Why I believe the 38% Trumper number is a hoax.

[Baitball Blogger]

Trump is now behind the longest government shut down with the federal workforce. Any employee who is being required to work without a paycheck has to be livid. A good percentage of those federal employees are Republicans. Are you telling me that they aren't pissed enough to send Trump's numbers down?

38%, rock solid? Seriously?

Something isn't adding up.

[MaryMagdaline]

1. He's shooting federal employees on 5th Avenue and

Republican federal employees are still fine with him.

[Shell_Seas]

2. 38% of people are stupid...

No other explanation.

[NCjack]

6. Racism must be stronger than rational thinking about economic self interests. nt

[The Genealogist]

12. Yep

I've seen floating around here a couple of times a story on people with Trump regret, one of whom complained that he is hurting the wrong people. Not that he is hurting people generally, but the wrong ones. The ones who are different from her and deserve pain. This supposed economic anxiety that drew people to Trump is garbage. These deplorables voted for him because he finds detestable the same people they do, and he promised to harass and degrade them.

[treestar]

31. +1

That woman's last name is Minton, if I recall. She stated their real truth. She ought to be called out and made as famous as Joe the Plumber. She made the concession about how they really are thinking.

[lunasun]

40. 100%

[MyOwnPeace]

45. Indeed.........

She is a prison guard now having to "work without pay" and traveling hundreds of miles to work because they closed down another "facility" near her. Her quote:
"I voted for him, and he's the one who's doing this," she said of Mr. Trump. "I thought he was going to do good things. He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

OMG!!! Isn't THAT some reason to vote for somebody?

[Kurt V.]

32. +1

[Squinch]

3. Russian propaganda is very effective. I hope this number goes down, but Putin knows what he's doing.

We need to take him very, very seriously. This truly is a war.

[lilactime]

4. Trump is like religion for Trump supporters. They believe in him

the way fundies believe in God and they will just cling to him harder the more his policies make them suffer.

[anarch]

36. not just "like" - Trumpism actually is a religion

Let's face it, its adherents certainly don't practice Christianity, despite whatever they might call themselves. This is something new.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. There are some people who will not or cannot admit to having made a mistake.

Trump voters who fit this description make up that solid base.

[TheFarseer]

7. People can't admit they're wrong

I work with a bunch of Trumpers and they can always convince themselves it’s the Democrats fault or they would do even worse than Trump.

[NCDem47]

8. Sadly...

When looking the whole country and numbers in even the smallest of fractions, there are MILLIONS of crazies who would love nothing more to than to see the government never be reopened and Trump extinguish Democrats forever.

[ginnyinWI]

9. I think many of them will realize they've been lied to.

In 2016 they were taken in and also hated Hillary and the Democrats. Wanted to believe.

But once they turn, they will turn. There is a certain amount of pride in these rural types, and once they feel ill used, they will be angry and hold a grudge for a long time.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. The mid terms showed Chump's approval among voters at 45%*

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/exit-polls-show-trump-a-major-factor-in-2018-midterm-election-voting/


There are a lot of right wingers in our nation.







*I suspect it has dropped since then and will continue to drop. If I knew his floor I would tell you.

[C_U_L8R]

11. Hypnotized by fact-free right wing media

I’ve seen members of our own family get sucked into that vortex of fear, conspiracy and lies dished out daily by rightwing profiteers. They are the root cause of all this mass delusion. They should be shackled and thrown in silent dungeons for the good of humanity.

[CrispyQ]

53. I thought this article was fascinating.

How the 'propaganda feedback loop' of right-wing media keeps more than a quarter of Americans siloed

By PATT MORRISON
| PATT MORRISON ASKS |
NOV 07, 2018 | 3:00 AM

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-ol-patt-morrison-yochai-benkler-20181107-htmlstory.html


Apropos of your book, tell me if I have this right: This is basically about the asymmetry of how, with the emergence of right-wing media like Fox and websites, and liberal media like the Rachel Maddow show, MSNBC, there emerged a disequilibrium in how each side took on facts, information, etc.?

Exactly. We analyzed millions of stories and we looked at their text, and we looked at how they linked to each other and how they were tweeted and how they were shared on Facebook for three years, from 2015 to 2018.

Nothing came out more clearly than that the right wing was unique, distinct, insular, and that left media and center left and center media were all part of the same ecosystem -- all the way from the editorially conservative Wall Street Journal to genuine left media -- occupy the single media ecosystem where sometimes some sides definitely were pushing political perspectives, but they had to be anchored in reality, because they were part of a media ecosystem where both the producers and the consumers were paying attention to a broad range of media that were committed to some basis in fact, and to having some level of accountability and responsibility for the truthfulness of what was being said.

What has happened on the right wing is that essentially they fell into what we called a propaganda feedback loop. This goes back to Rush Limbaugh, since 1988. So it's really not a new phenomenon of the internet.

It’s a good 30 years in the making, where all of the media outlets compete with each other on how sharply they stoke the confirmation bias, the identity of the partisans, and police each other for deviations -- not from the truth but from the party line.

I can see the effects in my family. The ones who listed to rw radio/Fox are die hard Trumpers.

[C_U_L8R]

54. After 30 years of toxic dribble

the rightwing cancers are really setting in.
It's just horrible what they've done to our country.

[yardwork]

13. "You can fool some of the people all of the time..."

About one-third of the U.S. population believes a completely fabricated version of reality.

Off the top of my head, I guess that these people don't know anything about the impact of the government shutdown, and when they think about it at all, they assume the Democrats are to blame for refusing to protect the country from an invasion of criminals. They are told this false version of reality every day, on their Facebook feed, Fox News, AM radio, various internet sites they frequent, and by the president.

[Polly Hennessey]

14. I would think that

28 to 33 percent of the population would never change. If memory serves me, those were the numbers that Bush II never lost. Their brains are fogged beyond correcting. The 38 percent is probably an exaggerated figure.

[Baitball Blogger]

20. That's my point exactly.

28 or 33% I can believe. But 38% seems to be a number that has some mathematical meaning. Is that the number that legitimizes or justifies his presidency for some statistical reason?

[Yonnie3]

56. Nixon managed to keep a 24% approval n/t

[Yavin4]

15. He's protecting White people from Mexicans

So, they will support him.

[edhopper]

16. Probably 25% rock solid

the rest are GOP and Right Wingers who think they have to say they approve or will do so as long as the economy is good.

[Sancho]

17. Polls are beginning to show erosion of his base....

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo

Hopefully, it will be over soon.

[Baitball Blogger]

21. I pray you're right.

[tblue37]

18. Think of how when a "prophet" predicts the end of the world and his followers dispose of all

their worldly possessions to wait with him, and then the world doesn't end, instead of turning on the prophet, his dupes simply swallow whatever justification he comes up with and continue in their foolish faith.

[treestar]

33. Yep. It's Jim Jones all over again

Who managed to convince his followers they had nothing left but death. That's how far it can go.

[MyOwnPeace]

46. I have NO problem

with that, as long as it is their death, not mine!

[treestar]

47. And as the saying goes, they drink the kool-aid!

Not us!

[marlakay]

19. 38% of people who vote

A huge portion of our country has nothing to do with politics.

So looking at it that way he has a small very vocal group getting away with a lot because of gaming the system and cheating.

[dalton99a]

22. +1. We're being held hostage by the Trump cult

[wellst0nev0ter]

23. The Crazification Factor

Obama vs. Alan Keyes (in 2004). Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% crazification factor in any population.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crazification_factor

But now with the proliferation of Fakebook and Twitter, the crazification factor became even more outsized

[onenote]

24. The number of furloughed government employees is statistically insignificant

First, you assume that “a good percentage” of the government employees not being paid we’re Trump supporters previously. I don’t know what you consider to be a good percentage but I doubt it’s even 50 percent.

Second, even if 100 percent of the 800000 furloughed workers were Trumpers, there are 246 million people in the US of voting age. Which means that the furloughed workers represent around three tenths if one percent of eligible age voters. Not enough to shift the poll numbers in any meaningful way.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. As one of the employees so aptly put it:

For every employee you have their spouses, children, grandparents and extended family members who are touched by the ripple effect. So, the number who are affected is larger than you think.

[onenote]

27. And the number of those that previously supported trump

is almost certainly smaller than you think. Plus as we see here daily support for Trump can and does transcend family ties.

Last November republican house candidates got nearly 45 percent of the vote, which makes his 38 percent support number unsurprising

[Baitball Blogger]

30. Yes, but how many of that 45% were zombie brainwashed into believing that Trump must be tolerated

because of the great economy numbers?

Where are those numbers today?

[onenote]

35. Two months later? Probably not a lot different

You underestimate the devotion these folks have to Trump.

[jberryhill]

37. Do you agree with everyone in your extended family?

[standingtall]

26. 800,000 may seem like a lot of people but it is very small compared to the rest of the population

Most people don't even know a Government worker who is out of work due to this shutdown. Wait until this drags on longer and it starts directly effecting everybody then you will see Trumps numbers sink even more.

[Baitball Blogger]

29. See my comment 25.

[onenote]

39. By the way

For every employee you do not necessarily have a spouse and two living parents and four living grandparents and a sibling or two or a child or two.

As the impact of the shutdown spreads throughout the economy the polls may change - but remember that the true believers in trumpism will blame the Democrats not Trump.

[jberryhill]

28. Federal employees aren't even 1% of voters

Federal employees wouldn’t be much of a blip in poll numbers.

[elleng]

34. Ignore or take polls with a ton of salt.

[anarch]

38. it is a full-on cult

You'd have to de-program literally like 100 million people who are currently incapable of rational thought when it comes to their deity. If you have the misfortune of talking to one of these 'Evangelical' MAGATs, you'll see what I mean; there is no reasoning with them.

[healthnut7]

41. Totall agree with cult like.

Wonder if they would drink a poison cocktail if he asked them to. They are 100% in with anything he says and does. Pretty sad!!

[anarch]

42. I think they would do a lot worse than that; this is Jonestown x a million n/t

[Brawndo]

57. Here's an idea

Start up a GoFundMe which will pay tRump personally if he will give another Oval Office Address and announce that his voters should eat a box of Tide Pods. Then it'll drop below 38%. They've proven that they are lemmings, so use their nature against them and he'll do anything for money anyway. Just saying.

[2naSalit]

43. Yeah, since it never seems to change.

I think that's an engraved number and isn't allowed to move. I have been suspicious of that for over a year now.

[beachbum bob]

44. 38% is a true number for trump base suppprt, if we see substantial

movement down from that, trump and GOP are toast

[lunasun]

48. Yes but their black coworkers are hurting more so it is all good and the wall is an emergency

I feel sorry for the non cult ( non Rs) caught up in this mess missing paychecks but do not count on any cult members just because they are government employees turning away from daddy trump

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-trump-shutdown-african-americans-federal-workers-backpay_us_5b6dc763e4b0530743c9b2fd

[CrispyQ]

49. They blame the dems for the shutdown.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but they don't care. Logic is not a priority to them, only a narrative that fits with their worldview.

[LongtimeAZDem]

50. It's at least that much, sad to say, even of you toss out Rasmussen:

President Trump Job Approval

[Grasswire2]

51. what if we correlate that number to the number of FOX watchers?

Are the numbers the same?

Does FOX own 38 percent of cable news audience?

[NNadir]

52. You can fool some of the people all of the time.

All of the people have never been fooled by this fraud. He's a minority President.

[NotASurfer]

55. Almost like somebody is spoofing US phone numbers

And skewing phone polls?

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. Which poll? Are you comparing with the same poll before the shutdown? (nt)