*** The Official MAGAposting thread ***

[wufwugy]

I'd say you would be right if "approval" was the same thing as "will vote for". Lots of people disapprove yet still vote for.

Also, it's important to note that reasoning from a statistic can only tell us so much. We have to also ask questions like how it makes sense given what we know about the topic. There is a very strong case to be made, which BStand alluded to, that the approval polls are not capturing any meaningful less-good-feel about Trump. Like we discussed yesterday, most people who voted for him are happy and a chunk who normally vote Republican yet didn't vote for him have warmed up. Personally, I have several friends who did not vote for him because they thought he was an ass, but my read on them is that they are likely to vote for him in 2020.



On an unserious note, let's do correlations! Reagan passed major tax cuts in his first year and won in every state except Cuckisota and the District of Cuckumbia. That means Trump will gain bunches of votes! Another correlation! Presidents don't lose reelection when the economy is doing very well.

[Poopadoop]

I'd say you would be right if "approval" was the same thing as "will vote for". Lots of people disapprove yet still vote for.

Apparently that included Banana in 2016 so there you go.

Also, it's important to note that reasoning from a statistic can only tell us so much. We have to also ask questions like how it makes sense given what we know about the topic. There is a very strong case to be made, which BStand alluded to, that the approval polls are not capturing any meaningful less-good-feel about Trump. Like we discussed yesterday, most people who voted for him are happy and a chunk who normally vote Republican yet didn't vote for him have warmed up. Personally, I have several friends who did not vote for him because they thought he was an ass, but my read on them is that they are likely to vote for him in 2020.

The statistic doesn't 'make sense' or 'not make sense' except to the subjective observer. Not agreeing with the statistic doesn't change the fact of the statistic itself. If one person thinks his 'real' approval rating must be higher than 35% this has no more meaning than that another person thinks his 'real' approval rating must be lower than 35%.

The most common problem people have with understanding statistics is appreciating that it's an estimate with various degrees of fuzzy around it. The value of any statistic is a ballpark one and the size of the ballpark is inversely exponentially related to the size of the sample (in simple terms, very small samples result in a very large ballpark, but the ballpark gets smaller as the size of the sample increases). So the world would be better off if all statistics were printed in grey.

That said, for a statistic of approval rating with > 1k samples to be off by more than a few % would be very very rare occurrence, less than 1/1000. Note also that this poll is updated daily and so larger samples with less uncertainty can be gained by averaging over a number of days (as Gallup does using a 3 day rolling average).

Another source of error would be a systematic bias in who is being polled, in how they are asked the question, or w/e. This might be the case, e.g. if Trump supporters were more inclined to hang up the phone or lie when they get questioned than were his detractors. There's no way of knowing if this is true or not, but again in the history of polling it would be an unlikely event for such a bias to exist to such a great extent as to make the poll off by more than a few %.

[wufwugy]

He bears a big cost for that stuff. I think he has since been trying to change on that specifically. Been doing tons of prayers in public and stuff. He probably finally realizes it will take WORK to get those Christian conservatives on his side that don't like him.

[BananaStand]

On an unserious note, let's do correlations! Reagan passed major tax cuts in his first year and won in every state except Cuckisota and the District of Cuckumbia. That means Trump will gain bunches of votes! Another correlation! Presidents don't lose reelection when the economy is doing very well.

Fun game, but if you look into a little bit deeper, Reagan's tax cuts initially drove the economy down. Down hard! His reelection was an insane long-shot at best around 1982

It recovered and he was proven right in time for the election. Trump may not be so lucky. Alot of the "recovery" storyline will be communicated by a media that liked Reagan a little bit better than they do Trump.

[wufwugy]

Fun game, but if you look into a little bit deeper, Reagan's tax cuts initially drove the economy down. Down hard! His reelection was an insane long-shot at best around 1982

It recovered and he was proven right in time for the election. Trump may not be so lucky. Alot of the "recovery" storyline will be communicated by a media that liked Reagan a little bit better than they do Trump.

I don't know the history, though I do know to caution the idea that Reagan's cuts drove the economy down. Why do you say that?

[BananaStand]

I don't know the history, though I do know to caution the idea that Reagan's cuts drove the economy down. Why do you say that?

Go on Netflix, and look up "Eighties"

[wufwugy]

Go on Netflix, and look up "Eighties"

I lied (unintentionally). I do know the history. It was a part of my final project for my degree. The focus was not Reagan or fiscal policy, though, so maybe that explains why I thought I didn't know the history.


Here's the short of it: the recession that began in the middle of 1981 and lasted until near 1983 was not related to Reagan or his tax policy. It was caused by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates in an attempt to drive inflation down.

[BananaStand]

the recession that began in the middle of 1981 and lasted until near 1983 was not related to Reagan or his tax policy.

Doesn't matter. Had it lasted until 1984, people would have blamed Reagan.

No one talks about how Clinton's dergulation fed the housing bubble. They just remember that the recession of 2008 started during the last five minutes of W's presidency, so ZOMG!!! VOTE DEMOCRAT!!

In 2018, the media narrative will tie any bad economic news....ANY bad news at all....to this tax bill.