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[Sirus]

Err, you guys do know that Her Majesty died fifteen years ago, right?

We have a long-standing tradition of taxidermy in the UK.

You must dabble in animatronics as well

[mainiac]

Not to mention ghostwriting.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Lowest Congressional approval ratings during an election in history.

Shit, at this rate they're going to end up below Fidel Castro again. They're still below Communism if I'm remembering right.

[mainiac]

It's a very meaningless statistic however.

[MaximumZero]

Something is very wrong with the country when a massive dissatisfaction with the way our leaders do their jobs is meaningless.

[mainiac]

Something is very wrong with the country when a massive dissatisfaction with the way our leaders do their jobs is meaningless.

That's not what the statistic is measuring though.  The statistic is measuring pretty much nothing.  There's way too many factors that go into it and while many of those factors are quite interesting it doesn't provide information about any of them.  It's an example of a statistic that sounds important because it's related to important statistics but is actually devoid of any appreciable value.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Actually, I disagree. That statistic is quite important. It demonstrates how disappointed the American electorate is with their elected leadership. Numbers this low would typically express themselves in a general trend towards increasing protests and reformation movements. If those don't work you will start to see increased risk of rioting for unpopular  things. A state of severe hardship actually risks the formation of honest to goodness revolutionary factions. America is a bubbling cauldron. A tinderbox. This number shows it clearly. I'm not saying this is going to happen, it's just increased risk. Except protests and reformation movements. Too late for that.

[palsch]

The problem with general congressional approval is you don't have control over congress as a whole. You have control over your one congress critter and the two senators for your state. Those three individuals can pander to you directly, pissing off the rest of the country, with impunity. The same goes for every other district's representatives.

In the end each individual in the US could approve of only 1/50th of the Senate and 1/435th of the House and still end up voting every single member back in in a landslide for the status quo.

The idea that congress ever breaks 50% approval stuns me.

[mainiac]

Actually, I disagree. That statistic is quite important. It demonstrates how disappointed the American electorate is with their elected leadership.

http://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

[mainiac]

Romney says that 47% of Americans are lazy freeloaders who want handouts.

Meanwhile in the real world many of those freeloaders have a higher tax burden then Romney himself because those lazy freeloaders are paying payroll taxes and sales taxes and property taxes (indirectly through higher prices/rents mostly).  Romney claims without proof to pay at least 13% of his income in taxes which going from these quintiles means roughly 60% of Americans paid a higher rate then him just counting the federal burden.  If you look at the state and local burdens (which fall harder on the poor then the rich) then it doesn't seem too unlikely that a clear majority of the freeloader class pays more in taxes then Romney does.

And even that's really understating the sheer willfull blindness of the statement.  Most people with low income tax burdens in America have low burdens for a simple reason: they are retired.  The non-retired mostly consist of those who are disabled or laid off and still seeking work.  These aren't freeloaders, they're people who earned they're way in the past.  They earned what they get with hard work.  But someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth thinks that people who actually work for a living have a sense of entitlement.

It isn't said enough: eat the rich.

P.S. The real irony in all this is that the largest group of that the largest group of the 47% Romney is slimming, the retired, are the most likely group to vote for him.  It is a strange, strange universe that Republican voters have concocted for themselves.

P.S.S. graph from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romney-my-job-is-not-to-worry-about-those-people/
lays it out very well.

[Leafsnail]

If calling 47% of the electorate lazy freeloaders who are beyond help doesn't lose you an election I don't know what would.  I mean, add on his 0% of the black vote and he's lost it right there.

[mainiac]

Unless you assume that every black person is a lazy freeloader.

[Zrk2]

Unless you assume that every black person is a lazy freeloader.

This is probably his logic. The man is an idiot, and to compound that he doesn't even have the spine to be stupid consistently.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

See, the thing is that he's not really that far-right but he has to pretend to be. He's just not good at it.

[mainiac]

See, the thing is that he's not really that far-right but he has to pretend to be.

So the conventional wisdom says.  But what evidence exactly do we have that he isn't as right wing as he acts?