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[smjjames]

I doubt Trump is personally behind the ads, given that it's a pro-Trump PAC type thing.

[Frumple]

That would be why the words "and co." were used, yes. Mind, given the degree of connection trump has with shit he really shouldn't, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he actually had some kind of controlling decision over that PAC.

... though I see I missed it in the first bit, now that I look again. I blame the headache this has caused, for it hurts.

[Folly]

Something strange occurred to me today. Donald Trump did not win the popular vote. A majority of voters, voted against him. And according to polls, many of the voters who voted for Trump did not want him to be president, but rather they were voting against Hilary; considering Trump the lesser evil if you will. A significant majority of Americans do not want the things Trump represented during the election.
So, Trump was elected to represent the will of the majority of American people. And yet, paradoxically, the only way he could honestly represent the majority is by doing the opposite of all the things he said he would do to get elected.

Democracy is stupid. I mean...I just don't even know how else to put it. At least in it's current form, democracy is batshit fucking crazy.

[Reelya]

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2462

Trump's approval rating drops to 34% on this poll.

A total of 68 percent of voters are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about Trump's relationship with Russia.

Note that these two figures add to more than 100%, so there are in fact a decent amount of people who say they approve of Trump but are still worried that he's a Russian plant.

[smjjames]

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2462

Trump's approval rating drops to 34% on this poll.

A total of 68 percent of voters are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about Trump's relationship with Russia.

Note that these two figures add to more than 100%, so there are in fact a decent amount of people who say they approve of Trump but are still worried that he's a Russian plant.

Eh? Those are completely different figures taking a different look at the same 100%.

[Reelya]

It's from the same poll.

My point is that 34% approve, which leaves 66% who didn't approve. But 68% are concerned about his links with Russia. That means 2% out of the 34% must be "approvers" who have doubts (and it's probably more than that, since some disapprovers might not be concerned about Russia). They're diehards clinging to Trump, but even they are starting to fragment.

[Strife26]

Responsible political participation should have people mistrustful of government even if the person in office is literally Jesus H. Christ.


_{fill in your own natural born citizen joke here}

[smjjames]

If you break it down by party though, it can look completely different, take question 1 for example, approval is split cleanly along party lines, 80 approval / 14 disapproval for Republicans and 4/93 for Dems.

[Reelya]

But that wasn't really what my point was about. I was pointing out that even among the group supporting him, a fair number of those, perhaps 10% of the "pro trumpers" say they are concerned about the Russian links. And those people are the ones likely to switch to disapproval.

Trump's diehard base is likely to bottom out around 25%-27%, that's my estimate. The fact that I was highlighting was that that the "concerned about Trump's Russian links" group overlaps with the "approves of Trump" group, so the cracks are visible.

[Frumple]

Thaaat's not really a clean split politics wise, smj. When there's a 10% difference between one side's disapproval and the other's approval, you're pretty likely to be looking at something indicative of something fairly substantial. Would mean several tens of millions more republicans disapprove of the guy than democrats approve (assuming third party/indies aren't throwing numbers off too badly); abnormal (probably, anyway. would have to compare to other examples) tension within the party and abnormal resistance outside of it.

[smjjames]

@reelya: I know, was just saying that it's also useful to look at how it goes along party lines. Still, with 80% approval on the Republican side and 12% of Republicans being very concerned and 23% being somewhat concerned, that's still a pretty significant chunk of his supporters.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It should be noted that Orange Slice's approval by party is actually really fuckin abnormal. Historically, you tend to get something like 70/30 for a nominally popular President. In the President's party, 70 percent approve and 30 percent disapprove. Out of the President's party, 70 percent disapprove and 30 percent approve. (Not just this data, Pew and Gallup both back me up here.)

Trump, meanwhile, is drastically more polarizing. His approval among Republicans is 10-15% higher than it should be, and his approval among Democrats is now consistently polling below 10%, which may sound right but is insane statistically and historically. Think about how dumb all the people you've met in your life are, how bad judgement a large portion of them seem to have. Virtually all of those people, wise or unwise, who are also Democrats are united on hating Trump. Under 10% means more Democrats approve of extramarital affairs, human cloning programs, and suicide in general than they do Donald Trump. Giant Meteor 2020 isn't even really satirical at this rate, Democrats literally rate human death higher than Trump.

If Trump's Democrat approval drops any further it will enter the territory of approval for re-instituting slavery, voluntary extinction programs, and a violation of the Lizardman's Constant.

[Descan]

You're not taking into account two problems though. (They're linked.)

One: Every poll has a margin of error, and 2% of overlap for two different poll questions (or two different surveys entirely, I'm not sure which) is well within any reasonable margin of error.

And the "the queen is a reptilian" constant; Every poll has some percentage of people, 5% usually, of people who think they're funny, or want to be different, or just want to be left alone, so they either just go "yes yes yes yes goodbye" or pick the silliest answer, like if a poll asks them "Do you think the Queen of England is a secret reptile in disguise?" they'll go "what? Hah. Yeah, sure." Granted, "Trump colluding with Russia" isn't quite to the level of the latter part, but it definitely falls in the "don't care, but I'll answer anyway, for Reasons," percentage.

I'm not saying there isn't any overlap; Just that you can't be sure without actually conducting a survey with those linked, asking people who approve of Trump if they are worried about the Russia connection, or vice versa.

E: Oh, MSH brought one of these up, in an otherwise unrelated post. Weird.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not that weird, we've brought up the Lizardman's Constant in just about every statistical discussion on the forum since SSC coined it. I've posted it like five times myself, and other people have done similarly. It's just a really, really useful statistical concept.

[Descan]

Statistical Society of Canada?