
Americans’ Distaste for Both Trump and Clinton Is Record-Breaking (2016) - rfreytag
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/?ex_cid=538twitter
======
smackay
Scott Adams's blog, [http://blog.dilbert.com/](http://blog.dilbert.com/) is an
immensely interesting and entertaining source of information on the whole
Trump phenomenon.

If what he says is remotely true then politics is never going to be the same
again.

~~~
rantanplan
As much as I love his comic strip, I'd be wary of his political analyses.

He thinks he's a trained hypnotist(hypnosis is total baloney) and he thinks he
has awesome persuasion skills. Oh by the way he thinks that Trump has awesome
persuasion skills as well.

I don't think there's much analysis that needs to be done for the Trump
phenomenon. He is a narcissistic douche, exuding "success" according to the
contemporary American standards. The mass has been completely brainwashed for
the past decades, with regards to what happiness and success looks like. Case
closed.

There are no magical persuasion skills at play here.

~~~
bad_user
So what you're saying is that any successful "narcissistic douche", by today's
standards, would have won the GOP nominations. Is that right? What about the
democratic nominations? If a democratic candidate, are you saying that Trump
would have won those as well?

IMHO, there are some flaws in your analysis.

~~~
kiya0
It's more like democracies have been electing Celebreties more than leaders
for a while now. Thanks to social media and the 247 hype cycle, the best
celebs whether its Obama or Trump or Kim Kardashian, are capable of capturing
the scatterbrained attention of the herd. And thats what we are wasting our
time selecting for in elections...whether in US, Canada, India, Indonesia its
playing out everywhere. We are going to keep electing celebrities. And thats
why so many ppl are sick of it cause we know are not getting leaders.

~~~
onedognight
Ronald Reagan, sure. Obama? What kind of celebrity did he have before his
presidential election?

------
danieldk
Question as a non-American: why did _these_ candidates (virtually) win the
primaries? Were the other candidates of the end-run liked even less? Are the
voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general
population?

~~~
alexc05
I've been following Bernie's run _very_ closely (and am the foolish pollyanna
type that still has his fingers crossed for a miracle in California)

But, if you look at Clinton/Bernie he underperformed in States with "closed
primaries" meaning people had to declare party affiliation months in advance.
(New York was almost a year ago) independents and swing-voters weren't allowed
to say "hey, I actually _like_ this Bernie guy."

Bernie did _overwhelmingly well_ in places with open primaries. On two
occasions he "beat the polls" (IIRC -Indiana and one other had Clinton's
chances of winning at ~99% and he came out with victory) open primaries are
being credited with contributing to that phenomenon. People who have never
voted are coming into the mix for Bernie

If you look closely you will also see a couple States where there has been
either "gross incompetence" or voter suppression / electoral fraud.

People's part affiliation swapped without their knowledge, budget cuts forcing
extremely long lines, running out of ballots.

In some areas around electronic voting machines, the disparity between voter
counts and exit polls are higher than the ones seen at the Ukrainian election
which was declared fraudulent.

In Chicago for example there was an "audit" where the observers saw the clerks
alter their tallies to match the expected number.

I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of
places where the disparity is highly suspect.

 __Edit __: (Apologies, I started pasting in references for my outlandish
claims and it got wiped because of a mobile-page-reload and have now got to
decide whether or not to throw my phone out the bleeping window :))

Here's one reference covering a few points about the electoral fraud thing:
[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-
elec_b_9...](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-
elec_b_9550670.html)

The examples have gotten more egregious since it was written though.

~~~
mahranch
> I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of
> places where the disparity is highly suspect.

It is tinfoil hat sounding because it _is_ tinfoil hat territory.

I'm sorry, but the internet has made Sanders supporters lose touch with
reality; Hillary Clinton, even at the very end, still beat Sanders by double
digits (source:
[http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...](http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-
democratic-primary)). The Obama vs Clinton matchup was much, _much_ closer.
We're only talking a few point difference.

I saw this same thing happen back in 2008 with Ron Paul. Paul supporters had a
hard time believing that Paul didn't stand a chance.

The reason Clinton trounced Sanders is multifaceted; First off, Sanders is old
and he's Jewish. Unfortunately, that puts some people off right away (bigotry
and prejudice is still alive and well in America). Secondly, he embraced the
term Socialist. While people under 40 may be aware of what that term entails
(we think of European/democratic socialism, not Russian/Chinese socialism) the
older generation & boomers still thinks of the commies and pinkos. America is
still 10-30 years away from using that word without the stigma & negative
connotations. And that kind of sums up Sanders; he's espousing an ideology
that America isn't quite ready for.

We need to move further to the left a bit. Kind of like how the GOP has kept
moving this country to the right over the last 35 years, we need to move it
back to the center, and ultimately to the left. I'm a democratic socialist
myself but even I knew Sanders didn't stand a chance. That's because I'm aware
that it's going to take some time. Perhaps a couple decades. It starts with
small steps, electing moderates who lean left, then finally left candidates
like Sanders.

~~~
kiya0
I dont think it needs to take that mucb time. Elizabeth Warren would have had
a better shot than Sanders and would have still stood for a lot of the same
stuff.

~~~
mahranch
Well history has shown it takes _at least_ that much time. It took that much
time for the republicans to push our country to the right as much as they
have; it would take at least that long to push it back to the left.

------
boothead
Nate Silver on twitter:

    
    
        No, I didn't predict the the Republican Party would lose it's fucking mind.

~~~
mozumder
How could he, of all people, have not seen this coming?

Trump basically "primaried" his way to the nomination by going hard right to
appeal to the Republican talk-radio base. He'll lose of, course, in the
general, but that's the basic strategy of winning any Republican nomination.
Many, many Republicans have won their local primaries only to lose in the
general.

~~~
whatok
I don't think you can go by the previous "many Republicans" and say that Trump
is going to fall prey to the same things they did. I'm not saying he's
unstoppable and I'm not saying you have to throw out all conventional wisdom
but he's at least so far defied most expectations (which of course are mostly
based on historical data)

~~~
mahranch
He's only defied expectations within his own party. The U.S consists of more
than the republican party; You have independents, third parties and the
democrats. So sure, he'll have those hard right neocons voting for him, but
what about everyone else? What about the moderate (disenfranchised)
republicans? Or the independents and democrats? I'm sorry, but I haven't met a
single independent or democrat who said they'd vote for Trump. He's about as
polarizing as they come. He'll get creamed in the general election. I'll go so
far as to say that it will be the biggest landslide in history. I'm talking
double digits.

~~~
shawabawa3
Now that he's won the primary he can drop all the hard-right crap he's been
saying and try to win over some independents and democrats.

He's never going to lose the hard right republicans to hillary so he doesn't
have much to lose by completely flipping on a lot of issues

~~~
whatok
This is how I see it. I would also guess that a much larger portion of Sanders
voters will not vote in the general vs everyone else who voted against Trump
in the primary.

------
lossolo
It's not only in USA, it's worldwide trend, you can observe same strong
dislike in EU countries toward their candidates for high office. Society is
divided and it seems like there is lack of good leadership this days.

~~~
richmarr
Not sure what evidence there is that the quality of leaders has changed, but
there is evidence that both (a) we perceive strangers differently (compared to
say the 1960s), see Robert Putnam's book _Our Kids_ and (b) there are
cognitive biases that push us to think things are getting worse (declinism,
rosy retrospection, positivity effect).

------
JustSomeNobody
Eight years. Both parties have had eight years to find candidates. This is
what they give us. Talk about scraping the sludge off the bottom of the
barrel.

------
cft
I noticed more and more politics submissions on the HN front page in the last
5-6 months. I think this is the demise of HN.

~~~
shawabawa3
Probably because this is the most publicised primary race in history

~~~
cft
Still it could distract from the main focus of HN and damage the community.

------
Robin_Message
Interestingly, excluding 2000 (where Gore arguably won anyway), and 1992,
being the most disliked means you win...

From that, I would take that firing up your base (and thus making the other
side dislike you more) is more effective than being moderate and trying to
appeal to both sides.

------
x5n1
Americans sick of oligarchy, either billionaire business class or nepotism,
you choose. Actually this is really great. It really says something profound
about American politics.

~~~
mozumder
Americans aren't sick of oligarchy, especially all the millennials that love
Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, etc..

------
sandworm101
"Americans’ Distaste for Both Trump and Clinton Is Record-Breaking"

No more so than the rest of the world's distaste for the US system. Everyone
else can elect a government in a couple months or even weeks. We're sick of
hearing about your pretty little mini-elections. Just get on with it!

~~~
kiya0
Americans invented this. Their celeb culture requires months of 247
entertainment. Now its exported everywhere. Modi in India. Trudeau in Canada.
They are all just following the Obama built hype model of leadership through
entertainment.

~~~
sandworm101
That;s not the issue. That's been around for a far longer time than Obama.
What is so painful about the US system is that rather than have proper
elections, say a party-wide vote for the nomination, they have this series of
tiny mini-elections where every week is another battle royal. The net result
is a paralysed political system where the real problems are totally ignored.

And I cannot be the only one here who's ears bleed every time I hear some
pundit talk of the "black vote" or how evangelicals have this or that opinion.
I see some of the CNN pundits, many of which are actually Canadian, flinch
every time they are fed such lines. The American political obsession with
racial and religious categories is just creepy.

~~~
kiya0
Its all entertainment. I.e. meaningless bullshit. Its equivalent to the guys
who review the latest episode of game of thrones for 3 hrs and have 10 hrs or
random analysis lined up for the rest of the week till the next episode
appears. When I see the time and effort Americans put into their pop culture
its like watching aliens from another planet. And they all have so much to
say, with such eloquence and speed about essentially nothing just blows my
mind.

