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"Vote Hillary Clinton 2016" is dead. Long live "Vote Hillary Clinton 2016"! (pg. 16)
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| Vector A |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
It must be weird to be American, though.
Trudeau became Prime minister and no one outside Canada knows what the non-adorable options were. |
Hey, I know who the other candidates were!
...not that I would have if I hadn't been on a business trip in Montreal in the middle of their elections when posters were all over the city.
:clown: |
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| Woony |
I did say that the way Trump would win is if there was a systematic polling failure and that's what guys like Princeton said aswell. They said look, with the empiric polling evidience that we actually have, Hillary wins OR we are all wrong. I think that's a valid statement to make. There was a precedent in 2012 for the systematic failure not happening and precedent of Brexit where it happened. I thought 2012 was more likely since it looked like things were shaping up similiar to 2012 even in the first hours of election night and Brexit obviously happened in a different country. I didn't follow Brexit very closly except waking up shocked and maybe if I had, I would have thought differently.
All that said, yeah, i'm still shocked. I believed in the last supposed sliver of reality, empirism, and it failed badly. Although, as a philosophy major, I probably shouldn't have :p
I'd love to know what Clinton's internals were like, since they had the best data. If took them until election night to figure out that they're on a losing edge, then political empirism is truly dead. Considering they still seemed confident leading up to the election their data was probably wrong aswell.
Alright, now some crazy marxist ramblings to analyze the situation. I think Trump is a symptom of two systematic changes that have been happening. The first is called "verbandisierung" in the crazy german literature so something like gang-ization or mafia-ization in english. This means that the classic democratic state structures in capitalism are eroding towards a mafia/gang like structure of power were different oligarchies fight for power. This already happened in eastern europe and Russia in the 90s and it's widespread in the third world so there is real precedent. Trump is the epitome of mafia-ization, he's friends with Putin, who mastered this system, his donors are mafia bosses and criminals and all his closest advisors are shadys s or outright criminals.
The second thing is explained in the Hypernormalization documentary, which is a bit simplified and overdramatized and has become a bit of a buzzword but I think it makes valid points. Trump, Brexit, social media and unpredictable terrorism are all symptoms of a system which is increasingly merging truth and fiction, truthe and falsehood and stripping certainties. Again, Trump is the epitome of this, before he ran people thought him actually becoming president was never going to happen and it's basically fiction and it ing happened. He broke truth and falsehood in politics, although they were already intermerged obviously, nothing he said was obligated to be bound in reality, half of it sounded like it came out of a fictional satire magazine like The Onion. Gang-states like Russia and of course especially Putin have already been doing this and Trump is obviously close to Putin. If you look at what all these things have in common, they are causing a right-shift and mafia-ization and eliminating real opposition to the foundations of capitalism. For the record, I don't think anyone is engineering this on a grander scale, it's just what happens when you are combining the erosion of late capitalism with new media and warfare technology, it's the system steering towards self-correction, paradoxically stabalizing through unstability. It sounds a bit crazy but isn't exactly new in academic circles, poststructuralists like Baudrillard were exploring similiar concepts 30 or 40 years ago. So really, the academics (at least the esoteric ones) were right, I just refused to see the signs but I guess as a first-world, middle class child i'm deep down terrified of (supposed) unstability.
Of course, there are practical reasons, just like with Brexit, the left ignored, riduculed and underestimated the rural, lower white class and they punched back. But I think what I said above is happening on a more systemic level. |
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| Lews |
| quote: | Originally posted by wotyzoid
In lighter news, NJ wasn't even close but Lews would be happy to know I voted for her anyways. Lol |
NJ may not have been close, but you contributed to the Popular Vote count :)
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You keep saying this. I'm starting to wonder if you actually understand how probability works. |
Is that really something you need to wonder about? |
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| Trance-M |
| quote: | Originally posted by TranceElevation
Hillary Clinton made history anyway. She became the first female president to LOSE a presidential election! |
This shows why it's better certain people shouldn't be allowed to vote at all.
So just 55% of the people have voted? |
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| Woony |
| The US has had incredibly low vote participation for decades. Of course, the fact that the election day is a work day, registration, the obtuse electoral college and voter supression all did it's part but the fact that so many minorities and women stayed home against the most openly racist and sexist candidate in recent times show you just how disenfrachised a large part of the US is with the democratic system. And it's funny how nobody in the political circus, especially in the US, ever really talks about the nonvoters. I followed the whole circus on Reddit for like 5 months and i've never heard anyone mention just how ridiculous it is that, even with these two extreme candidates, half of the country isn't even ing bothering. I guess it's because of the deep-seated believe in democracy in the US that people who don't vote aren't even perceived of being part of the political system. Of course, people are talking about turnout and stuff but nobody's asking 'why aren't all these people voting, what do they have to say?" |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
Of course, there are practical reasons, just like with Brexit, the left ignored, riduculed and underestimated the rural, lower white class and they punched back. But I think what I said above is happening on a more systemic level. |
Not to get into the nuts and bolts of the theory itself, but your post sounds very much like a critical theorist's idea of "systemic". These kind of readings sound very convincing and hermetic when you study them, but I'm increasingly dubious as to their usefulness in describing the real world.
In terms of systemic levels I'd say the Trump / Brexit phenomenon is an inevitable product of the changing nature of manufacturing and industry in Western nations. The shift in economic emphasis towards services, tech and finance, the rise of automation and the way manufacturing has been displaced to countries with cheaper labour (labour which will in turn be displaced by automation in the near future) has left extremely unbalanced nations with large areas of economic depression and social dislocation as working class communities are stripped of their nuclei. Western governments haven't successfully figured out how to economically revitalise these regions, leading to incredibly uneven societies that may work on a macro level but leave pockets of misery at ground level.
These systemic social changes are driven more by the huge historical tectonic plates of technological development and globalisation. The way theorists rationalise them is just clever wrapping paper to something that is more or less beyond control. It's also why I think this narrative of the "arrogant left" is a bit misguided. A lot of people have been saying the left needs a new populist face to combat the rise of the right across the West. But what was Obama if not populist leftism, and it made no real difference to the underlying problem. I'm inclined to believe that neither side - left or right - can really steer these problems. A lot of normal people are intuitively aware of this fact, which is why voter turn-out is recurrently low in so many democratic countries. |
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| Lews |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Not to get into the nuts and bolts of the theory itself, but your post sounds very much like a critical theorist's idea of "systemic". These kind of readings sound very convincing and hermetic when you study them, but I'm increasingly dubious as to their usefulness in describing the real world.
In terms of systemic levels I'd say the Trump / Brexit phenomenon is an inevitable product of the changing nature of manufacturing and industry in Western nations. The shift in economic emphasis towards services, tech and finance, the rise of automation and the way manufacturing has been displaced to countries with cheaper labour (labour which will in turn be displaced by automation in the near future) has left extremely unbalanced nations with large areas of economic depression and social dislocation as working class communities are stripped of their nuclei. Western governments haven't successfully figured out how to economically revitalise these regions, leading to incredibly uneven societies that may work on a macro level but leave pockets of misery at ground level.
These systemic social changes are driven more by the huge historical tectonic plates of technological development and globalisation. The way theorists rationalise them is just clever wrapping paper to something that is more or less beyond control. It's also why I think this narrative of the "arrogant left" is a bit misguided. A lot of people have been saying the left needs a new populist face to combat the rise of the right across the West. But what was Obama if not populist leftism, and it made no real difference to the underlying problem. I'm inclined to believe that neither side - left or right - can really steer these problems. A lot of normal people are intuitively aware of this fact, which is why voter turn-out is recurrently low in so many democratic countries. |
I think you're pretty much right on, but I'd also put a lot of emphasis on the social dislocation caused by increasing immigration and ethnic diversity, rather than just through economic stagnation or decay (though both are, of course, part of the whole globalisation issue). In the short-to-medium time-scale, increased ethnic diversity often leads to a decrease in social solidarity, security, and capital, leading to increased anxiety about the future, especially when this is combined with a background of economic issues - or, as I would argue, a perception of economic issues. |
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| Jon_Snow |
| quote: | Originally posted by Woony
The US has had incredibly low vote participation for decades. Of course, the fact that the election day is a work day, registration, the obtuse electoral college and voter supression all did it's part but the fact that so many minorities and women stayed home against the most openly racist and sexist candidate in recent times show you just how disenfrachised a large part of the US is with the democratic system. And it's funny how nobody in the political circus, especially in the US, ever really talks about the nonvoters. I followed the whole circus on Reddit for like 5 months and i've never heard anyone mention just how ridiculous it is that, even with these two extreme candidates, half of the country isn't even ing bothering. I guess it's because of the deep-seated believe in democracy in the US that people who don't vote aren't even perceived of being part of the political system. Of course, people are talking about turnout and stuff but nobody's asking 'why aren't all these people voting, what do they have to say?" |
I think it doesn't get talked about as much as you would think is because it has become the norm although when I looked it up I was surprised that voter turn out has hovered around 60% for the past hundred years.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trum...clinton-2016-11
Also of interest is this chart of recent election turn out. Which might indicate race is one of many factors.
I have always voted so it's difficult for me to understand the mindset. I assume that it's because despite the contentious of the elections the end result of who wins has very little effect on most people's every day life. Whether you're well off or not that is unlikely to change because of an Presidential election. In addition the electoral college reduces voting incentive. Most states remain blue or red no matter who is running so whether you're in the majority or minority your vote won't make a difference unless you live in one of the few swing states. |
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| Trance-M |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jon_Snow
I have always voted so it's difficult for me to understand the mindset. I assume that it's because despite the contentious of the elections the end result of who wins has very little effect on most people's every day life. |
If e.g. Obamacare is gone, that would affect 22 million people directly. Changes as such I think aren't little effects.
On the other hand if parties only are working against each other in order to get nothing done, there indeed will be little effects. That's the worst thing of two party system's in my opinion, not that the +10 parties we have is ideal, but they are forced to work together to get a majority. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You keep saying this. I'm starting to wonder if you actually understand how probability works. |
I'd say I understand them a lot better than someine who thinks 73% is a 1 in 3 probability :p
(and that was it's low point - 538's averaged result was 79% or 1 in 5 if we absolutely have to dumb it down).
The most telling fact of how badly Silver got it wrong? His final calculations had hilary at 302 electoral votes, exactly the number Trump got, so not only did 538 get it wrong, they embarrassingly got it wrong by the completely inverse result.
So 1 in 3 isn't an accurate mark of the probability of what happenef, nor is it indicative of how off the mark 538 was.
I think there's a lot of truth to what wooney is posturing about gang mentality - I had the weird position of spending most of the first half of my day with a photojournalist living between Turkey and Russia, who said the parallels between what's immediately going on those countries and the USA is startling, and then spent the latter part of the day with with a LA county sheriff, who was lamenting that people have never been so blindly committed to their own tribes(himself included) and that all adds to this mentality of aligning to the person that will benefit you and crush the others. Basically gang warfare.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Not to get into the nuts and bolts of the theory itself, but your post sounds very much like a critical theorist's idea of "systemic". These kind of readings sound very convincing and hermetic when you study them, but I'm increasingly dubious as to their usefulness in describing the real world.
In terms of systemic levels I'd say the Trump / Brexit phenomenon is an inevitable product of the changing nature of manufacturing and industry in Western nations. The shift in economic emphasis towards services, tech and finance, the rise of automation and the way manufacturing has been displaced to countries with cheaper labour (labour which will in turn be displaced by automation in the near future) has left extremely unbalanced nations with large areas of economic depression and social dislocation as working class communities are stripped of their nuclei. Western governments haven't successfully figured out how to economically revitalise these regions, leading to incredibly uneven societies that may work on a macro level but leave pockets of misery at ground level.
These systemic social changes are driven more by the huge historical tectonic plates of technological development and globalisation. The way theorists rationalise them is just clever wrapping paper to something that is more or less beyond control. It's also why I think this narrative of the "arrogant left" is a bit misguided. A lot of people have been saying the left needs a new populist face to combat the rise of the right across the West. But what was Obama if not populist leftism, and it made no real difference to the underlying problem. I'm inclined to believe that neither side - left or right - can really steer these problems. A lot of normal people are intuitively aware of this fact, which is why voter turn-out is recurrently low in so many democratic countries. |
I'd agree with most of this apart from the manufacturing part as it isn't borne out by the stats;
Perfect case in point - 2008 election vs 2012. Obama decided to bail out the auto industry and manufacturing unions saving at least 800,000 jobs in Michigan alone.
I'm 2012, that exact demographic (manufacturing union households) completely abandoned him and voted for Romney.
They literally would have been without jobs had he not done that (something that McCain said he wouldnt) but they still decided to switch amd vote republican just 4 years later, because for blue collar, that's their regular gang, at least these days. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trance-M
If e.g. Obamacare is gone, that would affect 22 million people directly. Changes as such I think aren't little effects.
On the other hand if parties only are working against each other in order to get nothing done, there indeed will be little effects. That's the worst thing of two party system's in my opinion, not that the +10 parties we have is ideal, but they are forced to work together to get a majority. |
I think many parties and coalition governments are just as bad. Just look at Italy that had 65 Governments is 63 years, or the disaster that was the tory-libdem arrangement. In the latter, or really was just a mechanism for Cameron to become prime minister and Clegg just signed his career away. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
If you're going to cling to desperate pedantry, at least get it right. The article I linked stated 71%, which is a whole 5% from 66, and roughly 1 in 3 for Trump. It's actually 1 in 3.448.
Your argument about 20% probability after real results were coming in remains complete gibberish. |
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