[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Erm, can't really knock his theory about that particular race however.

First-listing bias is a long known phenomenon, and the effect is more pronounced in primaries and also stronger in down ballot races.

Now if Texas shuffles the ballot order randomly or something and he wasn't aware of that then, yeah, he looks like an idiot for not knowing. But he's got a pretty reasonable point about a campaign for such a position not being brain surgery.

Indeed, but that's not why I called him crazy. I'm sure you've seen discussion of him by now - this is a guy in Austin tweeting that LBJ killed more people on a bad day than Charles Whitman did on a good day, or tweeting vulgar comments about Barbara Bush (amongst many others, but she's the most ridiculous target.) His reasoning there just proves he's not clinically insane, he's a 4chan troll in the real world.

Originally Posted by digamma

Actually, here's the Rule 40 flap. Essentially, it's there to be amended if necessary.

Frontloading HQ: The Real Import of Rule 40 in 2016

Oh god, so in the case of a contested convention we're totally getting Ted Cruz's campaign suing to hold up Rule 40 and turn it into a choice between him and Trump, right?

Originally Posted by AENeuman

Why do you think that is happening?

I'm smart enough to realize I don't have the answer, but I'll take a stab. (This is also me trying to put myself in other people's shoes, so I'm attempting to do my best to clearly delineate between my thoughts and what I believe other people's thoughts are.)

- I do think many people look too closely at general demeanor, and for all of Trump's buffoonery at times, he's clearly extremely ambitious, hard-working, and proud... and people like those traits. (And I agree those traits are good in a President, although they can certainly be taken too far.) The biggest snap judgment difference between him and Kasich (the other social "moderate") or Carson (the other outsider) is that he's high energy. The pride thing is a little harder to articulate, but I think even though his rhetoric implies America isn't great, and some Dems/Mitt Romney love to use the Shining City on a Hill line, Trump comes across as proud and encourages everyone to be proud of America and American values/ideals while the others constantly remind us of everything that's wrong. I think authenticity is another very positive characteristic for disaffected voters fed up with "typical politicians", and Trump certainly projects that in his demeanor even if the words say otherwise.

- Massachusetts has a particular affinity for business leaders and Trump may have quite a checkered record, but he has one. More importantly the Northeast (and I assume the West Coast as well) despises the religious right, and looks down on any candidate who tries to refer to biblical text as a governing principle. People aren't anti-religion and don't care whatsoever about a candidate's personal beliefs, but they're strongly against any attempt to use that. For whatever reasons, there's also a tendency to view lies or pandering on most subjects as normal politician bullshit, but if it's a candidate couching it in religious terms a large segment automatically discounts them. (I'm not 100% sure if that's just because it's religious, or because it's nakedly transparent that even the politician can't believe that. Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum are despised up here, I think people like Huckabee and think he's at least a genuine guy albeit not the brightest bulb.)

This is something beyond Massachusetts though, if even MBBF and people from the midwest are saying things like this.

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

It's good for the Republicans as well. This party has been a clusterfu%# over the last 8-10 years. I'm a Republican who harbors a great amount of disdain for the current party leadership. Let the religious right jump off the ship and form their own party. I'm tired of them forcing their beliefs into the political process. They look as stupid as the preachers in Salem a few hundred years ago right now. Cruz looks and acts like Jimmy Swaggart in a politician's suit. Antiquated belief systems that don't match the clear laws that are being rightly formed by our courts. No thanks.

Forget the religious aspects, the Republican party used to be united by themes like independence and personal choice/responsibility. I think most people are elitist whether they admit it or not, but if I can be a little flippant the main difference here is that the ones who want to impose their beliefs on others go Democratic while those who think people in South Carolina or Texas can make their own laws (obviously within reason) list themselves as unenrolled and vote Republican in local elections. Either way, both sides are firmly united against the idea of somebody trying to impose Texas or South Carolina values on us, which is why the national Republican party is something people don't want to associate with. That fundamentalist strategy produced some phenomenal victories in the 1990's, but it's neither a viable long-term strategy nor traditional conservative values. But I was always taught politics are more of a circle, where both communists and fascists are equally reprehensible, and somehow that totalitarian side of each has greatly increased its power (or at least visibility) in my lifetime.

- Now, if we're tying this back in to Trump's supporters and that article I think it does touch on a important point. I guess Ferguson was the biggest hot button topic recently, and fair or not there is a feeling that if you say Michael Brown was a criminal and his actions contributed to his getting shot you will be automatically shouted down as a racist. Are some of the people saying that racist? Of course. Are there equal demagogues on the right side? Of course. But that's a valid thing to point out if we're talking about solutions or preventing future incidents, and I can feel that way while still thinking there is over-militarization of local police, and a lot of racially/economically targeted differences in policing, and that the officer involved was also at fault. But without a doubt there is a strong totalitarian bent within the Occupy/BLM/Serial Activist wing that is driving much of the Democratic debate and platform. You see it writ large when a BLM protestor confronts Hillary, or the Yale professor, or the Missouri professor telling student journalists they can't cover the protest goes viral that the extreme fringe would rather shout down dissent than engage in an actual debate, and if I can propagate their language there are a lot of constant micro-aggressions in that vein that have discouraged a large swath of people from engaging in any debate while hardening their views.

We've also ended up in a situation where people look at politics like they're picking a team, and one where you have to be 100% on a side. So if you have "Michael Brown was an innocent angel." and "He was a disgusting thug who already should have been locked up." and you're somewhere around 50/55/60% towards the latter, there's not even a point in arguing because if you open your mouth you'll be tarred with the extremist fringe. JPhillips helpfully gave us an example of this point with his response, and I'll tag the first sentence of Butter's as well although his post did have a legit point.

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Oh boo hoo.

In my adult life I've seen four Dem general candidates. One was impeached. One lost after the Supreme Court changed the rules. One lost fair and square. And one won, but had the opposition declare they wouldn't support anything he did no matter what before he was even inaugurated.

And yet somehow I'm not organizing my precinct to vote for Louis Farrahkan.

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

I don't think anyone actually said EVERY Trump voter is a poor dumb bigot. But when your support starts there with its biggest support and spreads from there, it does make you wonder.

So if I had to pick the Trump supporter response to this, it's that comparing him to Louis Farrakhan is so over the top it's laughable, of course nobody here would explicitly say EVERY one, but clearly it's heavily implied (although I do frequently see it explicitly stated on social media amongst my generation/region by Bernie activists), and most importantly I just don't care this much to argue constantly about it, especially if I know the other person has no interest in actually changing their views. So they've checked out. They'll show up and vote, and maybe they'll wear a hat or buy a sticker, but they're not proselytizing and they're not bothering to listen to anybody else either, which is why he's so teflon. It's not that they agree with Donald, it's that they know they disagree with the vocal contingent against him and that's enough.

I think the David Duke kerfuffle illustrated this. Is David Duke a racist? Of course! Are there racists supporting Donald Trump? Of course! Is there some rhetoric Trump uses that probably appeals to them an uncomfortable amount? Of course! But is The Trump campaign trying to appeal to the KKK, or do even a significant minority of their supporters support them? Fuck no! Like Ron Paul said in that link, why the hell are we talking about them? They have like 12 people left in this country. It's like the Westboro Baptist Church... nobody wants them on their side, and the only people mentioning them are ones who want to tie Trump to them if/when other attacks aren't gaining traction.

But hey, I also realize even the people I know who support Trump are a fairly self-selected group, so maybe I'm way off base. I'm just tired of the implication that anyone who supports him has racist motives or must be an idiot, because it does shut down that debate and increase the polarization. Especially when idiots up here can't believe that people would vote for him when the alternatives were Cruz & Rubio.

Missed if this was already posted:
Who Are Donald Trump's Supporters? - The Atlantic

Well-educated Conservatives are largely rejecting Donald Trump... that's where he gets the least amount of support. And yes, Trump does play well to those who are tired of the GOP establishment, but I wonder why that really is? Trump has publicly backed high profile Democrats in the past. Now I'm supposed to believe that he has broad-based support from many different factions of the party?

He does not. He plays well to voters who normally wouldn't vote in a primary because he is delivering a different kind of message, one that supposedly speaks "truth to power". That's not his ONLY support, but when you combine the support of those who don't normally vote with someone who is the third choice of likely voters in a race where just a few percentage points creates massive swings, you get a winner.

But it's not that he only wins that segment, and that's why I posted a little on this. Because he *does* win with college educated voters (or women, or pick your demographic)... it's just 28-25% instead of 40-20% like it is with HS educated white male voters. So it's an interesting question why he's doing so much better with that group, but it's also an interesting question why his support holds steady at at least that 25% mark in almost every traditionally measured demographic. The Atlantic article does point out one very big difference between my world and yours - you live in a state that's lost a lot of manufacturing jobs. I know there are a few around, but for the most part our manufacturing sector shut down 100 years ago (and moved to the midwest for cheaper labor!), and it's just not something that's personally affected anyone or even enters the debate.