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[Maximum Spin]

Just got three Trump votes recorded in New York.

[wierd]

"1/5th of people with a strong political allegiance" is explicitly not 1/5th of the entire population.

Seen how polarized the US is?  just about EVERYONE has a strong political allegiance of one sort or another.  The question is how much of an overlap can you engineer between the various political agendas people have strong feelings over.

[bloop_bleep]

I suppose there is confusion over what "strong political allegiance" means. It's a bit of an ambiguous term.

I was wondering about banning corporate campaign donations. Is it really harder to accomplish because most people are already taking corporate campaign donations? I mean, corporate campaign donations help you with reelection, but if both you and your opponent are taking money from corporations in roughly equal amounts, won't banning corporate donations not hurt either of you, but also get whoever gets elected out from under the thumb of their otherwise creditors? If you have a Prisoner's Dilemma situation, except with the added provision that you can force both people to choose the same way, doesn't it make sense to take the "both cooperate" option rather than the "both defect" option? Both Democrats and Republicans take significant amounts of corporate money, right? What gives?

[wierd]

No, because fewer total dollars means fewer total advert spots, and smaller campaign teams doing research and brainwashing behavioral modelling to get you re-elected.


Simply because your opponent has equal access to those funds and other resources, does not mean that removing those resources from both would return the same value.

[bloop_bleep]

No, because fewer total dollars means fewer total advert spots, and smaller campaign teams doing research and brainwashing behavioral modelling to get you re-elected.

But the other guy also would have that. You'd also get less partisan ads on TV from both people. Maybe public exposure of the candidates would be limited to little more than just the coverage of the free press. Maybe less sweeping partisan rhetoric at huge base-motivating rallies and more concrete policy proposals, with the rhetoric relegated to press releases. IIRC Britain has no or very few political TV ads.

[Egan_BW]

"1/5th of people with a strong political allegiance" is explicitly not 1/5th of the entire population.

Seen how polarized the US is?  just about EVERYONE has a strong political allegiance of one sort or another.  The question is how much of an overlap can you engineer between the various political agendas people have strong feelings over.

Tons of people just don't give a fuck.

[Dostoevsky]

The other (well, one of the other) tricky bit about campaign finance reform is 'independent' expenditures. It's not just money donated to candidates, but money spent on behalf of candidates. Sometimes that'll be explicit, in the case of Super PACs, and sometimes that'll be more opaque, e.g. with activities of certain 501c4s and the like doing 'issue ads'. That is, one would have to not only block donations, but regulate politically-related messaging -- something that can quickly become a rabbit hole of hair splitting.

That said, the current legal system is terrible in a lot of ways and could be tightened up, even if getting rid of all the loopholes is an impossible task.

[wierd]

75% of people is "tons of people".

You only need 25%.  Per the study.

[Maximum Spin]

75% of people is "tons of people".

You only need 25%.  Per the study.

The study is also bullshit.

[wierd]

Is there a published refutation? 

[bloop_bleep]

75% of people is "tons of people".

You only need 25%.  Per the study.

Yes, but then you have to take the 1/5 of the 25% that have "strong allegiances" (25% still seems pretty generous to me). You get 5% or less that are potentially violent. Plus there's a big difference between macho weight-slinging that you write down in surveys and brag about to your buddies and actually having the intention of becoming violent when it comes down to it.

[wierd]

No no no.


Again, just about everyone has a strong political leaning of one sort or another in the US, because of how organized an relentless our political apparatus has been using their behavioral modelling and conditioning on people.

Things like Trump getting elected are manifestations of how batshit people have become. (Remember Trump did get essentially HALF the electoral vote.)


It is not "75 percent of people dont have strong leanings", it is "75% of people dont have MY leanings."  Which is NOT the same thing at all.


If you can get 1/5 of every demographic, you get 1/5 of the total population.  That's what I am trying to get you to see, but you keep insisting that "No, its only the strongly opinionated, which are a small demographic."   That is patently and provably false as a preface.  QED-- Trump got elected.

[bloop_bleep]

Things like Trump getting elected are manifestations of how batshit people have become. (Remember Trump did get essentially HALF the electoral vote.)

You'll remember that plenty of people were uncertain between Trump and Clinton, and not diehard fans of either. Both in 2016 and now there are plenty of people who are tired of the whole thing and are waiting for it to be over. The average person is not a flag-waving rhetoric-shouting partisan, not even now. It might just seem that way because if you look at places where there's a lot of flag-waving and rhetoric-shouting you'll find those sorts of people. People without strong political opinions are rather quiet, nearly tautologically.

[wierd]

It's true that a significant demographic existed that voted Trump "For something different" (and boy did they get something different), because they were tired of the status-quo corruption of Clinton and pals (who are purposefully impotent at affecting actual changes)


However, I would estimate that more than 1/5 of the country are rabid Maga hat wearing psychos.  We've had 4 years of his presidency to see how unsuitable for the office he is, and yet, the man still has a significant polling number.


Now--  The "We should just lynch all those corrupt fuckers" ideology is not owned by either the Right or the Left.  That is my point here.  If you combine those from both the right and the left, do you end up with a figure approaching 1/5?

Remember, they do not have to agree on WHO to lynch---

[Egan_BW]

You keep acting like your point is really complex and hard to grasp and that's why we're not getting it.