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Americans’ Distaste for Both Trump and Clinton Is Record-Breaking (2016)
- danieldk 10y agoQuestion 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?
- unlinker 10y agoI think the rest of candidates were even worse. You can take Cruz, who is the weirdest and most spineless guy I've ever seen, or Bernie, who is a Jewish socialist.
- aidos 10y agoI think you'd be better to leave race out of it.
- 78666cdc 10y agoI don't see what you could be referring to with the "race" comment besides "Jewish". Judaism is not a race. Why do you say that it's better to leave race out of it when nobody has mentioned race?
- simonh 10y agoBernie has described himself as a "secular Jew who does not practice any religion". So if he doesn't practice any form of Judaism, to what extent can you say that his Jewishness is not racial? What else is it?
- k-mcgrady 10y agoCultural. I'm not a practicing Catholic but I still enjoy some of the cultural aspects of celebrations like Christmas and Easter.
- unlinker 10y agoRace of whom? Cruz, Trump, Bernie and Hillary are all caucasian. What am I missing?
- aidos 10y agoMy parent implied there was something "worse" about a "Jewish socialist" - ie because of his birth parents, in part, Bernie Sanders is a worse candidate. Maybe it's an honest question but I suspect you're simply choosing to be pedantic with the definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism is peppered with references to the persecution of the Jews, so evidently others would file it under racism. Either way, my parent's comment was out of line.
- somefuckingguy 10y agoIt boggles my mind how "socialist" is perceived like a BAD WORD by the general public in America.
- tempestn 10y ago> Are the voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general population? I'm not American either, but my understanding is that the answer to this question is a big yes.
- simonh 10y agoI think on the Republican side the other candidates were either weak-water, nutty or too divisive. If they'd had a 10 years younger McCain in there he'd have walked away with it. Trump wouldn't have stood a chance. But while many of the things Trump said were alarming, many of the things the other candidates were saying were also alarming. They also lacked the spine to properly stand up to him and allowed his position on things to dictate theirs. When he took an extreme position on something they moved to becoming more extreme on it as well, which lended him credibility. On the Democrat side, the Clintons just have such deep roots in the Democrat party institutions. Whatever you think of her personally she's a very experienced heavy hitter and her husband is still very popular in his own right. Many people on the Democrat side that dislike Hillary personally still like Bill.
- alexc05 10y agoI'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_9550670.html http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9... The examples have gotten more egregious since it was written though.
- mahranch 10y ago> 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-democratic-primary http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...). 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.
- tveita 10y agoThe first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't support to avoid their least-preferred candidate winning. For instance, you may prefer Bernie Sander's policies but still vote Hillary if you think she will have a better chance against Trump in the election. Or you may prefer other Republican candidates, but want to avoid Trump going independent, splitting the voter base and handing the victory to the Democrats. I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
- alexc05 10y agoActually, the primaries are proportional.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- eru 10y agoThey still elect a single candidate at the end.
- braythwayt 10y ago> The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system Canadian here. I didn’t know that a first-past-the-post system virtually guarantees a two-party system.
- tveita 10y agoIt's more or less unavoidable if voters are voting strategically. The sad and undemocratic reality of FPTP is that voting for a third-party candidate with little chance to win is "throwing away your vote". I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP. For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?
- nabla9 10y agoYou need votes from only 4.5% of the 220 million Americans eligible to vote to get your party nomination in general election. Using ballpark numbers to present the idea: You have country with 220 million Americans eligible to vote. 16 percent of all age-eligible citizens voted in the 2012 presidential primaries. That's 35 million. If those voters are equally divided between the two parties, and winning party candidate gets roughly half of the votes, they get their party nomination with 9 million votes each. Checked the numbers and they check out. George W. Bush, with his 10.8 million votes in 2000 is the record holder in the GOP side. Trump will likely break this record.
- toyg 10y ago16% is a shockingly low number. That means less than 8.001% of the population decide the range of opinions allowed in the presidential office. By the time the general election is over, the winner will be bound to a platform fundamentally agreed on by 4% of voters at best. We have some problems in this area in Europe as well, but US numbers are ridiculous. How can candidates say that they represent "the whole country" with a straight face?
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoBecause voters are assumed to be a sampling of Americans. Is there reason to believe that preferences are significantly different among those that don't vote?
- nabla9 10y agoOh yes. Political scientist have extensively studied the issue. Those who vote in primaries represent different demographics than Americans in general. There are differences in age, race and ethnicity, education, income, religious and political views.
- snomad 10y agoOn the Democrat side, it is a rigged system. The concept of "super delegates" who don't vote by primary voter choice - instead they vote by some nebulous concepts such as "democrat purity" - has meant the Clintons' deep connections have triumphed over the enthusiasm that Bernie has supported. https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 On the Republican side, Trump did something I don't think people quite get yet. He basically became a gaffe machine and didn't walk it back. Everyday was 2 or 3 gaffes that kept him in the news. He covered one gaffe with another.
- protomyth 10y agoTrump did well because of the early open primaries allowed him to do well. Plus, Fox News continued pushing of him helped. A perfect storm of hate for the establishment. He lost my own state because our reps didn't buy it.
- smackay 10y agoScott 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.
- tempestn 10y agoAgreed. This post in particular was interesting: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/143789982926/clinton-versus-trump-persuasion-scores http://blog.dilbert.com/post/143789982926/clinton-versus-tru...
- alexc05 10y agoThat was a bit "cargo cult" and NLP for my tastes. "The magnetic strip makes you think if debt which is bad" There's no evidence that thinking of debt (a) happens or (b) is bad The whole post feels like that to me.
- rantanplan 10y agoYeah surprise!! What I didn't know until very recently is that S. Adams subscribes to every New Age bullshit under the sun. I mean, the whole lot, law of attraction and all that crap. One would think that all this goes against his Dilbert character and aligns more with something his PHB would believe... but yeah... surprise!!
- rustynails 10y agoI am disappointed Clinton played the gender card - that was her best argument? I thought Adams' assessment was fair. I really don't like Trump's policies, but, a person who can't see past their own gender and only represents 1/2 the population? That's a great way to lose 1/2 the votes. It's an amazing feat, but, Clinton managed to change my mind and convince me that Trump is the best candidate of the two. Shudder the thought! I truly feel for the Amerucan population. The only choice is who to block out, rather than who to vote in.
- boothead 10y agoNate Silver on twitter: No, I didn't predict the the Republican Party would lose it's fucking mind.
- mozumder 10y agoHow 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.
- gallonofmilk 10y agoif we go by number of followers on Twitter, Trump will be winning his way to the white house
- whatok 10y agoI 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 10y ago
- lossolo 10y agoIt'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 10y agoNot 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).
- x5n1 10y agoAmericans 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 10y agoAmericans aren't sick of oligarchy, especially all the millennials that love Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, etc..
- Robin_Message 10y agoInterestingly, 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.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoEight 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.
- sandworm101 10y ago"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 10y agoAmericans 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 10y agoThat;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 10y agoIts 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.
- maxerickson 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cft 10y agoI 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 10y agoProbably because this is the most publicised primary race in history
- cft 10y agoStill it could distract from the main focus of HN and damage the community.