Update: sequel articles here, here, here
Still stunned and unable to admit their own loss, this would be a liberal's wish come true. President-elect Trump on the ropes, an entire nation in "shock and regret" over "their stolen election", and somehow the impending inauguration will be cancelled. But unfortunately for those still stuck with this delusional mentality, the incoming data is not moving in their direction. The country and the world has moved on, in harmony. While there were many great things about the Obama presidency, not everything done in the past eight years was the best for the country. Even George Soros finally had to concede his losing opinion, which translated into a billion-dollar loss. That's money he could have instead spent on nourishing and clothing the severely-poor, living right in his backyard. Two macro polls-of-polls show that since mid-November, Americans are definitively less disenchanted with Donald Trump (see red + in chart below). Clearly there are a small number of liberals who simply won't live with another attitude. And even more interesting is that the portion of Americans who see the country as heading in the wrong direction has also plummeted (see orange o in chart below). Both are at multi-year lows, as a matter of fact! This is all a healthy sign that we'll be coming out of all of this, better than before (just as we have for most presidents.)
The constant salvo of negativity streaming out of mainstream media, and echoed on social media, continues to not serve the intended purpose. Hillary Clinton was an awful candidate and lost big. A new Congressional hearing to make it seem as if it were simply because of Russian president Putin is a mortifying ex-post rouse. Wasting resources on recounts, and maligning FBI director Comey, and disparaging middle-America Whites, and refocusing our attention to what's known as the "popular vote", and other blame tactics is not what anyone thinks of when they hear:
When they go low, we go high.
Neither are inflamed riots after the election, and planned for on our nation's most celebrated day next week. Neither is star actress Meryl Streep being provided an acting awards' speech platform in order to subject everyone to her diatribe of "superior" political views (after host Jimmy Fallon stangely noted that only Hollywood is a place where "the popular vote is still respected"). Neither is irately terrorizing Ivanka Trump and her children on a holiday Jet Blue flight, for no reason. Nor are more group-attacks on blameless and sweet White Chicagoans, simply because they "look like" someone who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton.
So let's revisit some themes circulating in the news, which are quite foolish. First we have Professor Krugman -and Nobel laureate- claiming that Donald Trump inheriting a good jobs economy implies a large risk that his term will be an economic disaster. This is nothing more than false fear-mongering, or complete analytical laziness. Economic statistics can be twisted to show whatever one wants! See an important measure of consumer finances below. Tracking the changes in household wealth over the President Obama years. While I assisted with his administration, it is clear that some large sections of the country need help now.
And then we have a continued perception that the Trump administration needs to carry on the stance of liberals towards race relations because of the false view that Blacks are more at risk of being innocently murdered, versus any other demographic. We show below that this is simply not true at all.
Something needs to change, else the Democrats will have only themselves to blame -yet again- for losing in 2020. Running the country in a socialist way is not an entitlement, and the current betting markets have shameful prediction prices for the next election. Look at the mixed bag of five Democratic candidates on the bottom and ask yourself if we seriously have not learned anything about humility and being practical? With today's awarding of the Presidential Freedom Medal honor to the President's vice-present answers that question.
The real popular vote is measured in broader polls, such as the ones we show at the top of this article. Or they are shown in market and confidence sentiment, which has risen dramatically since the election. For example, we have a lowest-5% reading in market volatility during three days this month, which is the first time we've seen this since the autumn. And prior to that we hadn't seen this since 2014! Also see these fine market statistics below. So stop getting grouchy, and join the rest of the country who cares to see progress (with the limited government, for which the country fairly voted).
Still stunned and unable to admit their own loss, this would be a liberal's wish come true. President-elect Trump on the ropes, an entire nation in "shock and regret" over "their stolen election", and somehow the impending inauguration will be cancelled. But unfortunately for those still stuck with this delusional mentality, the incoming data is not moving in their direction. The country and the world has moved on, in harmony. While there were many great things about the Obama presidency, not everything done in the past eight years was the best for the country. Even George Soros finally had to concede his losing opinion, which translated into a billion-dollar loss. That's money he could have instead spent on nourishing and clothing the severely-poor, living right in his backyard. Two macro polls-of-polls show that since mid-November, Americans are definitively less disenchanted with Donald Trump (see red + in chart below). Clearly there are a small number of liberals who simply won't live with another attitude. And even more interesting is that the portion of Americans who see the country as heading in the wrong direction has also plummeted (see orange o in chart below). Both are at multi-year lows, as a matter of fact! This is all a healthy sign that we'll be coming out of all of this, better than before (just as we have for most presidents.)
The constant salvo of negativity streaming out of mainstream media, and echoed on social media, continues to not serve the intended purpose. Hillary Clinton was an awful candidate and lost big. A new Congressional hearing to make it seem as if it were simply because of Russian president Putin is a mortifying ex-post rouse. Wasting resources on recounts, and maligning FBI director Comey, and disparaging middle-America Whites, and refocusing our attention to what's known as the "popular vote", and other blame tactics is not what anyone thinks of when they hear:
When they go low, we go high.
Neither are inflamed riots after the election, and planned for on our nation's most celebrated day next week. Neither is star actress Meryl Streep being provided an acting awards' speech platform in order to subject everyone to her diatribe of "superior" political views (after host Jimmy Fallon stangely noted that only Hollywood is a place where "the popular vote is still respected"). Neither is irately terrorizing Ivanka Trump and her children on a holiday Jet Blue flight, for no reason. Nor are more group-attacks on blameless and sweet White Chicagoans, simply because they "look like" someone who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton.
So let's revisit some themes circulating in the news, which are quite foolish. First we have Professor Krugman -and Nobel laureate- claiming that Donald Trump inheriting a good jobs economy implies a large risk that his term will be an economic disaster. This is nothing more than false fear-mongering, or complete analytical laziness. Economic statistics can be twisted to show whatever one wants! See an important measure of consumer finances below. Tracking the changes in household wealth over the President Obama years. While I assisted with his administration, it is clear that some large sections of the country need help now.
And then we have a continued perception that the Trump administration needs to carry on the stance of liberals towards race relations because of the false view that Blacks are more at risk of being innocently murdered, versus any other demographic. We show below that this is simply not true at all.
Something needs to change, else the Democrats will have only themselves to blame -yet again- for losing in 2020. Running the country in a socialist way is not an entitlement, and the current betting markets have shameful prediction prices for the next election. Look at the mixed bag of five Democratic candidates on the bottom and ask yourself if we seriously have not learned anything about humility and being practical? With today's awarding of the Presidential Freedom Medal honor to the President's vice-present answers that question.
The real popular vote is measured in broader polls, such as the ones we show at the top of this article. Or they are shown in market and confidence sentiment, which has risen dramatically since the election. For example, we have a lowest-5% reading in market volatility during three days this month, which is the first time we've seen this since the autumn. And prior to that we hadn't seen this since 2014! Also see these fine market statistics below. So stop getting grouchy, and join the rest of the country who cares to see progress (with the limited government, for which the country fairly voted).
I am one of those despondent liberals you are writing about. I buy your argument that national-level statistics provide reason for hope (as well as reason for caution). But what about person-level data? In my view, President-Elect Trump has acted poorly toward his critics and opponents (too many examples to list), has provided little or no policy information about how he will achieve his stated goals (e.g., how will he make healthcare better and cheaper?), and at best gets many facts wrong (e.g., unemployment rate in yesterday's new conference) or at worst uses his own facts (e.g., asserting until a few months ago that Obama was not born in America). How do you look at those and not feel somewhat despondent that he is going to lead this great nation starting next week? Do you think those character traits or behavioral styles don't matter to leadership? Do you think I am inaccurately characterizing Mr. Trump and that my view of him / his behavior is essentially wrong? I am not trying to be provocative - I honestly want to know how you and others who seem to be optimistic about the next administration "get past" these observations.
ReplyDeleteThanks anonymous. I 100% empathize with you and appreciate your reasonable comments! There is a lot of sentiment behind people's opinion (or disinclination to give information), which a binary survey can't always measure. As for the linkages to progress nonetheless, just recall that the assessment here is that simply we had an election and I trust the American voting process with making the right choices most of the time (and when it's a wrong choice it isn't usually calamitous). Also neither Hillary nor Donald are as popular as outgoing President Obama, whose direct reports I spent time working for. Give it a little time please, and we'll be fair on this blog to call out provoking things that Trump gets wrong, and which also involve probability theory (that's the point of this website). We’re on the side of getting this right for most people, and remain independent/unbiased on this website. Meanwhile you might like these two links: http://statisticalideas.blogspot.com/2016/12/america-political-not.html https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/819878728700399621
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