Israel, Britain, Spain, Colombia . . . Trump?

Is it just my imagination, or are we starting to see a pattern here?  A set of election surprises ranging from mild to shocking, with the right always coming out ahead. Polls making modest or even large errors—in some cases even exit polls.

Thus the exit polls suggested that Netanyahu would lose last year’s election in Israel, but he won.  Brexit did just over 4% better than the polls suggested, and it was a very heavily polled issue, in a country with sophisticated polls.  For that matter the Conservatives did better than expected in the recent general election in Britain.  A few days later the conservatives in Spain did considerably better than the polls suggested.  And just a couple days ago we saw the biggest surprise of all—the peace accord being rejected in Colombia, despite polls showing 60% support.  That would be almost like if Goldwater had beat LBJ.  (OK, maybe Colombian polls aren’t that accurate.  But if anything you’d think they might overlook the rural areas, which actually voted for the accord.)

I find the Brexit and Colombian votes to be the most significant, if looking for possible implications for the election over here.  In both cases, voters basically gave a middle finger to “respectable opinion” in the privacy of the polling booth, but were too shy to tell pollsters they were going to do so. In both cases, the people most impacted by the issue (the young in the UK and the rural residents of Colombia (where the war is)) were on the losing side.

Of course voting for Trump would also be giving a middle finger to respectable opinion.  Yes, the Trump polls were accurate in the primaries, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to the general election.  Democrats and/or minorities might be more reluctant than Republicans to admit to supporting Trump.  And perhaps the young voters are too bored to vote.  Clinton would need those young voters to turn out, if she wants to win.

In my view Hillary needs to go after Trump much harder.  What little I see of the campaign (on the internet) seems pretty pathetic, and focused on the wrong issues.  She needs to dramatize the election, so that the turnout is high.

This doesn’t mean I think Trump will win—I’m an EMH person and accept the current 25% odds—it’s just that even that risk seems unacceptably high to me.  I worry that Dems are too complacent.  Here’s a description of the Israeli election:

But there is little dispute that the exit polls on the night of the elections got it wrong in a major way. The difference in the numbers that Israelis saw before they went to sleep Tuesday night and those that surprised them when they woke up the next morning had them – depending on their political sympathies – feeling as if an overnight miracle had occurred or as if their worst nightmare had come true.

PS.  For those who want something monetary, check out this very depressing news story on Japan.

PPS.  Over at Econlog I have a new post on what I got wrong after Brexit.

Update: Scott Alexander reports that Trump has advocated seizing Iraq’s oil and also seizing Libya’s oil.  And on the car radio I hear a Hillary soundbite, complaining that Trump outsourced jobs overseas.  Is she trying to lose this election?

Scott has lots of other examples of Trump’s loony views on foreign policy.  As bad as I thought Trump was, I never realized he was such a warmonger.  He also has dangerous views on North Korea, Iran, ISIS, etc..


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45 Responses to “Israel, Britain, Spain, Colombia . . . Trump?”

  1. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    4. October 2016 at 13:12

    In both cases, voters basically gave a middle finger to “respectable opinion” in the privacy of the polling booth, but were too shy to tell pollsters they were going to do so. In both cases, the people most impacted by the issue (the young in the UK and the rural residents of Colombia (where the war is)) were on the losing side

    The young are not the most vulnerable to Brexit, nor are their opinions more valuable than anyone elses, the nonsense spewed by the bien pensants notwithstanding.

    If I had to go from the correspondence in and out of my own house, I’d suggest its a cross-cultural feature of leftoids that they just have to insert their viewpoint into every crevice, which is why they’re more inclined to talk to perfect strangers about their preferences.

  2. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. October 2016 at 13:21

    If only the young could vote in this primary, Ted Cruz would have given Donald Trump a run for his money (but still have lost) and Bernie Sanders would have won in a landslide. If only the young could vote in this general election, Bernie would win massively.

    “This doesn’t mean I think Trump will win—I’m an EMH person and accept the current 25% odds—it’s just that even that risk seems unacceptably high to me.”

    -Nope, Clinton’s the higher-risk candidate, c**k:
    http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/10/01/he-kept-us-out-of-war/#comment-417598
    BTW, here’s why many polls right now are underestimating Trump’s chances:
    http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/swing_voters.pdf
    In practice, he’s only one to two points down.

    http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/#popular-vote

    “If I were a Brexit fan who didn’t believe in the EMH, I’d claim that the stock market initially fell because investors believed all the dire warnings coming from elite prognosticators, and then rallied when it found out those warnings were false.”

    -I believe the EMH only half the time, I supported Brexit (and still do so), and that’s exactly what I claim now.

  3. Gravatar of Effem Effem
    4. October 2016 at 13:40

    The real surprise is that anyone with “respectable opinions” didn’t foresee that near-record inequality would result in some degree of revolt. Human utility is a game of relative-status.

  4. Gravatar of Jill Jill
    4. October 2016 at 13:49

    The biggest reason why Trump has a chance of winning is because we are immersed in Right Wing propaganda in the U.S. Sean Hannity on Fox has a big man crush, as do lots of people on popular Right Wing web sites and talk radio, which is almost entirely Right Wing. Our immersion in GOP propaganda made both Houses of Congress, most state legislatures, most governorships, and SCOTUS until Scalia dies, all GOP dominated. The only reason the GOP doeon’t have the presidency is because so many black people came out to vote for the 1st black president. That advantage is gone now.

    Amazing that the GOP controls almost everything. And yet people who are dissatisfied with the establishment– and want to vote a big Eff You to the establisment– have been convinced to vote for….the GOP. Now that’s successful propaganda.

  5. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    4. October 2016 at 15:25

    The biggest reason why Trump has a chance of winning is because we are immersed in Right Wing propaganda in the U.S.

    Of course, we are immersed in nothing of the sort. Jill, you have emotionally neuralgic reactions to people who do not see the world as you do. They do not dominate your environment. You simply cannot tolerate them saying anything at all.

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    4. October 2016 at 16:08

    Effem, I hardly think Trump’s support comes from concerns about inequality. He’s promising to slash taxes for billionaire real estate developers down to 15%. His support is coming from somewhere, but not from socialists.

  7. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. October 2016 at 16:26

    Sumner, I am impressed by your 80-point IQ drop (from 145 to 75) whenever you start to talk foreign policy. Hint: the “dangerous views” Trump supposedly held on North Korea were, in real life and in this year, held by Jeb Bush and John Kasich, the very two Republicans you singled out as being superior to Trump, not, you know, Donald Trump, who suggested China deal with it. C**kservatives always like to look ballsy overseas. His views on Iran were the same as those of John Kasich, and better than those of Rubio and Cruz.

    “Scott Alexander reports that Trump has advocated seizing Iraq’s oil and also seizing Libya’s oil.”

    -Holy sh*t, is Trump actually suggesting that foreign interventions should be to benefit Americans instead of maiming thousands of Americans for a giant boatload of nothing? How dare he?! This makes me reconsider my entire support for Trump throughout the year, including my vote for him in the primary! Instead of voting for a man who actually wants to [gasp!] benefit the people of this country if they happen to go to war, I will surely vote for the Destroyer of Libya and Syria, the co-founder of ISIS, the woman who did not renounce Her Iraq War vote for over a decade, the very emblem of such sensible and diplomatic foreign policy as alleging Putin is the “great godfather” of Brexit and Trump and that Putin’s Russia deserves to be treated the same as Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

    BTW, nobody has tried the challenge I’ve laid out in
    https://goo.gl/1hcaj3
    Sumner, go ahead and try it. No googling. Different paragraphs may be by different persons.

  8. Gravatar of Don Don
    4. October 2016 at 17:37

    All the candidates answered the question “which foreign leader do you admire?” How do you think they would answer the question “which foreign central bank do you admire?” Johnson would have no answer and Hillary would probably say “ECB”. Trump would probably say “China”. What is the correct answer??

  9. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    4. October 2016 at 18:43

    ‘ What is the correct answer??’

    Australia. Their last recession was a quarter century ago.

  10. Gravatar of Juan Manuel Perez Porrua Perez Juan Manuel Perez Porrua Perez
    4. October 2016 at 19:19

    About polls, the assumption is that those polls try to portray the state of public opinion accurately. But, I think that, at least to some degree, some of these polls are designed to sway voters in a particular direction.

  11. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    4. October 2016 at 19:20

    ???

    “Fed’s Evans says ‘fine’ with December hike if data stays firm”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/r-feds-evans-says-fine-with-december-hike-if-data-stays-firm-2016-10

  12. Gravatar of Jill Jill
    4. October 2016 at 19:37

    ARt Deco, you say that I can’t tolerate people who do not see the world as I do saying anything at all, LOL. If that were true, I sure couldn’t be on the Internet, where almost everyone is Right Wing. Just about every time I make a comment anywhere on the Net, someone makes some insulting comment like you made. In the real world, almost all talk radio is Right Wing, and Fox is seen as America’s most trusted news source. Perhaps in your world, Fox seems like a liberal network. Are you on Jupiter or what?

  13. Gravatar of Jill Jill
    4. October 2016 at 19:49

    Scott, some of Trump’s support does come from concerns about inequality, in a certain sense. Despite the fact that he is not any champion of the working class, many working class people see him as one anyway. A lot of Trump’s support comes from some fantasy about him based on a thing or 2 he’s said, ignoring the fact that he later made contradictory statements, and the fact that he lies constantly.

    So few people promise to be any kind of (white) working class protector and champion, that it really impresses people when someone claims to be that, even if he is lying– then and always. They just want to hear someone say that.

    Trump is good at telling a certain segment of voters what they want to hear. Once they’ve heard what they want to hear, they close their ears and eyes, and they don’t see or hear anything else he does or says after that. Or if they are confronted with the contradictory things Trump says later, they just make some excuse for it. They’re sort of in love and nothing’s going to stop them now.

    There’s an article in the latest issue of the New Yorker called Trump Town, that explains this well, through interviews with Trump supporters in West Virginia coal mining country. I couldn’t find a way to link to the article on line. It looks like it hasn’t been published on line yet.

  14. Gravatar of eric eric
    4. October 2016 at 21:04

    Stick to your day job, Bro. Political commentary is not
    your forte!

  15. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    4. October 2016 at 21:39

    @ssumner – professor, you’re an economist, not a political scientist. Politics is a hobby for you. Please therefore do a post on this: “according to IS-LM theory, caeteris paribus, an INCREASE in money supply causes the LM curve to shift right, and auto-magically causes a corresponding, equivalent DECREASE in money demand. But the real world is not like that: in Japan they have been increasing money supply for 20+ years with no decrease in demand”.

    Also why you think the LM curve sometimes slopes not upwards but downwards. In Keynesian and classical economics this curve, short term, is either flat or vertical I recall. “Thank you”.

  16. Gravatar of Kevin G Kevin G
    4. October 2016 at 22:31

    People are being delusional if they think Sanders ever had a chance in a general election. Clinton never really attacked him in the primaries because she had a strong base of older minority voters. Voters haven’t noticed that Sanders

    1. Claims not only to support socialism but there are videos of him praising various oppressive latin-american governments.
    2. Is an open atheist
    3. Has written multiple bizarre essays endorsing alternative sexual behavior

    Despite his cult following among millennials, all of these certainly would drive older voters away from him. Huge swaths of older americans don’t trust atheists. Huge numbers of people still remember the Cold War, when socialism was a treasonous word. And his sex essays are almost as bad as Trump’s musings on women.

    Granted none of these points have anything to do with Sanders’s political positions, and I personally would never reject someone based on their personal life. However, you can’t ignore that voters care more about than the issues, and these are instantly disqualifying for huge swaths of the voting population.

  17. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    4. October 2016 at 23:11

    Scott,

    “As bad as I thought Trump was, I never realized he was such a warmonger. ”

    My own biggest surprise during the debate last week was how bad of a speaker he is. I somehow assumed he’s just really good, really persuasive, and that that charm is masking the void inside. But I found him really abysmal and not just in content. He was just gloom and doom and barking like an old dog from his corner. I can’t see how anyone finds this uplifting or fun, never mind the content.

    Which brings me to your main issue – yes, world wide upheavals towards the loony right, sometimes not predicted by polls, sometimes predicted (Austria, German local elections, Philippines). My current main pet theory is, ageing populations world wide. People who all their life hoped for miracles and who somehow are now angry that they didn’t get all they believe they were promised. Of course as a libertarian I do not believe politicians should, or even can, promise to “get you” a job, a fulfilled life, happiness – all these should be up to your own responsibility. But who am I kidding, most people world wide are convinced it is the government’s job to provide these things for them. And when that doesn’t happen, often simply because government CAN’T provide all of these, by nature, they are disappointed. So as populations age, the older and more disappointed factions start to dominate the vote, and it’s those that vote for the loony right.

  18. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 04:52

    Just about every time I make a comment anywhere on the Net, someone makes some insulting comment like you made.

    They do that, Jill, because you’re a pathological character of a sort they seldom encounter. People encounter those they disagree with as a matter of course. They do not encounter people that are impossible to converse with because they manufacture their own reality. Most such people spout nonsense about imaginary conspiracies (e.g. “Bill McWilliams” and his 9/11 truther blather). You just utter bald falsehoods and continue to insist on them.

    In the real world, almost all talk radio is Right Wing,

    So what? Commercial AM radio has a modest audience. Conservative listeners repaired to that forum because their own voice was absent from the broadcast media oligopoly, including the ha ha ha ‘public’ stations. The left has made several attempts to start commercially viable talk radio. They fail because there isn’t the audience for it. There isn’t the audience because the left has NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and just about every daily newspaper left in publication in any metropolis with a population exceeding 1 million (the exceptions being the New York Post, the Washington Times, and the Boston Herald. Any incorporation of political or social discourse into mass entertainment will have a liberal slant as well.

    Fox is seen as America’s most trusted news source. Perhaps in your world, Fox seems like a liberal network. Are you on Jupiter or what?

    Fox is a commentary network which supplies some news. They’re trusted by partisan Republicans, but it’s a network with a subcultural audience. Fox has also employed people in prominent positions who are not with the program (Alan Colmes, Shep Smith, and Juan Williams to name three), something the other networks seldom did. (George Will was the house Republican at ABC and Mike Wallace was politically non-aligned. That was it for diversity at the networks).

  19. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 06:27

    People are being delusional if they think Sanders ever had a chance in a general election. Clinton never really attacked him in the primaries because she had a strong base of older minority voters. Voters haven’t noticed that Sanders

    No they’re not. He consistently polled better than she did against all four Republican nominees, with double-digits leads over Trump in particular. There’s a sensible reason for that: he just isn’t carrying much baggage. His draft evasion, his history as a young n’er-do-well, and his bastard child would have offended my parents’ contemporaries, but the general public (and the Democratic voting public in particular) has tolerated worse for half-a-generation (we used to be better than that, but oh well). Still, Sanders running out the clock with his draft board, knocking up his girlfriend, and moving from one dead-end job to another for 15 year are pretty small beer compared to the Clinton’s generation-long crime wave. He actually has held executive positions and was sufficiently capable in them that Burlington politics can be periodized as ‘before Sanders’ and ‘after Sanders’.

  20. Gravatar of Joe B Joe B
    5. October 2016 at 06:37

    Too bad Trump is such a lulu. America’s leadership deserves the middle finger and probably a red-hot rebar in a rear aperture.

    Endless wars, property zoning and chortling that 5% unemployment is needed to hold down wages (as well as tens of millions of illegal immigrants). Add on a central bank suffocating economic growth so bondholders can benefit.

  21. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    5. October 2016 at 07:06

    “I am impressed by your 80-point IQ drop (from 145 to 75) ”

    That’s a funny line. Is it a Freudian Slip?

  22. Gravatar of Matthew McOsker Matthew McOsker
    5. October 2016 at 07:17

    People are upset, and want to use their middle finger.

    Ray Lopez – IS/LM is a fixed exchange construct.

  23. Gravatar of Philip Crawford Philip Crawford
    5. October 2016 at 07:21

    The storyline about inequality driving support for Trump is understandable, but not really supported by data. Trump’s support comes more from a feeling of emasculation (BLM, immigrants, gay marriage, bathroom laws) than economic inequality, which is one reason his support is so strong among white males.

    I don’t believe the polls and the prediction markets with an 80% chance for HRC seem mis-priced.

  24. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 08:39

    Add on a central bank suffocating economic growth so bondholders can benefit.

    You’ve had a stepwise decline in the growth rate of per capita income for 45 years or so. If anything, other occidental economies have been less dynamic than has ours and Japan has seen a mean growth rate in per capita income of 0.8% per annum since 1990. I don’t think our central bank is the cause of much of that.

  25. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 08:40

    feeling of emasculation/i>

    I think disgust and dismay would be better descriptors.

  26. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 08:41

    feeling of emasculation

    I think disgust and dismay would be better descriptors.

  27. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    5. October 2016 at 08:57

    @Matthew McOsker – I don’t see what IS/LM being fixed exchange or not has anything to do with monetarism described by IS-LM. IS/LM is a basic teaching tool used for classical, Keynesian and monetarism constructs (the curves themselves cannot be easily measured so it’s not so much a research tool). I am trying to see if Sumner will acknowledge that either the model broke down in Japan, or, perhaps he can do an analysis where the IS/LM curves shifted in such a way that despite the huge monetary stimulus in Japan since way back when (at least since Abenomics), inflation has not gone up. Monetarists, like astrologists, always have an ex ante ‘reason why’; I’d like to see what Sumner’s is within the IS/LM model.

  28. Gravatar of engineer engineer
    5. October 2016 at 09:19

    I don’t buy the emasculation of men storyline…I think that is total nonsense. Most men would happily rely on their wives to be the bread winners if they could spend their time watching/playing sports or doing their hobbies…just like the lion has his lionesses do all the hunting. Finding pleasure in work is not a genetic trait, but one ingrained by your upbringing and your life’s experiences.

    Trump comes over like the old union and mob bosses of yesteryear. They talked like their rank and file and were supposedly working for you against the “system”. He is like a guy you might meet in a bar and discuss politics with. White men are willing to overlook all his personality traits or even find them amusing, because they think he is a more competent leader and agree more with his core ideology.

  29. Gravatar of Matthew Waters Matthew Waters
    5. October 2016 at 09:36

    To be more optimistic, the US presidential election is probably easier to poll than British elections, especially Brexit or Scottish independence referendums.

    The simple answer is demographics. In the US, reputable polls in the US weight responses based on demographics. Roughly, if 5% of the people called are black but 10% of the US telephone numbers are black, then the polls do a weighted average. Britain is more homogenous and weights based on more unreliable factors.

    For Israel, exit polls are notoriously unreliable. Bernie Sanders systematically did better in exit polls than actual polls. Exit pollsters and respondents skew younger and more liberal. It’s some implicit psychological reason.

    In the US primary season, the polls generally did really well. For US polling, there is nothing to indicate a dramatic shift. The 25% chance in the betting markets is still too high for comfort though. And yes, Hillary is dumb for falling back on Democratic talking points and not purely focusing on “you guys realize how crazy this guy is?”

  30. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    5. October 2016 at 12:26

    Harding, You said:

    “Sumner, I am impressed by your 80-point IQ drop (from 145 to 75) whenever you start to talk foreign policy.”

    Ha! Comment of the Year. Finally someone tops even Ray Lopez.

    The fact that you think we should conquer other countries and steal their oil makes me even more convinced that in 1939 you would have been on the Axis side of WWII.

    Jill, I must have read 100 of those stories. His supporters don’t want more equality, if it means lots more government money going to blacks and Hispanics. Sure they (wrongly) think he’ll bring back manufacturing jobs, which is perhaps tangentially related to inequality, but it’s a stretch.

    Kevin, That’s exactly what I thought too. Before I saw Trump making a race of it with even loonier views.

    In the end I agree with you, I’m just less certain than before. I’d give Sanders at least a 40% chance against Trump. (Hillary has a 72% chance)

    mbka, Yes, and I wonder if those GM workers making as much as college professors in 1972 realized how lucky they were, how in all of (modern) human history only a tiny percentage of the time did unskilled workers make as much as highly educated people.

    It was great while it lasted, and I’m glad it happened, but it was not sustainable.

    Steve, Ha, I thought I’d be the only one to catch it.

    Matthew, Good point about polls. She actually has too good issues. Trump is a madman (true) and Trump wants to sharply slash taxes on real estate developers and raise them on people trying to raise kids on $50,000 to $100,000/year. That’s a vote winner, if voters find out what Trump is actually proposing.

    Voters don’t care about his tax breaks, or outsourcing jobs overseas.

  31. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    5. October 2016 at 13:25


    Israel, Britain, Spain, Colombia . . . Trump?

    You might be right. There might be a pattern here. So in other words you are saying there’s still hope for Trump. =)

    This might be even true. He needs to win at least the very last debate by a landslide. But he needs a format that fits into his style to achieve that. An audience for example that is allowed to show some emotion. Maybe a town hall meeting would help him more. And a microphone that actually works. Why didn’t his mic work properly? I think this is suspicious. You got a debate in front of millions of people and the candidate that the elite hates so much gets a mic that doesn’t work properly. What a “coincidence”. One could not invent this story any better.


    I somehow assumed he’s just really good, really persuasive, and that that charm is masking the void inside.

    So you finally admit that you never actually watched a debate of Trump before. Good for you.

    Besides the theories about the mic and the audience there’s also still the theory that he was sick. He sniffled a lot during the debate. That’s usually not his style. Let’s see how he does in the other debates. It sounded like a rhinitis at least. He should use the next days to get better. That should be his top priority. And he should find a way to deal with the new audience situation. Or he will lose for sure. And I guess the moderators will be even more biased. In my opinion the situation is hopeless for Trump.

  32. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    5. October 2016 at 14:39

    List,

    “Why didn’t his mic work properly?”

    I watched the whole thing. I noticed the sniffles, felt like nervousness. Didn’t even notice any issue with the mic. Came as a complete surprise when he complained about it a day later. I don’t think this could have been severe.

  33. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    5. October 2016 at 15:01


    Didn’t even notice any issue with the mic.

    Well it didn’t affect the sound level of the TV, it affected the sound level in the debate hall. I think about it that’s a bit suspicious as well. As if someone wanted to play with him and his mind, and the minds of the viewers of course.

    Besides all that I believe that you can get pretty insecure when you realize that your mic isn’t working properly. I wonder why he did not complain about it during the debate. It might have to do something with his persuasion strategy, he might have thought complaining about it during the debate is a sign of weakness. Let’s see what happens during the next debates.

  34. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    5. October 2016 at 15:37

    Why didn’t his mic work properly? I think this is suspicious.

    We’re kind of at the point where low-level employees of common carriers have gone into business for themselves, and perhaps have been encouraged to do so by senior officials. An example of this would be the trouble certain commentators (RS McCain, Glenn Reynolds, Scott Adams) have had with Twitter, which appointed a lesbian SJW named Del Harvey to run something called the “Trust and Safety Council”. Media, like tech, has a liberal corporate culture and it would not surprise me one bit if a technician sabotaged the microphone to disconcert Trump and the studio audience.

  35. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    5. October 2016 at 16:53

    “The fact that you think we should conquer other countries and steal their oil makes me even more convinced that in 1939 you would have been on the Axis side of WWII.”

    -Hey; man, if I had my way, I would have either struck Germany in the first month of the war (preferable) or, since France apparently lacked the will to do that, stayed out entirely. Certainly not have done what France and Britain actually did, which was risk losing the war permanently.

    You have a problem with taking the oil of countries the U.S. liberates? At least that oil’s something, which is better than nothing!

    Also, regarding the numbers (it’s a very real 70-point IQ drop; musta mistyped a number) -hey, man, Trump did the same thing once, no biggie:
    https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/08/06/did-i-overestimate-trumps-iq/

    Last math class I took was AP Calc AB. Got a 5 on the test, but a D, then an F in the class (the teacher was that strong), and never had to take any math classes in college. Win!

    “I’d give Sanders at least a 40% chance against Trump.”

    -Sanders’ chance against Trump may have been higher than Hers. It’s not 1972. If McGovern ran today, the entire Northeast would vote for him. And Sanders would have the overwhelming support of the young, which Clinton simply doesn’t have. He would have lost zero Black votes, but quite a few elderly White Dem votes.

  36. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    5. October 2016 at 17:18

    List,

    “Well it didn’t affect the sound level of the TV, it affected the sound level in the debate hall.”

    ok, I did not realize that.

    “I believe that you can get pretty insecure when you realize that your mic isn’t working properly. I wonder why he did not complain about it during the debate.”

    Trump, too shy and insecure to complain… somehow, that is hard to believe. And if it were so, that would hurt his brand a lot more than a mic… Sounds more like, he didn’t realize it until someone told him after it was over.

    That being said I heard occasional loud heard cheering for Trump during the debate. About as often as for Clinton. Again I don’t think there was a fatal flaw here. He did seem out of his element though, kept on repeating his known talking points in a rather sterile way.

  37. Gravatar of Dan W. Dan W.
    5. October 2016 at 17:40

    On what basis is the “respectable opinion” respectable?

    And you wonder why over 40% of voters are willing to vote their middle finger? It is because Hillary can label a wide swath of American citizens “deplorables” and she is still seen as “respectable”. Yet Trump labels the criminal class of illegal immigrants as deplorable and he is denounced and impugned. Both Hillary and Trump are classless but the “respectable opinion” apparently believes it is respectable to impugn American citizens if they get in the way of one’s political agenda. Well, as long as the “deplorables” in America have a vote don’t be surprised when they take the criticism personally.

  38. Gravatar of Geoff Orwell Geoff Orwell
    6. October 2016 at 03:08

    Not to mention Austria, Germany, Hungary and the other Visegrad countries. I live in Australia, Malcolm Tunrbull’s Liberals almost lost this year’s election as conservatives abandoned the centre right party in favor of far right groups. One Nation, which is overtly xenophobic, got 600k votes (4.8%).

  39. Gravatar of Geoff Orwell Geoff Orwell
    6. October 2016 at 03:09

    And yes Australia is a bit racist but still that was 3.8% gain on the last election.

  40. Gravatar of Art Deco Art Deco
    6. October 2016 at 05:45

    It is because Hillary can label a wide swath of American citizens “deplorables” and she is still seen as “respectable”. Yet Trump labels the criminal class of illegal immigrants as deplorable and he is denounced and impugned.

    See Thomas Sowell on ‘mascot groups’ and the function of mascot groups in the mental life of the Anointed. Denunciations of Trump are a manifestation of that. As for Hellary, she said out loud what professional-managerial types believe and believe without giving it much thought.

  41. Gravatar of Jon Jon
    6. October 2016 at 06:51

    Scott,

    The word among oil insiders is that the world is likely covered in oil. Keep in mind that the US techniques have not migrated elsewhere due to a combination of politics and the knowledge being captured in small US firms… With the glut and the layoffs in the domestic oil industry expect that talent to migrate. There is a lot of oil profitable at 50/60. Going to war for oil is crazy with what we know now.

  42. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    6. October 2016 at 15:48

    And so Art is also a conspiracy buff.

    Jon, Yes, fracking opens up a lot more oil.

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  44. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    7. October 2016 at 19:09

    Oh man this latest thing, with the tape of Trump being a total pig….it’s over. Ryan and all the rest are cancelling joint appearances. It’s over.

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    18. October 2016 at 04:54

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