Palko writes:
One poll and I’m a bit suspicious of it, but still
U. of North Florida poll, FL reg voters
Trump 50
Biden 43DeSantis 51
Biden 426 wk abortion ban, no exceptions
Support 22
Oppose 75Concealed carry
Support 21
Oppose 77Ban CRT/DEI on campus
Support 35
Oppose 61
Seems plausible.
P.S. I’m posting this to appear a few months in the future so maybe more polls on this will have come by then.
When I see results like these I return to this study: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/incongruent-voting-or-symbolic-representation-asymmetrical-representation-in-congress-20082014/6E58DA7D473A50EDD84E636391C35062
It paints a compelling case for the paradigm that people use (at least) two schemas when evaluating their support for political representatives. In one schema voters evaluate if the representative supports the same things the voter supports. In the other schema voters evaluate how well the representative adheres to the positions the voter’s identity aligns with, regardless of the voter’s actual policy positions. As it turns out, American liberals mostly use the first schema and American conservatives mostly use the latter.
I remain perplexed about the value/danger of polls. This one had response rates < 5%. You can "adjust" for all the things you want, but ultimately it is a small minority of people that respond, and I doubt how carefully they think about their answers. The fact that such polls potentially influence things (like today's Economist poll which reports an deterioration in Trump support from a 75% chance of winning to 66% – I could have those numbers wrong, but who cares?) continues to bother me. Democracy in action? My opinion of the American electorate keeps declining rapidly, so the "value" of such polls becomes ever murkier.
So, the polls strike me as sport – who is trending, who is not, who is ahead? Surely that is important to many people – but it reduces the task to how to move the needle in the next poll. That has little to do with how to best formulate policy or how to weigh competing values and interests. I don't know what Palko was referring to in the results – people express a bunch of views, often contradictory. The biggest inconsistencies appear to be the difference between their views on specific issues and the candidates they support (that's what I am seeing with strong support for DeSantis despite strong opposition to most of the policies he advocates). Surely that is an unhealthy sign about American politics – the candidates we get to vote for are largely detached from the issues we care about. Then the polling game becomes more about allegiance to a candidate rather than the competing issues that need to be resolved.
Dale:
I do not think the value of polls is just “sport.” I agree with George Gallup that knowledge of public opinion is an important aspect of democracy. If 75% of Floridians oppose a 6-week abortion ban, that’s important to know. I agree that the 75% estimate is not perfect, but I doubt it’s far off.
I’ve seen you express this before and I am not quite convinced. There are two parts of “knowledge of public opinion” that concern me. First, what do polls with <5% response rates tell us about "public opinion?" Second, do the responses to the questions constitute "knowledge?" A fair question would be "compared to what?" Isn't it better than nothing? I'm not so sure.
The first (low response rates) issue permits a small, potentially unrepresentative, sample of the population to steer discussion and decisions. The second (knowledge) is information with no accountability. A person can say the favor policy X, but it doesn't tell us much. Even a more sophisticated question (do you favor policy X if it costs $Y to implement and $Z of ongoing costs?) does not require truth-telling, nor can the question be sophisticated enough to tell us much other than the immediate feeling the question prompts in the respondent.
In the abstract, I agree with you and George Gallup. It is hard to imagine democracy functioning without knowing what people think and feel. But the reality seems to be further and further from this abstract and I am no longer sure. Polls are not the only way to measure public opinion – focus groups may be a more fruitful method to collect data. Similarly, numerical course evaluations I find far less valuable than written or verbal comments. Star ratings for restaurants and hotels tell me far less than the written reviews. Polls, like the numerical ratings, simplify things – but at the risk of losing the valuable information and losing the opportunity for discussion. It assumes that voters' views are fixed and the point is to discover what these are. I think voters views are imperfectly formed, often inconsistent, and largely divorced from discourse and feedback from other people. That makes polls look a lot more like sport than meaningful democracy to me.
It was eye-opening to me learning that there is no necessary connection between voting and democracy. In fact voting has been considered *anti-democratic* until the last few centuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
There are arguments for oligarchy/republic over democracy, but that is a seperate issue. Put into historical context it is no surprise that voting (or support for candidates in polls) is only loosely related to public opinion.
Knowing that is important to whom? Surely one’s beliefs should be held based on their principles and knowledge of the topic, not on how popular something is. We shouldn’t just support something because everyone else does. So, I’m not sure opinion polls are important to the average person, aside from perhaps giving some broader background information on society. Perhaps they are more important for political representatives, except we already know that representatives often don’t take the positions that are broadly supported. And, in some cases, they shouldn’t do what is popular but what is necessary and in the best interests of everyone.
What I take away from the poll is the problematic system that has people’s opinions on various issues forced into support for one or another party. People should vote for positions on issues, not for parties.
Jason:
Sure, I’m not saying you should support abortion rights or the death penalty or a higher minimum wage or whatever, just because that’s what a majority of people in the country believe. I just think that understanding public opinion is helpful in understanding politics and policy. It makes sense for policymakers, not to mention vote-seeking political groups, to have some sense of public opinion. You say, “we already know that representatives often don’t take the positions that are broadly supported” . . . it’s good to know these things, not just in general terms but on specific issues. It’s not absolutely necessary to know this, just as it’s not necessary for people to read history books and know the history of WW2 or whatever. History and political facts are interesting in their own right and in how they connect to our understanding of the social world.
Andrew wrote, “Seems plausible.” Yet, the poll has Biden losing by a lot although the each of the three hot-button issues has the Democratic position winning handily. Perhaps I am confused by the link itself because the word “ban” in the link appears on the first (as a noun) and third item (as a verb) but not at all on the second:
6 wk abortion ban, no exceptions
Support 22
Oppose 75
Concealed carry
Support 21
Oppose 77
Ban CRT/DEI on campus
Support 35
Oppose 61
One wonders how often questions are posed such that accidentally or on purpose the respondent is confused by the wording.
There’s been lots of news about voters thinking Biden is terrible on the economy and that Trump would be much better. Also a lot of people think Biden is either in cognitive decline or almost certainly will be by the time he’s in his mid-eighties. A lot of voters might agree with the Democratic position on some issues but still prefer Trump.
Phil
I’m not sure what your point is. There are certainly voters who feel the way you describe, but they have no evidence that Trump has any less cognitive decline, nor any good evidence that Trump would be better for the economy. The disconnect between issues, evidence, and voting intentions seems profound to me. Isn’t that what this post is about – the disconnect between issues and candidate preferences? Of course the disconnect can be “resolved” by simply creating an alternative reality where the issues align with voting preferences, and that seems to me exactly what many Trump voters do (and what he encourages them to do).
Dale,
Paul said “the poll has Biden losing by a lot although the each of the three hot-button issues has the Democratic position winning handily” and he seemed to think that’s hard to explain. I don’t think it’s hard to explain.
A lot of people seem to like Trump’s position on a lot of issues. Rich people like the idea that he will extend the 2017 tax cuts or even increase them. Lots of people would like to see illegal immigration stopped and think Trump would do that better than Biden. Lots of people blame Biden for high energy costs and think Trump would bring them down. Some substantial fraction of people don’t like handouts to college kids who borrowed money to go to school, and some other people don’t like the idea of someone with a penis, testicles, an Adam’s apple, who has testosterone coursing through their system, competing on a girls’ swim team.
Not that it matters to my point, but I am not one of the people I am describing. Trump is mentally ill and I’m appalled that he was able to win the presidency once. I’m even more appalled that he is positioned to do it again in spite of having tried to remain in office after losing the election, even raising a mob to storm the Capitol. But my feelings towards Trump don’t blind me to the fact that a lot of people prefer his policies on some issues.
Phil
That leaves much unexplained. People can say they like Trump’s policies, but why do they believe those are his policies. Sure he’s been consistently against immigration (though he just said he wants to give green cards to anybody that graduates from a 2 or 4 year college), but many of his other positions are subject to change. He’s already gone on the record saying that his first amendment rights guarantee he can say whatever he wants – and, in the case of his NY fraud case, that it is the buyer who needs to do due diligence – he has no responsibility to tell the truth. And, in political terms, he has shown that he is willing to lie. So, when you say that people may like his policies more than Biden’s, that is no doubt true but begs the question of why they believe his policies. That I find “hard to explain.” It is something different than liking his positions – it is a sort of devotion and tribal loyalty that is quite foreign to me.
Dale:
People believe Trump will implement certain policies because that’s what he did as president in his previous term. He ended Federal training for the infamous critical race theory; he reduced taxes; he slimmed down the government – especially the EPA; he ended the war in Afghanistan; he established a rule that Federal rules implemented for some purpose must be evaluated to ensure that they achieve that purpose – a rule the Biden admin promptly eliminated! – and streamlined business regulation.
AFAIK, Trump does not have a record of protecting free speech, however Biden has established a very strong record of attempting to crush free speech, so there’s nothing to lose with Trump.
Beyond that, if we go back to 2016, part of Hilary’s big problem was that she campaigned on continuing further along Obama’s policy path – a path which many people hated. I voted for Obama in 2009 as a conservative Democrat but by 2012 I was outraged with most of his policies. I’ll never forget his refusal to stop native Americans from blocking a legit pipeline project. Obama still supports outrageous policies as demonstrated by his support for hamas, is still a major force in the Democrat party, and is still a reason to vote against Democrats.
I’m with Phil: Trump is among the worst possible choices for president, and the Republicans are among the worst possible parties to govern. But I’m not with Phil on the alternatives. Tragically, as horrendous as Trump is, Biden – and at the moment any Democrat except perhaps Manchin – is a few notches lower. Democrats have completely dumped the practicality that Bill Clinton embraced and tumbled head over heals into a kind of supercharged Woke-BLM ideology that is already heading down the road to disaster – just like the same policies have in many cities. I would vote for almost anyone that seemed willing to stop it.
chipmunk
I don’t have the energy to fact check. I did look at your claim that Trump “slimmed down the government” and it doesn’t show up in the data. No doubt he trimmed down some categories, but overall federal spending increased during his term. He promised to “drain the swamp” and indeed he placed his own swamp creatures in their stead. Your takes on Biden are laden with your own opinions – ones that I do not share. Trump indeed dramatically altered the Supreme Court – a dubious achievement. And, regardless of what you might think of critical race theory, Trump can’t be said to improve race relations in the country. Your recounting of history is highly selective I lament the choices we have for president, but I cannot support a bully with no moral compass regardless of the alternative. And the transactional view of politics that you are expressing disturbs me deeply. The purpose of government should not be whether or not it furthers my private interests.
Lol, Chipmunk is living in one of those alternate realities Dale talks about.
Throughout the period 2010-2020 the debt grew both under Obama and under Trump. It grew more slowly under Trump than under Obama’s first term, but that’s because Obama started in 2008 with the complete collapse of the financial system created by 8 years of policies under GWB. Under Obama’s second term and Trumps first term the rate of increase of the debt was essentially identical. You can just fit a straight line through the entire period 2012-2020
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pkJZ (graph shows federal debt divided by CPI)
The idea that Biden represents “woke ideology” is ridiculous. He is after all *arming a genocide in the middle east* and has presided over the *highest level of police killings in recent history*. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4413518-police-killings-record-2023/
The fact is, there’s no one to vote for, only a clearly mentally ill felon pathological liar to vote against.
Some of chipmunk’s claims are too ridiculous to be taken seriously, so I won’t. But I think he’s right when he says we have a good idea of what to expect from a Trump presidency. I suspect you know what a Trump presidency would be like too; after all, isn’t that why you find the idea abhorrent?
In any case I think most voters -think- they know what to expect as far as policies, at least in general terms, even if you believe they’re foolish for thinking that.
Phil, I honestly don’t know what to expect from a Trump presidency. I could imagine he dies of a stroke within the first week and we get some GOP garbage as usual from a weak VP, or complete incompetence plus massive amounts of grift plus Nazis marching in the street like the first time, all the way up to Trump inviting Putin to roll Russian tanks into DC while nuclear missile subs sit 5 miles off the coast and the USMC, Army, and Air Force is ordered to stand down as part of a “pact of security” followed by a complete takeover of the govt followed by some kind of armed conflict and collapse.
It’s a huge range of stuff. What I absolutely CAN NOT imagine is any kind of competence at all.
Daniel,
Trump is enough of a loose cannon that I agree that I can’t be _sure_ what his presidency would be like, but I do think I can do much better than random guessing. He likes fossil fuels and hates wind farms and electric vehicles. He likes red states and hates blue ones. He hates China and likes Russia. He dislikes taxes for rich people and corporations. He dislikes environmental regulation. He likes “strong” leaders and dislikes democratic ones. And so on. Sure, his preferences _could_ change, but if I were betting I would bet that they haven’t. So when it comes to policies, I’d expect reduced environmental regulation and enforcement, decreased taxes for the rich, increased subsidies for fossil fuels, cessation or great reduction in support for Ukraine.
I agree that in the event of another Trump residency we can also expect more grift and more hilarious incompetence — I still chuckle inwardly at the hand-drawn bubble on the hurricane track, and the Four Seasons Total Landscaping conference, and the makes-me-laugh-but-also-cry pronouncement in early 2020 that COVID deaths would “go away in a couple of days” — and I have no answer to you or Dale about why so many people don’t care about basic competence…but they don’t.
But for purposes of this thread, it matters little what you and I think. My response to Paul was based on the idea that the hot-button issues that were polled are not particularly germane to support for Trump vs Biden, because I don’t think those issues are actually the ones driving people’s preferences. You may not know what Trump policies would be, and I may be wrong about what they would be, but if _most_ people think they know, that’s enough to explain the polling, I think…if we assume people think they would prefer Trump’s policies to Biden’s. Don’t ask me to explain why they think that, because I don’t know, but it seems to be the case.
Finally, let’s not forget H.L. Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
You’re right, there’s a clear region of policy space where we’re not “at risk” of having Trump policies. Like, he’s not going to improve food security / SNAP, or expand them to cover all children under 18, or sign a bill providing a federal right to receive an abortion up to 16 weeks, or substantially reduce funding for the military or improve environmental policies related to wetlands, transportation of hazardous chemicals, or improve the slave-like conditions we impose on H1B visa holders.
The part that I’m not sure about is whether people want what he is likely to do, or just want someone who isn’t a career politician. I think people are tired of slick bullshit.
Since Clinton we’ve had Democrats who pushed an agenda of backing the finance industry, pharma, college administrations, patent lawyers, anything that could employ a person with a masters in econ or history or political science or law doing what David Graeber so rightfully called “Bullshit Jobs”. Basically self-dealing because congress is full of poly-sci, law, and such.
And they’ve promised things like major healthcare reforms supporting abortion rights and improving investment in infrastructure… but what we’ve got is declining life expectancy, massive pullback in abortion rights, trains derailing and spilling toxic chemicals, ships slamming into bridges, and wealth inequality never before seen in the history of the universe.
Dems supported the PATRIOT act, Clinton pushed the Clipper chip and put restrictions on exporting cryptography and passed massive giveaways for Disney et al in the DMCA and Sonny Bono act, and supported the bankrupting of thousands of middle class parents because their kids downloaded some songs from Napster for gods sake.
GWB was a disaster who sent us to ridiculous global wars on terror, as was Trump who ran a press conference in the parking lot of a landscaping company and was probably personally responsible for 100k deaths or more due to his COVID bullshit, but in the last ~30 years we had Clinton for 8 years, Obama for 8 years, and Biden for 4 years. Some of those with a majority in the senate. We had an Afghanistan war that extended longer than Vietnam and fell within ~3 days of us pulling out. We have suicide rates that are off the charts. Nancy Pelosi’s trading fund is more successful than the best of the best actively managed mutual funds (due to of course insider trading). Fuck them all with a cactus.
I completely understand the desire to kick them all in the proverbial testicles, but Trump is just a grifter taking advantage of that desire, he’s not a meaningful alternative, he’s a straight up know-nothing Fascist.
As you say, it doesn’t matter what the two of us think, but the one thing we can be sure of is regardless of who we get this election, it’ll get worse before it gets better.
Dale, Phil, Daniel:
I had no idea if Trump reduced government spending or not, nor did I make any reference to him doing so, although I kind of get why you would jump the conclusion when I say he “slimmed down the government”. All of you jump to that conclusion because:
1) it can be taken to be a reference to debt or spending, although my statement doesn’t say or imply that in any way
2) You all believe that I believe common falsehoods about Trump which I don’t, at least not if I’m aware they are false.
When I say Trump “slimmed down the government” I’m specifically referring to the massive regulatory apparatus and as far as I know, he did reduce the regulatory apparatus.
Dale: It’s hilarious that you blame Trump for “race relations” being poor when he never talks about race – o. The group that’s responsible for poor race relations is the left, which has used every opportunity to try to stir up racial disputes going back to the infamous lie “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”.
Daniel: Biden is supporting Isreal in it’s legitmate efforts to eradicate Hamas – a violent terrorist and criminal organization – only because his own home-grown version of Hamas, AKA “BLM”, another violent terrorist and criminal organization, has no money, but he still has some supporters among the moderate left that support Israel and have money, and he needs that money. However, if BLM could replace that money, he’d dump Israel the outhouse and let Hamas run wild.
Phil, I’m not convinced you know how to use a compass.
chipmunk
Yes, I thought you were addressing government spending. There is data regarding regulatory actions (see https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/reg-stats) which shows a mixed picture. I see little evidence that Trump “slimmed down” government regulations, except for the first year of his presidency. As I remember it, that first year he was preoccupied with surrounding himself with loyal swamp creatures and he and the government bureaucracy were too preoccupied to do what bureaucracies do best.
And a great example of how Trump hardly ever talked about race is the great Charlottesville interview (https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/). Of course, race is more than just black and white – Trump’s had plenty to say about some of those other groups – kind of hard to describe how those improved race relations.
I won’t convince you. I’m not even going to try. But you certainly live in a self-constructed world that is different than mine.
Dale,
What I find amusing though is that you ask why people believe such and such about Trump, and when I respond you crap all over everything I say! I wasn’t asking for your opinion. But apparently you’re asking the question because you want a chance to shoot at whoever sticks their head up, rather than a chance to actually understand why they think what they think.
On the “fine people on both sides” comment:
1) This comment does not refer to race in any way shape or form. You have inserted the references to race in your mind, just like you inserted the reference to deficits and budgets into my comment.
2) If Trump’s such a racist, why are two black men on his short list for VP?
That should be enough to answer that question. He’s not a racist. Pretty simple. But of course that won’t satisfy you. Just like pointing out that the US has gobs of highly paid people with dark skin from India and many other skin tones from all over the world, hardly the victims of racism, yet “people of color” are supposedly discriminated against, and successful people are only successful because of “white privilidge”. Why bother with what’s blatantly obvious when there are millions of may-be-possible visible-only-when-squinting subliminal alterantives? Cue “causal inference” and data analysis.
3) This is just another example of ridiculous literalism wildly misconstruing an off the cuff comment of the NPR “Obama Created ISIS” category that has nothing whatsoever to do with race or racism. It’s amazing that, first, you take it as anything other than a quick off the cuff statement that has no thought behind it; and second, more bizarely yet, that you take it as an intentional signal to racists. The interpretation you and the media you reference make out of this is just wildly at odds with any likely reality. But it’s pretty obvious that you – and especially the established black leadership that depends on pedalling racism for a living – deeply fear a world with an even playing field. What would data analysts do if they weren’t turning their tables around this way and that, squinting at them from different angles, to find racism??? The near complete uselessness of statistics for demonstrating anything unequivocally is a never ending gift to the noise-mining advocacy world.
But of course you’ll dispute all fo that.
Dale,
Just one more thought on the “fine people on both sides”.
There’s a book called “Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy” by David Burns. Sounds quacky but it’s very solid science on CBT. It disucsses at length how people misinterpret off-handed comments of the “fine-people-on-both-sides” variety – statements that have no discernable outward indication of the meaning people attribute to them. You should read it. I didn’t read the whole thing. I got the picture in about 50 pages, but it was still well worth the six bucks I paid for it.
Or for that matter just check out that old classic by your namesake Dale Carnegie. Same stuff. Good stuff.
Chipmunk
Guilty as charged. I accept full responsibility for what you accuse me of. At the same time, I find your arrogance breathtaking. Your “level playing field” is a fiction that you apparently feel qualified to recognize and define. I, in fact, don’t like many of the charges of “racism” and share some of your rejection of such claims and the policy recommendations they lead to. But I know that I can’t envision what my life would be like if I had grown up in a very different environment as so many have. I was alive when restaurants, schools, hotels, etc. were still segregated. I am still alive where there is rampant housing segregation and a violent gun culture that so many must grow up in. I don’t pretend to excuse the behavior of those that have, nor do I pretend to know what that upbringing does to a person. Your “level playing field” is simply a fiction that you feel justified to defend. That is pure arrogance. Now I know why you support Trump. Thank you for finally getting through my thick skull to explain that.
Just to clarify the concealed carry question, Florida has wide and relatively easy availability of concealed carry permits, the proposal is to change the system to permit not required. No permit required is now something like 28 states? So anyway, we aren’t talking about a ban on concealed carry just not liberalizing the conditions further.