Election 2024 & Presidential Cage Match: Dark Brandon 46 vs Demento Farty 45

[LadySkinsFan]

We all can surmise that lots of RNC money will be devoted to Trump's many purposes instead of supporting down ballot candidates. 

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[The Evil Genius]

Dark Buden makes the best covfefe.

[Renegade7]

This is a slow motion train derailment we keep having to convince ourselves wont slide into the train station sideways and win the election anyway.

 

But a train derailment regardless...

[The Evil Genius]

13 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

This is a slow motion train derailment we keep having to convince ourselves wont slide into the train station sideways and win the election anyway.

 

But a train derailment regardless...

 

There is a reason his handlers are keeping him from doing rallies this time. 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

Harvard Should Break up With the Harris Poll

Harvard is lending its name to a methodologically flawed poll that often promotes a right-wing political agenda.

 

https://www.thecrimson.com/column/forging-harvards-future/article/2024/3/26/bodnick-/

 

 

Every month, the Harvard-Harris Poll administers a public opinion survey that tracks Americans’ attitudes on a wide range of political and social issues.

 

[...]To see this ideological slant, let’s take a look at a question in last month’s poll about (the) bipartisan immigration bill.

 

In the prompt, the poll regurgitated Republican talking points, citing the number of migrants that would enter the country each day — a claim that is highly misleading — and stating that Trump has opposed the bill “to give the Biden administration any wins on an issue that he says they failed to do anything about.”

 

The question failed to specify a single positive consequence of the bill. Naturally, as a result of this skewed framing, the results showed that a majority supported Trump’s position of blocking the bill from passing.

 

[...]In addition to ideologically slanted wording, the poll frequently lacks a “don’t know” option. “That’s going to force respondents with different views to pick a side at random," criticized Will Jordan, a Democratic pollster. “But the numbers get shared as if they’re real attitudes.”

 

[...]the Harvard-Harris poll sometimes sequences questions in ways that can confuse respondents. For instance, the Dec. poll also found that 67 percent of young adults agree that “Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors” — an eye-popping result. This finding aligned with a narrative pushed by many conservatives: that leftists and young people are deeply antisemitic.

 

But that question was placed immediately after multiple questions about affirmative action and could have been easily misunderstood as a question about the way that Jews should be treated under an affirmative action system.

 

The Harvard-Harris poll misleads Americans with its flawed methodology and right-wing political agenda, but it’s unfortunately widely cited by mainstream media in potentially misleading ways. For example, the finding that young adults believe Jews are oppressors was cited all over the news.

 

******************

 

For the record, the "Jews should be treated as oppressors" poll question the article mentions went something like this:

 

- In Affirmative Action, certain segments of society have historically been oppressed

- In Affirmative Action, the white majority has been considered oppressors

- In society, oppressors tend to get all the breaks and benefits that the oppressed do not

- (Follow-up poll question): Do you think Jews should be considered oppressors or be considered as being oppressed?

 

News headlines: Poll Finds Young Americans Think Israel are the Oppressors in the Israel-Hamas War

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/inflation-and-the-gap-between-economic-performance-and-economic-perceptions/

 

Inflation and the gap between economic performance and economic perceptions

 

Quote

Many Biden administration officials and sympathetic analysts are baffled by what they see as a huge gap between negative public sentiment about the economy and its actual performance. They do not understand why supermajorities rate the condition of the economy as “only fair” or “poor” and trust former President Trump more than President Biden to steward the economy over the next four years. After all, Biden supporters rightly insist, GDP growth averaged a robust 3.4% annually during Biden’s first three years, compared to 2.7% for Trump’s. Between January 2021 and January 2024, employment grew by more than 11 million, unemployment fell by four million, and the unemployment rate plunged from 6.3% to 3.7%. In fact, unemployment has remained below four percent for two full years, the longest in history. Biden’s first three years witnessed the creation of 791,000 manufacturing jobs, almost twice the number during Trump’s first three years, and Black unemployment hit a historic low of 4.8%.

 

Faced with the disconnect between these figures and public opinion, economists and political scientists have explored several hypotheses to explain the gap. There is modest but inconclusive evidence supporting a link between poor evaluations of the current economy and variables such as economic inequality, the rise of conspiracy theories, economic insecurity, and negative expectations about the economic future.

 

Two other potential explanations for the gap are more promising. First, Brookings scholars Ben Harris and Aaron Sojourner have documented a rise of negative news coverage of the economy, corrected for underlying conditions, since 2018, and they cite a growing body of literature finding a link between the tone of news coverage and measures of consumer sentiment. They acknowledge, however, that the direction of causation is not entirely clear: “Are consumers more negative about the economy because of the news,” they ask, “or is the news reporting more negative stories to match consumers’ beliefs?” Further complicating the picture, they note that the gap between news reports and economic conditions has closed in recent months. While it seems likely that news coverage would have some effect on economic sentiments, the size of this effect is difficult to measure without additional research.

 

A second line of explanation seems more promising. In an article by a distinguished team of political scientists, David Brady, John Ferejohn, and Brett Parker explore the influence of partisanship on voters’ evaluations of the economy. To no one’s surprise, they find that partisan affiliations do influence economic perceptions. More significantly, they find that the impact of partisanship on economic attitudes has doubled since 2001, consistent with the intensification of partisan polarization during this period. They also find “no evidence” that Republicans are more responsible than Democrats for the growing gap in economic perceptions (or vice versa).

 

This does not mean that economic sentiments are driven entirely by political affiliations. Although the impact of affiliation has grown substantially, diminishing the accuracy of economic models of voting behavior, models using economic as well as political variables are better predictors than those that take only politics into account.

 

More at link. 

[Fergasun]

I watched Nicole Shannahan's speech.  I like her.  I like the idea of a disruptive third party.  I like the idea of breaking up our corporately captured political parties.  

 

Much of her speech came off a bit odd.  "I thought RFK Jr. was silly, then I listened to a speech, then some more." Or "I went deep into my own research."  Microplastics, forever chemicals and soil to get rid of our chronic illnesses.  But, she's pretty much like, "Give us your health data and AI will solve the world's health problems in 6 months."   Show me the platform for "peace through diplomacy."  We don't have it now? 

 

The problem with Ralph Nader and Ross Perot is that they will never admit they threw the election to a major campaign.  This looks like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. 

 

 

[hail2skins]

7 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

The problem with Ralph Nader and Ross Perot is that they will never admit they threw the election to a major campaign.  This looks like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot.

I don't think either threw the election to a major campaign. Clinton's lead in 1992 actually widened when Perot exited the race and narrowed when he came back in. Nader got less than three percent of the vote in 2000 and less than two percent in Florida.

[Fergasun]

6 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

I don't think either threw the election to a major campaign. Clinton's lead in 1992 actually widened when Perot exited the race and narrowed when he came back in. Nader got less than three percent of the vote in 2000 and less than two percent in Florida.

Lol.  Nader threw Florida and maybe New Hampshire to Bush.  

 

It wasn't clear in my post, but third party movements need to start in the House and Senate.  They can't go for the Preidency. 

[Renegade7]

6 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/inflation-and-the-gap-between-economic-performance-and-economic-perceptions/

 

Inflation and the gap between economic performance and economic perceptions

 

 

More at link. 

 

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

 

There are certain aspects of what impacts people's dinner table conversations that the stock market or overall unemployment just doesn't matter to.

 

Biden deserves credit for attacking egrious fees and picking away at student loan debt.  But the cost of living is the real problem here, and if that's not a different conversation then how well the economy as a whole is doing then it needs to be.

Edited March 27 by Renegade7

[PleaseBlitz]

28 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

Yea, this is not a new thing that has developed since Biden became POTUS. 
 

Edit.  This doesn’t even get into Biden greatly increasing the child tax credit in 2021 (effectively giving parents $3600/yr for each child under 6 and $3k for kids 6 and up) until Trump’s GOP took it away in 2022 because tax credits should be reserved for ExxonMobil, not parents. 

Edited March 27 by PleaseBlitz

[Jabbyrwock]

45 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

 

Hell...I basically paid the same as my mortgage for daycare for just my son.  And that was 13 years ago.

[tshile]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

 

There are certain aspects of what impacts people's dinner table conversations that the stock market or overall unemployment just doesn't matter to.

 

Biden deserves credit for attacking egrious fees and picking away at student loan debt.  But the cost of loving is the real problem here, and if that's not a different conversation then how well the economy as a whole is doing then it needs to be.

they keep pointing to numbers and missing the fact that life became significantly more expensive lately and people are still unhappy about it. 
 

it’s a shortcoming in economics.  Always idealistic and forever bound to a numbers-only approach. They’re like sports fans that are overly into analytics, forgetting sometimes what you see in action is more important than the numbers on a chart. 

Edited March 27 by tshile

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

 

 

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, Jabbyrwock said:

 

Hell...I basically paid the same as my mortgage for daycare for just my son.  And that was 13 years ago.

 

It's nuts, the childcare industry today is out of control and absolute needs the government to step in regarding the price gouging as opposed coming and offering more money to pay for it.

 

They know they have parents by the balls, and I still don't think the government gets that.

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

they keep pointing to numbers and missing the fact that life became significantly more expensive lately and people are still unhappy about it. 
 

it’s a shortcoming in economics.  Always idealistic and forever bound to a numbers-only approach. They’re like sports fans that are overly into analytics, forgetting sometimes what you see in action is more important than the numbers on a chart. 

 

It's a total disconnect.

 

I hate that I'm about to say this, but because GOP keeps weaponizing cost of living realities to counter how good the economy is doing...they are hammering it in a way the Dems aren't matching messaging-wise and creates this illusion the GOP gets it more. 

 

This part of how Trump got in power in the first place. Speaking right through all the analytics to the heart of "I feel forgotten".

 

Now, I know with a straight face GOP isn't actually going to do anything about cost of living and in many cases totally in on it with the aspects of the economy rising prices because frankly no one's stopping them.

 

Same time....*sigh....you can't solve a problem without admiting you have one.  Perception can become reality when one side won't stop talking about it and the other has an article out talking about how the administration is "suprised".

Edited March 27 by Renegade7

[Renegade7]

3 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Yea, this is not a new thing that has developed since Biden became POTUS. 
 

Edit.  This doesn’t even get into Biden greatly increasing the child tax credit in 2021 (effectively giving parents $3600/yr for each child under 6 and $3k for kids 6 and up) until Trump’s GOP took it away in 2022 because tax credits should be reserved for ExxonMobil, not parents. 

 

It doesn't help me if that's gone and my cost of living is still going up.

 

In someway I get "priorities" in that coming after protecting reproductive rights actively winning elections, and such a major issue that its going to get way more attention.

 

But damn, like to hear about that public option again I was told was better for me then MFA during the 2020 primaries.

 

I'm pretty confident Dems get the House back that Child Tax Credit boast will be right after it...so fn say that, campaign on it, amd other major plans to counter the cost of living situation.

 

Is the fact Corporate America is vacuuming up all the single family homes in the country even on the Dems radar right now?

Edited March 27 by Renegade7

[Califan007 The Constipated]

2 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

 

There are certain aspects of what impacts people's dinner table conversations that the stock market or overall unemployment just doesn't matter to.

 

Biden deserves credit for attacking egrious fees and picking away at student loan debt.  But the cost of loving is the real problem here, and if that's not a different conversation then how well the economy as a whole is doing then it needs to be.

 

For the most part, the two go hand in hand, though...

 

If we want politicians to stop looking solely at economic indicators and instead look at families' bank accounts and kitchen tables, then we also need families to stop looking only at their bank accounts and start paying attention to national economic indicators. Voters insist on the first, and laugh off the second. It should be possible to say both that I'm struggling financially but the country's economy is not. But that can feel like being in the middle of a lake drowning, and hearing someone say "Very few people ever drown in this lake, it's one of the safest lakes in the country"...

[Renegade7]

11 minutes ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

For the most part, the two go hand in hand, though...

 

If we want politicians to stop looking solely at economic indicators and instead look at families' bank accounts and kitchen tables, then we also need families to stop looking only at their bank accounts and start paying attention to national economic indicators. Voters insist on the first, and laugh off the second. It should be possible to say both that I'm struggling financially but the country's economy is not. But that can feel like being in the middle of a lake drowning, and hearing someone say "Very few people ever drown in this lake, it's one of the safest lakes in the country"...

 

That's really hard to ask of everyday citizens when even the media we ingest is putting out articles about why not to get excited about how good this economy is doing.

 

Old enough to remember how it was "defying logic and expectations" and a recession was inevitable...any day now...folks are totally still recovering from that.

 

The average American doesn't understand how complex the economy is or how it works...I'm all for personal responsibility on that front (I myself am a work in progress), but when I say fast food has overnight turned into essentially expensive ass food you don't have to do dishes for, the response I don't want is "you need to understand the economy more to truly appreciate it"

 

 

Edited March 27 by Renegade7

[Larry]

7 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I really need people to stop telling me how great the economy is doing when we spending almost as much on daycare for our two daughters as we do on rent.

 

There are certain aspects of what impacts people's dinner table conversations that the stock market or overall unemployment just doesn't matter to.

 

Biden deserves credit for attacking egrious fees and picking away at student loan debt.  But the cost of living is the real problem here, and if that's not a different conversation then how well the economy as a whole is doing then it needs to be.

 

Damn President Biden for not forcing private corporations, and their customers, from changing the prices which they are currently agreeing to charge/pay.

[bearrock]

6 hours ago, tshile said:

they keep pointing to numbers and missing the fact that life became significantly more expensive lately and people are still unhappy about it. 
 

it’s a shortcoming in economics.  Always idealistic and forever bound to a numbers-only approach. They’re like sports fans that are overly into analytics, forgetting sometimes what you see in action is more important than the numbers on a chart. 

 

And the other end of the spectrum are the fans who keeps evaluating players on the feels and become hives because a team keeps winning with a certain player on the field.  The truth is somewhere in the middle.  Lot of people can end up personally being squeezed despite a broader economy that is growing.  But some of those squeeze are caused by issues that have been around forever (i.e. - when was the last time daycare wasn't mind numbingly expensive?)

 

5 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

It's a total disconnect.

 

I hate that I'm about to say this, but because GOP keeps weaponizing cost of living realities to counter how good the economy is doing...they are hammering it in a way the Dems aren't matching messaging-wise and creates this illusion the GOP gets it more. 

 

This part of how Trump got in power in the first place. Speaking right through all the analytics to the heart of "I feel forgotten".

 

Now, I know with a straight face GOP isn't actually going to do anything about cost of living and in many cases totally in on it with the aspects of the economy rising prices because frankly no one's stopping them.

 

Same time....*sigh....you can't solve a problem without admiting you have one.  Perception can become reality when one side won't stop talking about it and the other has an article out talking about how the administration is "suprised".

 

Because the Dems pontificating about how well the economy is doing is probably not going to be terribly productive given many voters blame the administration based on the feels.  

[Renegade7]

22 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

And the other end of the spectrum are the fans who keeps evaluating players on the feels and become hives because a team keeps winning with a certain player on the field.  The truth is somewhere in the middle.  Lot of people can end up personally being squeezed despite a broader economy that is growing.  But some of those squeeze are caused by issues that have been around forever (i.e. - when was the last time daycare wasn't mind numbingly expensive?)

 

 

Because the Dems pontificating about how well the economy is doing is probably not going to be terribly productive given many voters blame the administration based on the feels.  

 

Such a heartless cope out.

 

Biden didn't do that with prescription drug prices, he and other candidates propose measures for changing things despite them being a certain way forever all the time.

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

 

Damn President Biden for not forcing private corporations, and their customers, from changing the prices which they are currently agreeing to charge/pay.

 

I don't think he finds that as funny as you do,

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/19/fact-sheet-white-house-competition-council-announces-new-actions-to-lower-costs-and-marks-second-anniversary-of-president-bidens-executive-order-on-competition/

[bearrock]

10 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Such a heartless cope out.

 

Biden didn't do that with prescription drug prices, he and other candidates propose measures for changing things despite them being a certain way forever all the time.

 

Bruh, he signed an executive order last year on affordable child care for low income families (I think the rules got finalized recently) and talked about expanded child tax credit and the need for more affordable child care in the most recent state of the union.  What more do you want him to do without the help of Congress?  I know child care cost are insane and bites hard, especially in Nova.  Believe me most of us who've raised kids in the area know first hand.  But if you are somehow faulting Biden for not fixing the problem or not highlighting the problem enough, you're not gonna be happy with any US president for a very long time.