4 ms·

I really hate to burn Karma, but I'm going to disagree.None of the polling data bares out your assessment. The majority of his voters were not poor ex-coal mine

I really hate to burn Karma, but I'm going to disagree.None of the polling data bares out your assessment. The majority of his voters were not poor ex-coal miners. The average income was somewhere around $70K/year.

pottersbasilisk 10y ago
The majority of anyones base cant be just coal miners. President Trump campaigned heavily in swing states he correctly thought he could flip, while Hillary didnt.
wopwopwop 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimodal_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimodal_distribution
- mirimir 10y ago
  Right, the mean is meaningless.
CPLX 10y ago
It wasn't strictly about income as measured in numbers, it was about social class. We have a really hard time talking about and grappling with social class in this country, but it's a fundamental force, as it is in nearly all cultures throughout history. There are many divisions and shorthand ways of trying to describe the divide, and none are fully satisfying, but one of them is that some people are economically threatened by rapidly accelerating technology, and some are economically empowered. Another is that some people are threatened by trade, and some profit from it. And so on. The global economy is changing rapidly, the distribution of wealth is becoming more unequal, and not everybody is thriving in that context. Talking about it in raw dollar terms in the aggregate has value, but it's one of many data points. Class resentment is a powerful force that has underpinned nearly every major political realignment in history, I'm not sure why everyone has such a hard time seeing it.
stagbeetle 10y ago
From a statistics point of view, mean is a very dubious and untelling metric. Adding a mode, median, and interquartile ranges will help tremendously in finding where the "bulk" of Trump voters lay. If nothing else, I'm sure you know that one big outlier can skew the entire data sheet, for instance, like Peter Thiel?
reitanqild 10y ago
I really hate to burn Karma If anything I'd expect this to farm karma. It seems to me (a few years on this site on two accounts) that your opinion is most popular and the ones who don't like it are less likely to downvote (either because they can't or because they don't want to). I don't have access to the backend though so it is just a feeling. Edit: hehe, someone has taken the task on them to prove me right. -1 at the moment. I can't trade in my Internet points here in Europe and I don't plan on visiting US anytime soon so I just find it funny :-)
lithos 10y ago
That's about what I'd expect mid level union workers to make. Maybe skewed a little high. Similar for most skilled trades, though worse benefits for nonunion..

pottersbasilisk 10y ago

The majority of anyones base cant be just coal miners. President Trump campaigned heavily in swing states he correctly thought he could flip, while Hillary didnt.

wopwopwop 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimodal_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimodal_distribution

mirimir 10y ago
Right, the mean is meaningless.

CPLX 10y ago

It wasn't strictly about income as measured in numbers, it was about social class. We have a really hard time talking about and grappling with social class in this country, but it's a fundamental force, as it is in nearly all cultures throughout history. There are many divisions and shorthand ways of trying to describe the divide, and none are fully satisfying, but one of them is that some people are economically threatened by rapidly accelerating technology, and some are economically empowered. Another is that some people are threatened by trade, and some profit from it. And so on. The global economy is changing rapidly, the distribution of wealth is becoming more unequal, and not everybody is thriving in that context. Talking about it in raw dollar terms in the aggregate has value, but it's one of many data points. Class resentment is a powerful force that has underpinned nearly every major political realignment in history, I'm not sure why everyone has such a hard time seeing it.

stagbeetle 10y ago

From a statistics point of view, mean is a very dubious and untelling metric. Adding a mode, median, and interquartile ranges will help tremendously in finding where the "bulk" of Trump voters lay. If nothing else, I'm sure you know that one big outlier can skew the entire data sheet, for instance, like Peter Thiel?

reitanqild 10y ago

I really hate to burn Karma If anything I'd expect this to farm karma. It seems to me (a few years on this site on two accounts) that your opinion is most popular and the ones who don't like it are less likely to downvote (either because they can't or because they don't want to). I don't have access to the backend though so it is just a feeling. Edit: hehe, someone has taken the task on them to prove me right. -1 at the moment. I can't trade in my Internet points here in Europe and I don't plan on visiting US anytime soon so I just find it funny :-)

lithos 10y ago

That's about what I'd expect mid level union workers to make. Maybe skewed a little high. Similar for most skilled trades, though worse benefits for nonunion..