US Presidential Candidates

PeterZ wrote:The Republican Party began in 1854 to free blacks from slavery championed by Democrats. The Republicans voted 80% in the House and 82% in the Senate for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Democrats voted 61% and 69%.

And in what way is that relevant today?
When the difference is greater, but in the other direction?

Republicans have not supported policies that have turned the black inner city communities into crime infested racially divided ghettos. Republican policies have been right and Democrat policies have been wrong for the inner city poor.

Right, no need to hang on to your illusions, because apparently they´re strong enough to both stick to you and breed new delusions much too easily.


Seriously, your above claim is just such complete rubbish...

The E wrote:

Please don't talk to me about the LGBT community and Democrats. Democrats are willing to blindly support a religion that is far more antagonistic to the LGBT community than anything the Republicans ever supported. I believe 40% of Muslims worldwide support sharia. Do you know what sharia prescribes for gays and lesbians? Do we hear anything from the Democrats about this? No. Do we hear anything from Germany about this barbarism? No. All Democrats and other progressives do is continue the demonization of American conservatives by comparing more traditional views of marital relationships to the worst sorts of bigotry. Are Muslims bigots in the eyes of progressives and Democrats since they hold far harsher opinions of gays and lesbians than even the most vile adherent of the Westboro Baptist Church? No, they are not.

Remind me, which party was it that was positioning itself as the hardline christian, biblethumping, gay-hating one again?

I see. If a party merely demonizes their opponents, then that party can claim the demonized party actually positioned itself the way they were portrayed. Christians do not hate gays. Your assertion to the contrary reflects more than a bit of bigotry. While Christians might disagree with the gay lifestyle and view it as sinful, Jesus enjoins us to love our fellow men regardless of the actions, sinful or otherwise, they take. Christians who follow God's will, will love gays as they love themselves even if they disagree with the lifestyle.

Contrast this with Islam where the religious doctrine and law are intertwined. Gays are to be killed according to those doctrines and laws. A Muslim who follows Allah's will as defined by the Koran will obey sharia and support the killing of gays. Muslims are NOT enjoined to love any sort of sinner. They are encouraged to punish sinners which in many cases means death.

I suspect there is more than a tad of mental blinders at work here.

The E wrote:But again: Past performance shows that, on average, polls do paint a reasonably accurate picture of reality. There's a weight of evidence linking poll results to election results, and true upsets are relatively rare these days (fivethirtyeight, a blog dedicated to statistical analysis, is based around this sort of data-driven approach, I recommend you check it out sometime).

PeterZ wrote:All of this tells me that the responses to the polls are far less important than the model for turnout. Can that corrupt lying sack of shit Hillary encourage her supporters to come out in larger numbers than Trump supporters? There is some social media data that suggests that Hillary is not very successful at encouraging her supporters to be passionate. Recent national polls tightening again illustrates the shallowness of her support.

However, while nationwide polls show the race tightening (i.e. Trump gaining), state polls show Clinton firmly in the lead.

I don't argue against the veracity of the polls. My point is that the estimates of the national or even state makeup of the electorate is based on past performance like all models. The accuracy of any model's predictions depend on their assumptions continuing to approximate reality. Also, each polls is a snap shot of a period of time. How will the election results measure the veracity of the polls' turnout assumptions? We shall see.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/evidence-trump-landslide/

My point in the prior post was that there is evidence that suggests the drivers for voter turnout may be projecting a shift. Social media metrics suggest a large disparity of passionate support between the candidates. This may well indicate a shift in how turnout models should be constructed. Not sure how or even if the data indicates a big enough shift. Only that Obama's use of the social media in prior campaigns suggest that such data is indicative of some dynamic as yet quantified.

I am sure as more data is collected the drivers can be quantified.

ps. Most recent results suggest a trend developing against, Clinton. Trends also indicate a drop in the Obama job approval polls from the beginning of the month.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/#

PeterZ wrote:I see. If a party merely demonizes their opponents, then that party can claim the demonized party actually positioned itself the way they were portrayed. Christians do not hate gays.

They do enact an awful lot of laws to reduce the equality between heterosexuals and people of other orientations though. They also oppose treating non-hetero orientations as a valid lifestyle (inasmuch as being gay is a lifestyle). These are all positions republicans have supported, in speeches and in legislation.

Your assertion to the contrary reflects more than a bit of bigotry. While Christians might disagree with the gay lifestyle and view it as sinful, Jesus enjoins us to love our fellow men regardless of the actions, sinful or otherwise, they take. Christians who follow God's will, will love gays as they love themselves even if they disagree with the lifestyle.

And the rejection of gay marriage follows from this how exactly?

I suspect there is more than a tad of mental blinders at work here.

There is. One of those mental blinders, for example, surrounds the rights of transgender people. Another exists for gay marriage, the rights of gay people to adopt, the rights of gay people to the same sort of priviledges hetero married couples enjoy, etc etc.

The republican party has never really reached out to the gay community in any meaningful way (except, of course, when it comes to hiring gay escort services). Instead, republican spokespeople all over the country have done their dead best to demonize and antagonize them.

Face it, PeterZ, you guys have abandoned those demographics, assuming you ever tried to win them over.

The E wrote:

PeterZ wrote:I see. If a party merely demonizes their opponents, then that party can claim the demonized party actually positioned itself the way they were portrayed. Christians do not hate gays.

I suspect there is more than a tad of mental blinders at work here.

There is. One of those mental blinders, for example, surrounds the rights of transgender people. Another exists for gay marriage, the rights of gay people to adopt, the rights of gay people to the same sort of priviledges hetero married couples enjoy, etc etc.

The republican party has never really reached out to the gay community in any meaningful way (except, of course, when it comes to hiring gay escort services). Instead, republican spokespeople all over the country have done their dead best to demonize and antagonize them.

Face it, PeterZ, you guys have abandoned those demographics, assuming you ever tried to win them over

They do enact an awful lot of laws to reduce the equality between heterosexuals and people of other orientations though. They also oppose treating non-hetero orientations as a valid lifestyle (inasmuch as being gay is a lifestyle). These are all positions republicans have supported, in speeches and in legislation.

Your assertion to the contrary reflects more than a bit of bigotry. While Christians might disagree with the gay lifestyle and view it as sinful, Jesus enjoins us to love our fellow men regardless of the actions, sinful or otherwise, they take. Christians who follow God's will, will love gays as they love themselves even if they disagree with the lifestyle.

And the rejection of gay marriage follows from this how exactly?

.

As I have argued before. The view of many who oppose the interpretation of marriage the SCOTUS made is one of definitions. Traditional marriage is a simple contract between two people; one man and one woman. Change the terms of the contract, and the it becomes a different contract. Simple definitions. There is nothing beyond the rights and privileges in that contract to a legal marriage.

Are there religious blessing associated with marriage? sure there are, but that has nothing to do with the legal marriage contract. This has nothing to do with any personal view of gays or a gay lifestyle. It has everything to do with the terms of contracts.

By all means vilify me for disagreeing with how I and many others view marriage. If you do, you are lying to yourself. I don't harbor hatred against gays or lesbians or any other people.

The majority of republicans are more like me than not. That many are happy to portray disagreement with your views as somehow worthy of demonization is sad and displays bigotry.

The republican party hasn't targeted sub groups of voters very well. Agreed. In large part the rank and file of the GOP do not try to disaggregate people into groups. We tend to see individuals first, third and last. Maya Angelou had it right "We are more alike, my friends, then we are unalike". So did Martin Luther King,[paraphrase] we should be judged by the content of our characters and not the color of our skin or the sex of our partner.

Democrats have spent more than a century thinking of ways to view people differently. Some of which was bad and others in an attempt to be helpful. All in all that approach has borne more bad fruit than good. I prefer to side with the gentleman that turned me from the dark Side of supporting Jesse Jackson and to supporting Ronald Reagan; Martin Luther King. I hope his dream comes to pass in my lifetime.

On the whole I would prefer to remain misunderstood than to adopt the practice of Democrats of view people by irrelevant characteristics. People are people first, second and always.

Yes, Peter, this is true.

And then, over the next quarter-century,
just about all those Democrats ("Dixiecrats") who
voted "no" - (and then didn't repent of it) -
went and joined the Republican Party.

The Republicans' choice of Newt Gingrich for House Speaker,
in 1994, shows that those switching-Dixiecrats had taken
over the GOP.

Which is a Major Indication why the data from 1854 which
you also quoted here, counts as Ancient History.

HTM, PHL

PeterZ wrote:
The Republicans voted 80% in the House and 82% in the Senate for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Democrats voted 61% and 69%.

{snip - htm}

Someone (I lost track) said (my reply below):

There is no pejorative that can be lobbed at Donald Trump that can’t also be directed at Hillary Clinton.

I can think of one: "Dirty-mouth."

And another: "Runs his mouth off."

What about: "Undisciplined?"

More can be found on The Huffington Post,
but of course they've made their minds up already,
and so are biased.
Still, there are pejoratives to be found there that
might only be applied to Trump, not to Clinton - or Johnson.

HTM, PHL

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Someone (I lost track) said (my reply below):

There is no pejorative that can be lobbed at Donald Trump that can’t also be directed at Hillary Clinton.

I can think of one: "Dirty-mouth."

And another: "Runs his mouth off."

What about: "Undisciplined?"

More can be found on The Huffington Post,
but of course they've made their minds up already,
and so are biased.
Still, there are pejoratives to be found there that
might only be applied to Trump, not to Clinton - or Johnson.

HTM, PHL

The thing about Trump is that he tells the truth as HE believe it is, but so does children. Now, when children do it it's kind of cute because of their naive worldview but when Trump does the same it's scary as heck since he doesn't have the same truth from day to day and he is looking to become the Potus...

Sorry, Howard, but history shows the Democrat Party focus on view everything through the prism of race is alive and well.

Wasn't Margret Sanger a proponent of eugenics? Did she not think that more blacks should have abortions to control their population? Doesn't the organization she was founded perform abortions on blacks in disparate proportion to the population of blacks by a factor 2-3?

Also, are the inner cities not in shambles? Do they not have almost exclusively Democrat governance for in excess of 5 decades and in some cases a century? Do these policies not have a disparately large impact on blacks? New York city is the brightest exception between Giuliani and Bloomberg.

Democrats finally kicked the KKK out of their party 100 years after they joined.

All in all the Democrats have had more than a century of supporting a bigoted policy. They continue to focus on race but appear unable to help those races at whom they purport to target that help. The best they can do is blame the Republicans because those racist bastards that left the Democrats voted in the only other party available. It did not take Republicans nearly 100 years to disavow and repudiate David Duke and the KKK.

If you wish to trot out Strom Thurman, I will trot out Robert Byrd.

Bottom line is that for the demonization of republicans as racist, Democrats have a greater demonstrable record both historically and in the much more recent past.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Yes, Peter, this is true.
And then, over the next quarter-century,
just about all those Democrats ("Dixiecrats") who
voted "no" - (and then didn't repent of it) -
went and joined the Republican Party.

The Republicans' choice of Newt Gingrich for House Speaker,
in 1994, shows that those switching-Dixiecrats had taken
over the GOP.

Which is a Major Indication why the data from 1854 which
you also quoted here, counts as Ancient History.

HTM, PHL

PeterZ wrote:
The Republicans voted 80% in the House and 82% in the Senate for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Democrats voted 61% and 69%.

{snip - htm}

Now, you may say, rightly so, that this is hardly a fair representation of republican politics (It's an excerpt of a Daily Show reporter at a Trump rally). But it's an expression of a sentiment that moderate Republicans are willfully blind to. The modern republican party is, in many ways, shaped by the fact that its members are predominantly white, predominantly male and older than the average population of the US. This causes attitudes like the ones documented here. It is absolutely demonstratable that the average republican is more likely to hold negative views about non-whites; while it would be wrong to say that the average republican is definitely racist, the reverse (that the average racist is definitely republican) is demonstrably true. Similar things are true of attitudes towards muslims and LGBT people.

Sure, you can criticize democrats for the views the party has endorsed in the past. You can also make fairly convincing arguments about how their suggested policies do more damage than good. But to hold your own side as absolutely above reproach and free of wrongdoing and as a victim of a demonization campaign is, at best, disingenuous. There are undercurrents of racism, of homophobia, of religiously motivated intolerance among republicans, and they are currently being pulled to the forefront because of the candidates for president the conservative movement produces.