Yeah, Texas is totally in play....
I always knew they were cooking the polls. They did in 2016 (even despite correcting in the last few weeks), and they're doing it again.
It's not hard to produce a cooked poll with methodology that looks legit, but the outcome is almost pre-determined. It's all about your sampling.
Because modern elections have actually low turnout, its not enough to qualify your sample by registered voters. Not even self-described likely voters is enough. You need to weight your sample so that it's somewhat representative of actual turnout, especially by party ID. But what is the actual turnout going to be? Nobody knows, so you take your best guess - ideally by drawing upon hard data like recent election results, voter registration data, and measures of voter enthusiasm. But there's nothing from stopping you by putting your thumb on the scale to raise let's say Dem turnout and depress Rep turnout. If suppression polling is part of your strategy (as it has been for Dems for 20 years, esp during the Obama years and today), it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But wait, there's more!
Voter data has gotten so sophisticated that you can microtarget neighbourhoods for specific demographic categories. Sample a retirement community in Beverly Hills and you'll get a ton of over 65 Democrats. Sample a Republican-leaning district in the DC suburbs on the Virginia side and you'll get an outsized population of likely-voting NeverTrump Republicans.
What I think u/dragonjock27 has done is pin-pointed the thumb on the scale. Nobody on God's Green Earth can believe with a straight face that the entire USA, including red states, has shifted 10-15% in the Democrat's favor since 2016. No way a trend like that is possible without either a massive depression in Trump voter enthusiasm, big independent shifts to the Democrats, or defections from the Republican side. In fact all of those indicators point in the opposite direction. What's worth noticing as well is that if the Presidential polling is skewed at least 5-10% in favor of Democrats, the downticket races are very likely similarly skewed.
Just remember, sometimes the sample will look legit-ish by partisan and demographic splits, but unless you know what their sample actually is, they could very well be playing microtargetting games like what I described. And sometimes they're so lazy covering up the bias that the partisan split is openly biased in favor of Dems. I've seen D+10 and higher oversamples!. I've seen samples where the numbers on their face don't add up and work against Trump.
And that's before we talk about systemic problems in polling, not least of which is the shy Trump voter effect which is very very real.
I don't want to say that the polls are dead wrong and Trump is totally winning. I did call 2016 in his favor, with reasonably accurate state predictions (I called Michigan and Pennsylvania too) but I actually predicted him doing better than he did. I thought he would get Virginia for instance.
But I'm far more confident of victory now than I was in 2016. There is definitely voter fraud at work, but I think Trump has too much of a lead in the key states to steal the election. I think he will improve on 2016, but the X-factor is how well do the Democrats turn out in the end (+/- the dead person vote).
Republican turnout I'm not worried about. Democrats are hopped up on Trump-hate but they're exhausted. Trump voters by comparison are resolved. They won't just turn out, they'll make sure everyone they know who is on some level a Trump supporter votes.
He says what everyone is thinking, which is "HARRY, GET OUT NOWWWWW!"
Preach!
But he had the baby with her. He ain't getting away that easy, even if he's done simping.
My money is on an eventual divorce. Just can't predict when. But guaranteed they will. Not exactly a bold prediction, but an accurate one methinks. Harry will miss his balls and resent her. She'll get tired of being the modern day Wallis Simpson and start branch-swinging/plotting her exit strategy.
The dynamic I'm predicting is probably in early stages now. Give it a few years.
The Biden campaign is going to collapse. Maybe not literally, but this is Emperor Has No Clothes. You have to be brainwashed to take this guy seriously.
There's a curious thing that happens when the Left starts playing the politics of personal destruction on someone.
Nobody really knows what it's like until you're on receiving end of it, and the best metaphor I can think of is facing down an angry mob. The only difference is the threat of imminent violence, and even then in many cases it's not that far off with the death threats and the stalking/invasions of privacy.
They go after your ego, they go after your family. They go after your job, and your good name. They hack your emails, dig up anyone who's ever held a grudge, twist your personal history until it's unrecognizable. They even try to turn anyone in your circle against you, and the closer they are to you, the more pressure is brought to bear because they could be that much more damaging.
We saw it with Nixon, with Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh. With Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. Countless examples, great and small.
And the only way to weather the storm is to do what Trump has done, and even then it's taken a terrible toll on him in almost every conceivable metric. Likely even shortened his lifespan. And he still hasn't won yet.
Sarah Palin's big mistake was not being able to endure. Not being able to keep her head up, shrug off mistakes, and bring her A game. I don't blame her for this. Her family was one gigantic target and the Left went after them without mercy, in a way that utterly destroyed the old norms about attacking a candidate's family, even their children!
She had no idea how much of a target she was and once she did, there was no way back. Even when she went back to Alaska to lick her wounds, the left followed her home and fatally sabotaged her Governorship with a particularly nasty case of lawfare. Resigning was the most responsible and unselfish response she could possibly muster and she still gets flack for it, even on the right too.
Sarah Palin is one of those great examples of a screwed hero that litter history. Someone that could have been great or was great, but was set up to fail, not allowed to win, or betrayed by faithless allies.
The media should burn in hell for the pain and suffering they've inflicted on people. And of all the people who deserve retribution, Sarah Palin has to be near the top of the list.
I hope Donald Trump makes her Secretary of Energy or something similar after he's re-elected. Her support was crucial for helping Trump win the GOP primary, and she deserves a second act simply just to stick it to the rotten bitches and bastards who sanctimoniously prattle about feminism and mocked her as "Caribou Barbie".
Yep it was a huge story and then it disappeared. Why? The emails made her look too good.
How many Governors could have all their emails published and come out of it looking better than they did before?
I always felt that Letterman was a bit of a player hater, kissing celebrity ass but his jokes always had a nasty sarcastic edge to them like he was covertly mocking them.
But that joke was so below the belt and so crass that that was when I lost all respect for him.
The funny thing is, if you look at her record purely from the standpoint of executive experience, she was the real deal. She took on the Alaskan swamp and won. She took on Big Oil, and won - in a state OWNED by Big Oil. She had an 81% approval rating and a laundry list of achievements in a remarkably short period of time.
Her problem was she had next to no experience with the national media, and had to go from being a small state Governor to a candidate for national office with virtually no lead time. What really showed through with Palin was that she had no serious political minds in her circle. Because it only would have taken one to tell her that McCain's VP slot was a poisoned chalice. There was no way McCain could have won, the media was all-in on Obama and the better she did, the more of a target she would have become. She was set up to fail, long before the media got involved.
And the sad part was, she didn't need the VP pick anyway. She had the ambition and political instincts to take her beyond Alaska, she just wasn't ready in 2008 and her record was a smidge too thin (which is ironic given that Obama's in 2008 was non-existent, and McCain had no real executive experience to speak of).
If she had stayed out of 2008 and gotten re-elected as Governor, she would have been in an infinitely stronger position and emerged in 2012 as an easy VP candidate, if not a Presidential contender in her own right. She also would have had that time to gain more experience, more national exposure, more understanding of the national political scene, better network, and build a real team. If she hadn't gotten involved with McCain in 2008, she might be Vice President today.
Ain't it amazing how Democrats always get the judges they'd want on certain cases.
If the federal judiciary is this riddled with corruption, no wonder Trump and Yertle the Turtle are placing such an emphasis on confirming lower court judges.
For real.
Like many, I began as a skeptic. Was already classical liberal/libertarian, thought the GOP were wimps and the Dems pure cancer and the media fake AF. I was already there on those things, I just didn't believe Donald freaking Trump of all people could do anything about it.
I started to take him seriously after he won the nomination, and it was clear that he wasn't just being a troll or pulling a publicity stunt/ego trip. Then the email leaks started, then I started taking a closer look at the swamp and I realized the enormity of what Trump was facing. I already knew the Obama admin was shady and fundamentally corrupt, and the media totally covering for it, but goddamn.
The whispers about the pedos and Epstein (first really found out about him then) pushed me over the edge. The Billy Bush tape and how Trump handled it made me a believer. They kicked him in the balls and went for the throat and he knocked them on their ass. That was when I knew he was gonna win.
Then I was fully red-pilled and I thought I knew what was going on. That's before we got a massive 4 year long political battle that makes House of Cards look like a tempest in a teapot. You thought Seth Rich was fucked up? Now we've got Antifa cells gunning Trump supporters down in the streets.
I remain convinced that Trump is gonna pull a Michael Corleone, swoop in and arrest the bastards all in one fell swoop. But in order for that to work, the Democrats have to go their full distance. Trump has to criminalize his opposition because his opposition are committing crimes! By rights, he could make war on them using the Insurrection Act, but he's going through proper channels, letting Barr and Durham build their cases. But to make it stick, the American people have to accept the truth, and the Democrats are making easier day by day. We're at 50% now, conservatively. Within a month, it could be 55% easily. In order to win this election, it has to be won before election day. And it has to be decisive. Spygate is the means, but the people have to be ready first. Ready to say no more. Ready to tell the Karens and hopped-up college kids to shut the fuck up and let people live their lives or else tell it to the judge. That's why the left is going after the cops.
The root of all law is the right of individuals and communities to defend themselves and their freedom from those who have no respect for either. And who would of thought that it would be Donald Trump of all people to recognize that that truth was under siege and he needed to devote all of himself if necessary to that cause. There's a reason why there's uncanny parallels between him and Lincoln.
Collectivism is the root of this cancer, just as racism was the root of the cancer of slavery. The left took itself over the abyss because they as individuals let other people do their thinking for them. And those people will be shown in time to be psychopathic power-mad criminals - exactly what they daily accuse Trump of being on the slightest pretext. With luck, we will be more successful finishing the job with compassion, wisdom, and justice, than the Republican party of Reconstruction.
All we are seeing today is the lessons of history repeat themselves because we failed to learn them the first time. Thank God we at least have a Trump where we need a Churchill or a Lincoln.
Tim is pissed. And good on him for it.
To be honest, the chaos and bullshit we're seeing to me is proof that Spygate is real and it is coming. It has to be otherwise none of this makes sense.
I can understand the left hating Trump on a gut emotional level and not liking his policies, but they are treating him and his supporters as an existential danger. Something worthy of crossing the Godzilla Threshold. Because if they don't win, the reckoning they will face will destroy the left for generations. Already the Democrats are courting political self-destruction, tack on Spygate, the COVID hoax, and all the incidents of gross corruption that we know about, and the Democrat brand will be forever tarnished.
When Trump wins, admitting to being a Democrat will be like admitting to being a segregationist or one of those 1930s fascists who thought Hitler was just misunderstood. We just have to get there first. John Durham, where the fuck are you.
See I don't get this shit. What do you gain from mouthing off and being passive-aggressive with a cop? All that happens is you get arrested. Even if you think they're doing something totally illegal, the move is to comply and then lawyer up. Refusing lawful requests just gives them excuses and justification which the exact last thing you want to give to an asshole cop.
This is nothing more than play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I come across so many people today who are unbelievably cynical and nihilistic. They think that because life is inherently unfair and the system isn't perfect ---> everything is a lie, everything is corrupt, the rules don't apply to me because my excuse is everything is bullshit anyway.
The problem with that is even if the world is just as shitty as they think it is, they're still choosing to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, even just for themselves.
They basically want you to act like you’re not judging them. Don’t look at me like I’m about to attack you even though I’m creeping up and looking like I’m about to attack you! That’s racist!
It's worse than just "don't judge me". It's "the rules don't apply to me". A couple of these assholes might be psychopaths without a conscience, but most of them are not. They know what they're doing is wrong, that's why they try so hard to justify themselves and equivocate, lie, and play bullshit games.
The antidote is stop giving assholes and liars the presumption of good faith. Laugh at whatever bullshit they concoct to excuse their bad behavior and hold them accountable as you would want to be held accountable.
It's strange. I'm about as anti-authority as a person can get and still be sane-ish, but this is what happens when people grow up with weak authority figures in their life who either excuse or ignore their bad behavior. Behind every narcissistic guy is an indulgent mother.
Others have said it and it's true, this is something that sons learn from fathers. When you behave like a bully, do dumb shit that harms others, and generally don't give a damn about simple and fair rules - there are consequences.
Men have to learn self-control and self-discipline, because otherwise they turn into pieces of shit at best, and monsters at worst. Women have to learn it too - see a woman who behaves like a shit and does all sorts of underhanded and unethical shit, and guaranteed you'll see a bad or absent father.
Mothers teach us how to care for ourselves and others. Fathers teach us to go after what we want and be responsible for ourselves.
Only the worst kind of bully disparages or undermines the inherent right to self-defense. Remember that.
People who say shit like that are after power and should not be trusted, respected, or given the presumption of good faith.
The only people who are threatened by the notion of self-defense are people who want to be able to harm you and get away with it.
These days, more than ever before, it is of critical importance to speak the truth unflinchingly.
When people choose to go mad and ignore reality, refusing to speak the truth for fear of their anger is caving to the mob. It's subscribing to the lies. And every person who knuckles under makes the lie that much stronger and demoralizes everyone who would speak the truth if they knew they aren't alone.
I know why GEOTUS is handling these riots the way he is. The way local politicians are responding is one of the most shameless derelictions of duty I have ever seen. People need their noses rubbed in that truth. Coming their rescue allows them to hide and pretend that responding to the riots in their cities is Trump's responsibility, not theirs.
But we can't ever forget that there is terrible collateral damage from this. David Dorn was a good man who did not deserve to be murdered, no matter which way you slice it. 100 George Floyds do not justify his cold-blooded execution. You want a real martyr? His name was David Dorn.
There is a terrible reckoning coming the left's way. The kind I can't think of a precedent for other than the devastation the South brought upon itself, fighting a war in defense of their supposed right to deny others their rights. It probably won't be a literal repeat of Sherman's March to the Sea, but the people responsible for these riots and the people making excuses for them have one helluva karmic debt on their consciences (if they had one). And sooner or later, and somehow that debt will be paid.
bEsT cANdiDatE eVar!
This is what they say when they have nothing of substance to say.
The media is cancer, fake news at 11.