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andym

(5,443 posts)
14. Yes Americans are gullible enough
Thu Dec 1, 2016, 04:59 AM
Dec 2016

and ignorant enough to fall for a liar and a cheat. Take a look at this blog

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-dance-of-the-dunces-trump-clinton-election-republican-democrat/
"OK, so that just happened. Donald Trump always enjoyed massive support from uneducated, low-information white people. As Bloomberg Politics reported back in August, Hillary Clinton was enjoying a giant 25 percentage-point lead among college-educated voters going into the election. (Whether that trend held up remains to be seen.) In contrast, in the 2012 election, college-educated voters just barely favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Last night we saw something historic: the dance of the dunces. Never have educated voters so uniformly rejected a candidate. But never before have the lesser-educated so uniformly supported a candidate. Trump supporters might retort: “That’s because Trump supports the little guy and Clinton helps the already privileged college grads.” But that’s false: Trump supporters in the primaries had an average income of about $72,000 per year. They aren’t rich, but make more than the national average and more than Clinton supporters.

Trump owes his victory to the uninformed. But it’s not just Trump. Political scientists have been studying what voters know and how they think for well over 65 years. The results are frightening. Voters generally know who the president is but not much else. They don’t know which party controls Congress, what Congress has done recently, whether the economy is getting better or worse (or by how much). In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, most voters knew Al Gore was more liberal than George W. Bush, but significantly less than half knew that Gore was more supportive of abortion rights, more supportive of welfare-state programs, favored a higher degree of aid to blacks, or was more supportive of environmental regulation.

Just why voters know so little is well-understood. It’s not that people are stupid. Rather, it’s that democracy creates bad incentives."

Message auto-removed Name removed Dec 2016 #1
The thing is, she embraced some of Bernie's policies, she advocated for them and in my heart akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #2
Message auto-removed Name removed Dec 2016 #4
I cannot argue with you on that, however, Bernie pulled her a little bit to the left, which is good. akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #6
good q oldtime dfl_er Dec 2016 #3
Not only that, the polls pundit fooled us. akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #5
I think that's it. hamsterjill Dec 2016 #28
They are more concerned with having greater opportunity and having "freedom" andym Dec 2016 #7
Thank you. How could trump supporters not see he was lying to them? Were they so bad off before? akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #8
Why do people continue to buy cars from used car dealers with abysmal reputations? andym Dec 2016 #9
Because they are silly. If you look at some of the court cases on TV akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #11
Yes Americans are gullible enough andym Dec 2016 #14
What IS the matter with Kansas? SpareribSP Dec 2016 #10
Not sure what you are trying to say! Sorry! akbacchus_BC Dec 2016 #12
A bit of backstory SpareribSP Dec 2016 #13
One of the problems with that Salon critique BumRushDaShow Dec 2016 #20
- Bigredhunk Dec 2016 #15
Anthropology Bear Creek Dec 2016 #16
Why do people buy lottery tickets? Amimnoch Dec 2016 #17
The swamp Bear Creek Dec 2016 #18
... kebob Dec 2016 #19
They're not voting against their interests EffieBlack Dec 2016 #21
I saw something that they are not voting against their interest Fresh_Start Dec 2016 #22
'they are voting against what we think is their interest' NRQ891 Dec 2016 #23
such as increased minimum wages, right to unionize, healthcare, Fresh_Start Dec 2016 #24
'BTW, the GOP passed NAFTA, the majority of the democrats in congress voted against it. ' NRQ891 Dec 2016 #25
President Bush negotiated NAFTA with Mexico and Canada Fresh_Start Dec 2016 #29
is it wrong to interpret VP Gore's debate with Ross Perot on CNN as support from Clinton? NRQ891 Dec 2016 #30
The mmore reasons I heasr about why so many people voted for the Con, the more I'm napi21 Dec 2016 #26
They are misled about what IS their interest. marybourg Dec 2016 #27
Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»2016 Postmortem»I keep asking myself, why...»Reply #14