain that's not what Australians thought in 1942, and I also reckon that if they saw an opportunity and things went well, the Japanese might have changed their mind. Australians at the time were absolutely convinced that the US Navy saved Australia from occupation, and I think they were right. General MacArthur walks on bloody water in the view of my Grandparents' generation. Those who are aware of them and of a like mind make a big fuss about the McCain family too.
As I understand it, the Japanese Navy at the time was making decisions on the basis of, how can we do this? rather than, does this serve our long-term goals? Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbour because they'd been thinking about what they should do if there were a war with the US, rather than because they were thinking about whether they wanted a war with the US. So the question of how should Japan invade Australia if Japan needed to, would probably have turned into how can Japan invade Australia whether Japan needs to or not.
The downside of the above attitude was that Japan got into a war in the Pacific that did not serve its long-term goals.
The most depressing thing I read yesterday (on Twitter, and I can't find it now) was from someone pointing out that the evictions that have already begun will drive down voter turnout - people who are forced into shelters and people who have recently moved into tight quarters with family are unlikely to re-register to vote at their new addresses. People in homeless camps ... gah.
College and university student population turnout will also probably be lower, and scattered back in their home districts/states. That could make a difference in districts that normally have a large student population.
College and university student population turnout will also probably be lower, and scattered back in their home districts/states. That could make a difference in districts that normally have a large student population.
But it could also impact districts where the students come from especially if those districts are marginally conservative.
But it could also impact districts where the students come from especially if those districts are marginally conservative.
If the students are registered to vote at home...
But who's to say they would be registered to vote where their colleges are located? I am betting if they remain in the districts where their families are, they will likely be registered and you will have at least one parent reminding them this election is too important to pass up.
But it could also impact districts where the students come from especially if those districts are marginally conservative.
If the students are registered to vote at home...
But who's to say they would be registered to vote where their colleges are located? I am betting if they remain in the districts where their families are, they will likely be registered and you will have at least one parent reminding them this election is too important to pass up.
It’s the students’ call whether to be registered where they lived before college or to register where they go to college. Here, many students—though certainly not all—register where they go to college, partially because of voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities on campus, partially because there is typically an early voting site on or adjacent to campus, and partially because it means they don’t need to vote mail-in absentee.
It’s the students’ call whether to be registered where they lived before college or to register where they go to college. Here, many students—though certainly not all—register where they go to college, partially because of voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities on campus, partially because there is typically an early voting site on or adjacent to campus, and partially because it means they don’t need to vote mail-in absentee.
Also, some states will allow students to switch over to in-state tuition rates if they transfer over all their official ID and registrations at the beginning of their first year. Or at least that was the case a while back. It may have changed.
How many of these students claim the addresses where they live as their legal residence is, of course, a different question.
I'd be interested to know what the breakdown of that majority is between community colleges (which typically don't offer residential accommodations) and traditional four year colleges. The only thing I was able to Google up by Horn and Berktold is this 1998 study [PDF] on student work habits. A lot can change in 22 years.
I'd be interested to know what the breakdown of that majority is between community colleges (which typically don't offer residential accommodations) and traditional four year colleges. The only thing I was able to Google up by Horn and Berktold is this 1998 study [PDF] on student work habits. A lot can change in 22 years.
Students who attend community college tend to attend college in / near the community in which they live anyway, don't they? So their location isn't affected by whether their college is running physical or virtual classes. @Soror Magna is clearly referring to traditional 4-year "destination" colleges here:
College and university student population turnout will also probably be lower, and scattered back in their home districts/states. That could make a difference in districts that normally have a large student population.
This is a very unusual year. I am thinking young adults realize they have to speak up. They are behind the BLM movement. College Students are burdened with student loan debt. They see the homophobic administration for what it is. They support the DACA movement. Everything T has been doing goes against their best interests.
If they vote against T, they will likely vote against anyone that supports him. Since many colleges are going the social distancing route, they will likely be voting in their home towns.
College and university student population turnout will also probably be lower, and scattered back in their home districts/states. That could make a difference in districts that normally have a large student population.
Yup. Plus what Nick Tamen said about GOTV activities on campus. My own institution is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Caprica City, and the student population is big enough to swing the riding over to the left if the election happens during the Sep-Apr session.
Caprica City is an architectural marvel that is home to more than seven million residents.[1] It is largely an ocean-front urban sprawl penetrated by a series of rivers emptying into Caprican Bay.
Little is known about the settlement's founding, though it eventually became the most diverse, populated, and technologically advanced city in all the Twelve Colonies. The city is the planet's entryway for immigrants and visitors from across the solar systems.
Caprica City really did sound like a new development in California to me.
Caprica City is an architectural marvel that is home to more than seven million residents.[1] It is largely an ocean-front urban sprawl penetrated by a series of rivers emptying into Caprican Bay.
Little is known about the settlement's founding, though it eventually became the most diverse, populated, and technologically advanced city in all the Twelve Colonies. The city is the planet's entryway for immigrants and visitors from across the solar systems.
Caprica City really did sound like a new development in California to me.
Something like one which might be coming to...errr... Dundalk.
Something like one which might be coming to...errr... Dundalk.
Ummm...I still have trouble figuring out how ethnic a country Ireland still is, sees itself as, wants to be. Would ethnic Chinese immigrants--especial 50k of them--be socially accepted?
Something like one which might be coming to...errr... Dundalk.
Ummm...I still have trouble figuring out how ethnic a country Ireland still is, sees itself as, wants to be. Would ethnic Chinese immigrants--especial 50k of them--be socially accepted?
Thx.
I think if they push the Mayflower angle at the bottom of the article some folk are going to start asking how well that turned out for the native population of North America. 50k over a few years is a pretty small number, even for a small country like Ireland.
So, T wants to put off the general election until it can be guaranteed there will be no fraudulent votes--he thinks mail-ballots are questionable with no proof. Washington State has had mail-ballots for over ten years--out of millions of ballots that came in during this time the Secretary if State reports only 140 known cases of fraud.
He cannot postpone it. Only Congress can do that. And the leaders of both parties in both houses have said, "FAT CHANCE." (in so many words.)
IMO Trump's tweet about this was an attempt to draw attention away from the news about the economy contracting by an historic amount in the second quarter.
I'm starting to think that Trump is an idiot savant. His one great gift is knowing how to piss people off so much that they're distracted from his other criminal activities. He doesn't know or care that what he says is stupid or what he does is criminal, just so long as he has people running hither and yon.
So, T wants to put off the general election until it can be guaranteed there will be no fraudulent votes--he thinks mail-ballots are questionable with no proof. Washington State has had mail-ballots for over ten years--out of millions of ballots that came in during this time the Secretary if State reports only 140 known cases of fraud.
He cannot postpone it. Only Congress can do that. And the leaders of both parties in both houses have said, "FAT CHANCE." (in so many words.)
Imagine him signing an Executive Order to postpone the election (he must have a stack of blank forms in his desk) and when he's told it doesn't count because he doesn't have that power, cry foul, claim everyone is against him and wave it in front of the cameras at a news conference.
Would there be a significant number still believing that he was being unfairly treated?
Would there be a significant number still believing that he was being unfairly treated?
Quite possibly, at least among his base of supporters. Something like "He knows the truth; people are secretly working against him; he knows the secrets of Area 51 {look it up*}; he's fighting against 'principalities and powers' on our behalf; and God sent him."
*I brought in Area 51 because T is endorsing Dr. Stella Immanuel (Wikipedia), who (among many, many other things) thinks "that space alien DNA is used in medical treatments and that reptilians and aliens run the government". Curiosity about Area 51 isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can go to extremes. (There is a real gov't facility there, supposedly for detention of and experiments on space aliens.)
IMO Trump's tweet about this was an attempt to draw attention away from the news about the economy contracting by an historic amount in the second quarter.
My dream last night: Biden announces a policy that boils down to "We're gunna do a moon shot!" In my dream I thought this was a fantastic and detailed policy.
I wind up at a Trump Presser. Not the helicopter one. I get picked to ask a question and I decide to do a one-two punch. I ask, "What do you think of Biden's new moon shot idea?" Trump says nothing but does a really cool little happy dance, and everybody laughs and cheers. I then do my follow-up, "Why don't you like the policy?" Trump and everybody else laughs derisively, and I realise that I have done Trump a huge favour.
I was having a browse at 538 and found this set of graphs rather interesting and possibly disturbing.
What I find striking about it is how steady Trump's approval ratings are, compared to those of most other post-war presidents. They are quite low (not as low as some), but don't seem to go up or down no matter what happens. Why is that?
(Other interesting things are how popular Eisenhower was throughout his 8 years, and how unpopular Harry Truman was).
Obama, Clinton and Reagan had approval levels less than 50% when they won their 2nd term. Carter's and Nixon's were just over.
Perhaps people should not get too excited by Trump's low numbers.
I was having a browse at 538 and found this set of graphs rather interesting and possibly disturbing.
What I find striking about it is how steady Trump's approval ratings are, compared to those of most other post-war presidents. They are quite low (not as low as some), but don't seem to go up or down no matter what happens. Why is that?
Best I can tell he has made it his mission to pander to 40% of the electorate and do it near-perfectly and screw everyone else. He enjoys being loved and to have adoring crowds wherever he goes. He knows well enough that you can only fool all of the people some of the time so he's gone all-in on fooling some of the people all of the time. My guess is he doesn't expect to win but will ride the wave of anger from his base when he loses all the way to the bank. He might finally clear his debts.
I was having a browse at 538 and found this set of graphs rather interesting and possibly disturbing.
What I find striking about it is how steady Trump's approval ratings are, compared to those of most other post-war presidents. They are quite low (not as low as some), but don't seem to go up or down no matter what happens. Why is that?
In part it's because Trump exists in a very different media environment than previous presidents. The right wing media machine (Fox News, talk radio, Breitbart and other internet bottom feeders, etc.) has been a long-term project of providing what we now call "alternative facts", where an inconvenient truth is automatically deemed "fake news" simply by the fact that it's inconvenient. That's how you get ~40% of Americans approving Trump's job as president* and 40% of Americans thinking the nation's COVID-19 response is going well. For a certain segment of the population, any negative facts about the Trump presidency* simply do not exist.
(Other interesting things are how popular Eisenhower was throughout his 8 years, and how unpopular Harry Truman was).
Polling during the Truman years was statistically sketchy and still working out the bugs. Nonetheless he was not very popular from late 1950 through the end of his presidency, mostly as a product of the Korean War.
BTW, here's the list of presidents from Truman onward in order of time-weighted net approval (percent approve minus percent disapprove) according to Gallup (the only polling agency with presidential approval polls going back that far):
Kennedy* +54
Eisenhower +44
G. H. W. Bush +33
L. Johnson +23
Clinton +18
Reagan +16
Nixon +14
Ford* +11
Carter +8
G. W. Bush +4
Obama +2
Truman +1
Trump* -13
Presidents with less than a full term of polling data are noted with an *. One of the interesting recent trends is that the percentage of those polled who claim "No Opinion" about whether the president is doing a good job has sharply dropped off. Prior to Clinton's second term that number was typically in the 10%-15% range. From Clinton's second term onward the number has been more like 5%. For the record, Fox News started broadcasting on October 7, 1996.
BTW, here's the list of presidents from Truman onward in order of time-weighted net approval
Time-weighted, net approval is irrelevant. Approval at the time of their re-election is the relevant criteria at the moment.
At one level, yes. At another it's not like an unpopular president can suddenly decide to become popular a month before Election Day. If people think you're doing a shitty job in year 3 of your term they'll likely think the same in early November of year 4, absent some kind of major course correction or outside event.
BTW, here's the list of presidents from Truman onward in order of time-weighted net approval
Time-weighted, net approval is irrelevant. Approval at the time of their re-election is the relevant criteria at the moment.
At one level, yes. At another it's not like an unpopular president can suddenly decide to become popular a month before Election Day. If people think you're doing a shitty job in year 3 of your term they'll likely think the same in early November of year 4, absent some kind of major course correction or outside event.
My point was that 5 presidents were re-elected* when people though they were doing shitty.
But I read the charts incorrectly and all were in the positive net approval when re-elected. On a still cautionary note, Obama's popularity spiked 12 percent on the run up to the election. If Trump's do...
My main point on this is, and has been, do not be complacent. Get out and vote, encourage and help the traditionally low turnout demographics to vote.
BTW, here's the list of presidents from Truman onward in order of time-weighted net approval
Time-weighted, net approval is irrelevant. Approval at the time of their re-election is the relevant criteria at the moment.
At one level, yes. At another it's not like an unpopular president can suddenly decide to become popular a month before Election Day. If people think you're doing a shitty job in year 3 of your term they'll likely think the same in early November of year 4, absent some kind of major course correction or outside event.
In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event deliberately created or timed or sometimes occurring spontaneously to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the U.S. presidency. Because the date for national elections (as well as many state and local elections) is in early November, events that take place in October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters. Thus these relatively last-minute news stories could either completely change the entire course of an election or strongly reinforce the inevitable.[1]
The term "October surprise" was coined by William Casey when he served as campaign manager of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.[2] There have been however October election-upending events that predate the coining of the term.[1][2]
Have there actually been any examples of an October Surprise in, say, the last forty years(ie. since Casey coined the phrase)? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any, or at least none that occured that close to the election.
Of course, it's alleged that the reason there was no OS in 1980 was that Casey convinced the Iranians to hang onto the hostages until after the election. I wouldn't put it past the Reagan crew to do that, though it's equally plausible that the Iranians on their own volition just wanted to damage Carter politically.
Have there actually been any examples of an October Surprise in, say, the last forty years(ie. since Casey coined the phrase)? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any, or at least none that occured that close to the election.
You mean apart from James Comey's intervention in 2016?
Have there actually been any examples of an October Surprise in, say, the last forty years(ie. since Casey coined the phrase)? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any, or at least none that occured that close to the election.
You mean apart from James Comey's intervention in 2016?
Point taken. And thanks for the list, GK.
FWIW, I think Trump is hoping for his anti-China posturing(TikTok etc) to be his winning issue going in to November. The Dems need to have a clear and consistent stance on that.
I think he's throwing out to the crowd *anything* he (or someone else) thinks of that might possibly please the crowd, and cause them to mark his name on the ballot.
And I note that that T is now saying vote-by-mail *would be ok* in Florida. Maybe he accepts the Covid danger just enough to worry that his peeps would get too sick to vote? (Especially if Florida has early in-person voting available.)
I think he's throwing out to the crowd *anything* he (or someone else) thinks of that might possibly please the crowd, and cause them to mark his name on the ballot.
And I note that that T is now saying vote-by-mail *would be ok* in Florida. Maybe he accepts the Covid danger just enough to worry that his peeps would get too sick to vote? (Especially if Florida has early in-person voting available.)
I thought I hear that Florida was already a large mail-in state and that his people fear his stance might hurt his numbers.
And I note that that T is now saying vote-by-mail *would be ok* in Florida. Maybe he accepts the Covid danger just enough to worry that his peeps would get too sick to vote? (Especially if Florida has early in-person voting available.)
It may also have something to do with the fact that Democratic requests for mail-in/absentee ballots have surpassed Republican requests. (Florida conducts closed primary elections, meaning that if you want to vote in a primary you must register a party affiliation, so the information on members of which parties are requesting mail-in ballots is known.)
But apparently Trump doesn't think it's okay in Nevada.
What I find striking about it is how steady Trump's approval ratings are, compared to those of most other post-war presidents. They are quite low (not as low as some), but don't seem to go up or down no matter what happens. Why is that?
Because Trump supporters are not affected by data.
Anybody who pays attention knows that Trump is a complete disaster as a President. This statement is true regardless of what you think of the policies that he has pursued. I think you all know that I find both the man and his opinions odious, but even if you support the sorts of things he says he supports, the truth is that he has been very bad at actually doing anything about them.
This is not news. It has been obvious that this was the case since (to be charitable) six months in to his presidency.
The conclusion is that the people who think Trump is doing a good job don't look at the data. They are not swayed by information, because they don't use it in their decisions.
Errrrr...I may be thick here, but doesn't this (if it happens) split the 'not Trump' vote? Or are a bunch of disaffected Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote for Biden next time, more likely to vote for Mr West? The only connection I can see is that such a person might have a big thing for candidates from outside 'the swamp'. But it seems...unlikely, given the comments about Steve King up-thread.
At least four people who have been active in Republican politics are linked to Kanye West’s attempt to get on the presidential ballot this year. The connection raises questions about the aims of the entertainer’s effort and whether it is regarded within the G.O.P. as a spoiler campaign that could aid President Trump, even as those close to Mr. West have expressed concerns about his mental health as he enters the political arena.
One operative, Mark Jacoby, is an executive at a company called Let the Voters Decide, which has been collecting signatures for the West campaign in three states. Mr. Jacoby was arrested on voter fraud charges in 2008 while he was doing work for the California Republican Party, and he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
<snip>
New York Magazine reported Monday evening on the campaign’s links to two other people with partisan ties. One is Gregg Keller, the former executive director of the American Conservative Union, who has been listed as a contact for the campaign in Arkansas. Mr. Keller, who did not respond to a message seeking comment, is a Missouri-based strategist. He was under consideration to be Mr. Trump’s campaign manager in 2015, a role that was ultimately filled by Corey Lewandowski, according to a former campaign official.
Another person linked to the West campaign is Chuck Wilton, who is listed as a convention delegate for Mr. Trump from Vermont and as an elector with the West operation who could potentially cast an Electoral College vote for Mr. West. Mr. Wilton could not be reached. He and his wife, Wendy, a Trump appointee at the United States Department of Agriculture, have been political supporters of the president. She hung up immediately when called at her office.
Late Tuesday, a local reporter in Madison, Wis., recorded a woman dropping off ballot signatures for Mr. West. A report in Vice identified the woman as a Republican elections lawyer, Lane Ruhland. Ms. Ruhland worked for the Republican National Committee during the 2016 presidential election recount in Wisconsin. She did not return requests for comment, and a spokesman for the law firm where she works, Husch Blackwell, did not have an immediate comment.
Still not sure if this is actually going to "split the 'not Trump' vote", but that certainly seems to be the current Republican plan. As a reminder, Donald Trump won Wisconsin (where Ms. Ruhland is working so diligently to get Mr. West on the ballot) by a margin of 22,748 votes. The number of ballots cast for third party or write-in candidates in Wisconsin in 2016 was 188,330. I'd like to think the allure of the third party wank vote has lost its luster after 2016, but people are strange.
Is the idea that West, being conservative himself, will take votes from conservatives who would otherwise be holding their nose and voting for Biden?
If so, I'm wondering how associated West really is with conservatism. Would he actually seem like a palatable choice to a Republican?
I remember when he grandstanded Taylor Swift at the MTV Awards about a decade ago, right-wingers on another board I used to follow were trashing him all over the place, and just seemed to lump him in as another hip-hop scumbag.
Has he possibly rehabilitated his image among conservatives since then?
Comments
The so-called Battle For Australia consists of three engagements: The Battle of the Coral Sea, and fights in and around PNG. There is some controversy around this, and documents from the Japanese side indicate that they did not plan to invade Australia. However, I am certain that's not what Australians thought in 1942, and I also reckon that if they saw an opportunity and things went well, the Japanese might have changed their mind. Australians at the time were absolutely convinced that the US Navy saved Australia from occupation, and I think they were right. General MacArthur walks on bloody water in the view of my Grandparents' generation. Those who are aware of them and of a like mind make a big fuss about the McCain family too.
Canned meat is a crime against humanity.
The downside of the above attitude was that Japan got into a war in the Pacific that did not serve its long-term goals.
But it could also impact districts where the students come from especially if those districts are marginally conservative.
But who's to say they would be registered to vote where their colleges are located? I am betting if they remain in the districts where their families are, they will likely be registered and you will have at least one parent reminding them this election is too important to pass up.
How many of these students claim the addresses where they live as their legal residence is, of course, a different question.
Also, some states will allow students to switch over to in-state tuition rates if they transfer over all their official ID and registrations at the beginning of their first year. Or at least that was the case a while back. It may have changed.
I'd be interested to know what the breakdown of that majority is between community colleges (which typically don't offer residential accommodations) and traditional four year colleges. The only thing I was able to Google up by Horn and Berktold is this 1998 study [PDF] on student work habits. A lot can change in 22 years.
Students who attend community college tend to attend college in / near the community in which they live anyway, don't they? So their location isn't affected by whether their college is running physical or virtual classes. @Soror Magna is clearly referring to traditional 4-year "destination" colleges here:
If they vote against T, they will likely vote against anyone that supports him. Since many colleges are going the social distancing route, they will likely be voting in their home towns.
Yup. Plus what Nick Tamen said about GOTV activities on campus. My own institution is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Caprica City, and the student population is big enough to swing the riding over to the left if the election happens during the Sep-Apr session.
Caprica City really did sound like a new development in California to me.
Something like one which might be coming to...errr... Dundalk.
Ummm...I still have trouble figuring out how ethnic a country Ireland still is, sees itself as, wants to be. Would ethnic Chinese immigrants--especial 50k of them--be socially accepted?
Thx.
I think if they push the Mayflower angle at the bottom of the article some folk are going to start asking how well that turned out for the native population of North America. 50k over a few years is a pretty small number, even for a small country like Ireland.
He cannot postpone it. Only Congress can do that. And the leaders of both parties in both houses have said, "FAT CHANCE." (in so many words.)
Imagine him signing an Executive Order to postpone the election (he must have a stack of blank forms in his desk) and when he's told it doesn't count because he doesn't have that power, cry foul, claim everyone is against him and wave it in front of the cameras at a news conference.
Would there be a significant number still believing that he was being unfairly treated?
Quite possibly, at least among his base of supporters. Something like "He knows the truth; people are secretly working against him; he knows the secrets of Area 51 {look it up*}; he's fighting against 'principalities and powers' on our behalf; and God sent him."
*I brought in Area 51 because T is endorsing Dr. Stella Immanuel (Wikipedia), who (among many, many other things) thinks "that space alien DNA is used in medical treatments and that reptilians and aliens run the government". Curiosity about Area 51 isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can go to extremes. (There is a real gov't facility there, supposedly for detention of and experiments on space aliens.)
Go, Mattel! Go, Team Barbie!
This.
I wind up at a Trump Presser. Not the helicopter one. I get picked to ask a question and I decide to do a one-two punch. I ask, "What do you think of Biden's new moon shot idea?" Trump says nothing but does a really cool little happy dance, and everybody laughs and cheers. I then do my follow-up, "Why don't you like the policy?" Trump and everybody else laughs derisively, and I realise that I have done Trump a huge favour.
What I find striking about it is how steady Trump's approval ratings are, compared to those of most other post-war presidents. They are quite low (not as low as some), but don't seem to go up or down no matter what happens. Why is that?
(Other interesting things are how popular Eisenhower was throughout his 8 years, and how unpopular Harry Truman was).
Perhaps people should not get too excited by Trump's low numbers.
Best I can tell he has made it his mission to pander to 40% of the electorate and do it near-perfectly and screw everyone else. He enjoys being loved and to have adoring crowds wherever he goes. He knows well enough that you can only fool all of the people some of the time so he's gone all-in on fooling some of the people all of the time. My guess is he doesn't expect to win but will ride the wave of anger from his base when he loses all the way to the bank. He might finally clear his debts.
In part it's because Trump exists in a very different media environment than previous presidents. The right wing media machine (Fox News, talk radio, Breitbart and other internet bottom feeders, etc.) has been a long-term project of providing what we now call "alternative facts", where an inconvenient truth is automatically deemed "fake news" simply by the fact that it's inconvenient. That's how you get ~40% of Americans approving Trump's job as president* and 40% of Americans thinking the nation's COVID-19 response is going well. For a certain segment of the population, any negative facts about the Trump presidency* simply do not exist.
Polling during the Truman years was statistically sketchy and still working out the bugs. Nonetheless he was not very popular from late 1950 through the end of his presidency, mostly as a product of the Korean War.
BTW, here's the list of presidents from Truman onward in order of time-weighted net approval (percent approve minus percent disapprove) according to Gallup (the only polling agency with presidential approval polls going back that far):
Presidents with less than a full term of polling data are noted with an *. One of the interesting recent trends is that the percentage of those polled who claim "No Opinion" about whether the president is doing a good job has sharply dropped off. Prior to Clinton's second term that number was typically in the 10%-15% range. From Clinton's second term onward the number has been more like 5%. For the record, Fox News started broadcasting on October 7, 1996.
At one level, yes. At another it's not like an unpopular president can suddenly decide to become popular a month before Election Day. If people think you're doing a shitty job in year 3 of your term they'll likely think the same in early November of year 4, absent some kind of major course correction or outside event.
But I read the charts incorrectly and all were in the positive net approval when re-elected. On a still cautionary note, Obama's popularity spiked 12 percent on the run up to the election. If Trump's do...
My main point on this is, and has been, do not be complacent. Get out and vote, encourage and help the traditionally low turnout demographics to vote.
Though if there's an "October surprise" (Wikipedia) that works...
Of course, it's alleged that the reason there was no OS in 1980 was that Casey convinced the Iranians to hang onto the hostages until after the election. I wouldn't put it past the Reagan crew to do that, though it's equally plausible that the Iranians on their own volition just wanted to damage Carter politically.
You mean apart from James Comey's intervention in 2016?
Point taken. And thanks for the list, GK.
FWIW, I think Trump is hoping for his anti-China posturing(TikTok etc) to be his winning issue going in to November. The Dems need to have a clear and consistent stance on that.
And I note that that T is now saying vote-by-mail *would be ok* in Florida. Maybe he accepts the Covid danger just enough to worry that his peeps would get too sick to vote? (Especially if Florida has early in-person voting available.)
It may also have something to do with the fact that Democratic requests for mail-in/absentee ballots have surpassed Republican requests. (Florida conducts closed primary elections, meaning that if you want to vote in a primary you must register a party affiliation, so the information on members of which parties are requesting mail-in ballots is known.)
But apparently Trump doesn't think it's okay in Nevada.
Because Trump supporters are not affected by data.
Anybody who pays attention knows that Trump is a complete disaster as a President. This statement is true regardless of what you think of the policies that he has pursued. I think you all know that I find both the man and his opinions odious, but even if you support the sorts of things he says he supports, the truth is that he has been very bad at actually doing anything about them.
This is not news. It has been obvious that this was the case since (to be charitable) six months in to his presidency.
The conclusion is that the people who think Trump is doing a good job don't look at the data. They are not swayed by information, because they don't use it in their decisions.
More news, America!
Still not sure if this is actually going to "split the 'not Trump' vote", but that certainly seems to be the current Republican plan. As a reminder, Donald Trump won Wisconsin (where Ms. Ruhland is working so diligently to get Mr. West on the ballot) by a margin of 22,748 votes. The number of ballots cast for third party or write-in candidates in Wisconsin in 2016 was 188,330. I'd like to think the allure of the third party wank vote has lost its luster after 2016, but people are strange.
If so, I'm wondering how associated West really is with conservatism. Would he actually seem like a palatable choice to a Republican?
I remember when he grandstanded Taylor Swift at the MTV Awards about a decade ago, right-wingers on another board I used to follow were trashing him all over the place, and just seemed to lump him in as another hip-hop scumbag.
Has he possibly rehabilitated his image among conservatives since then?
Yeah, I know. I'm just wondering if he even has enough support to be a vote-splitter.