I don't - start from the beginning.
2024 U.S. Elections | Trump wins
- Thread starter Raoul
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) look forward to a new life under Ruben Amorim. What system will we be playing? What players will impress? and how will it all go? We also say goodbye to Ruud Van Nistelrooy and review United's 3-0 win at home against Leicester City.
I don't - start from the beginning.
You're wasting your time.
I would argue that if the Yougov and Gallup polls are going in the same direction as the more detailed Democracy Fund study then they must be a little meaningful.
But anyway, I think we are in broad agreement: the situation has changed, and so have people's attitudes and opinions. IMO that is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of doing politics. The idea that it can be avoided because it's the fault of "fringe" people (who implicitly have no electoral value) strikes me as a "free lunch" and there's been too many of those in the last decade.
It still doesn't mean anything because dividing between illegal and legal immigration is vital to actually understanding how people think.
Illegal immigration is an out of sight, out of mind type of issue. In 2012-2019 with the economy growing, its easy to answer some random pollster that sure illegal immigrants "make a contribution". But with the tail end of Biden admin when many people are seeing the effects of illegal immigrant in their neighborhood and they aren't positive, its no longer out of sight, out of mind. I can see why you might think that single poll represents some stark change but from talking to actual people over decades, I don't think there has been any shift in people's general views at all (legal immigration is positive, illegal immigration needs to be controlled), its just the way their current experience prime a specific question when asked, not a change to their core beliefs on immigration. I've asked , over the years in multiple places, including here, if anyone actually supported open borders and no one ever came out in support or defending open borders policy.
Election polls sample from the population with some assumptions, about who will vote, and what the population itself is. This can be based on the demographics of the population, who voted last time and for which candidate, and their self-reported enthusiasm about voting. All these things are assumptions and generate some errors. And, in the end, using 1000 people to understand 10 million people is fraught with unavoidable potential error too.
The idea is that you can take all these different polls with different errors, and use an average. In our reality, the average of the polls was systematically biased agaisnt Trump in swing states and nationally. This shows that the polls likely had biased samples or assumptions.
But, the systematic bias was only 2-3 points. For the simplest case, the popular vote, the average predicted a 1 point Kamala win instead of a 1.5 point defeat. They were 2.5% off.
But the thing I'm showing - about social media use for voters - shows that about 50% use facebook, and 10-20% use twitter. So, my point is that Musk buying X and his influence on the algorithm and what gets promoted etc is quite limited compared to facebook's.
And, even if the polls are biased, it's not going to be by 30-40 points!
Democracy is great.
hmm
Time to draw a line at the 50% and divide the country back into confederacy and union. I wonder which dot is Mass btw.
hmm
You're missing the point spectacularly. First off, plenty of people don’t use Twitter but still see its content—Tweets are embedded everywhere: Facebook, Gram, Reddit, even the Transfer Forum. You don’t need an account to be influenced, so there’s that. Secondly, the Data for Progress poll you’re citing is probably riddled with the same biases and skewed assumptions that plague most left-leaning polls. Nice try, though.
But let’s get serious—elections are often decided by razor-thin margins, especially in swing states. Small shifts in voter support, fueled by Elon’s platforms and broader influence, can absolutely tip the balance
- X drives political discourse and amplifies key messages, influencing not just users but also broader media narratives ( crude example: Elon will tweet something and Wapo/NYT/ABC will write an article about it)
- Younger voters and swing-state demographics—both crucial for Trump—are disproportionately affected by social media dynamics directly and indirectly
- Elon’s critiques and algorithmic changes undermined trust in traditional outlets, directly benefiting Trump
By "Biden" I mean "the Biden administration". Perhaps it's unfair to include the Fed, since, as I understand it, the President doesn't have as much power to impact their actions as other government institutions.
But we both know the voters weren't thinking about what a great job the Fed did, but rather how their purchasing power has been anhilated in the last 4 years (while forgetting it's really 5 years and much of the inflation happened under Trump).
Many of these people consume an all day diet of hate talk radio and right-wing TV segments. Give it a listen for a day and you'll get insight to how their minds are morphed, and for some their biases are confirmed.
Truly mind-boggling—did she burn through a billion dollars and still need to raise more money?
Setting Trump aside, I'm glad she's not running the country—a complete dope.