15 ms·

That was a relatively small number of extreme right wingers, and they were quickly branded by the media as nutjobs (and rightly so, as long as Obama had his pap

That was a relatively small number of extreme right wingers, and they were quickly branded by the media as nutjobs (and rightly so, as long as Obama had his papers in order). That movement wasn’t mainstream, unlike the Trump cheating/collusion claims.

lazyasciiart 9y ago
You realize that movement included Donald Trump, right?
- downandout 9y ago
  Don’t take my assessment of the numbers as a defense of Trump. I didn’t vote for him or Hillary, and I think he is both way off in the weeds on many issues and making us look bad on the world stage. But that doesn’t mean that we should go painting things as being worse than they are, embracing hypocrisy, or misinterpreting facts like the media does.
  - lazyasciiart 9y ago
    We also shouldn't go making up facts in order to paint Trump's approval ratings as better than they are.
    - downandout 9y ago
      And I’m not. But I think even you would agree that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage - almost all of it opinion based - has some effect on the disapproval ratings. 50% was going to be built in from the start. Somebody should do the math to figure out the correlation between the ratio of positive to negative press stories and the disapproval ratings for both Trump and Obama. I think you’d find that if you normalize that ratio for both of these guys, Trump actually wins that race.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        Trump is objectively a terrible person and an even worse politician. His approval reasons would be in the dumps, media influence or not. You're making a pretty wild assertion, that Trump's and Obama's approval ratings would be equal if it wasn't for media influence. How do you propose normalizing that? How would you do that? Please give an example that doesn't entail making up numbers from subjective whole cloth.
        downandout 9y ago
        Trump is objectively a terrible person and an even worse politician. That's quite the objective statement statement you have there. How would you do that? Please give an example that doesn't entail making up numbers from subjective whole cloth. It would be relatively simple, though it would involve some data collection. Count the number of positive and negative stories published at various time frames, and come out with a ratio. Then figure out the correlation between that ratio and approval/disapproval ratings at that time. Then you'd multiply Obama's disapproval number by the delta between his positive/negative ratio and Trump's (and probably include some multiplier that would be less than 1 based on how strong the correlation turns out to be) to show what Obama's disapproval numbers would be if he had suffered the same media bias as Trump. That's off the top of my head, but the process would be fairly close to that. Nobody in the liberal media will do it, but the whole point is that comparing Obama's disapproval numbers to Trump's is not an apples-to-apples comparison because of the extraordinary bias of the media against Trump.
        KozmoNau7 9y ago
        >"That's quite the objective statement statement you have there." I feel very confident making that statement. Considering his personal and professional conduct, his backpedaling on earlier statements, his absolutely disastrously inept attempts at diplomacy and a whole host of other issues, it is accurate to say that he is absolutely not a person you would want to have any sort of relationship with, what so ever. >"It would be relatively simple" You're arguing from a biased starting point. You're assuming that media coverage is the most important factor in a president's popularity rating, not his actual actions and fuckups. >"show what Obama's disapproval numbers would be if he had suffered the same media bias as Trump." >"the whole point is that comparing Obama's disapproval numbers to Trump's is not an apples-to-apples comparison because of the extraordinary bias of the media against Trump." You're ignoring the massive backlash, smear campaigns and outright hate spewed by the right-wing media during Obama's presidency. I'm not sure if you've just forgotten it, or if you're willfully ignoring it, but it was everywhere, endless pandering to birtherism, outright racism, doomsay prophecies that he would turn the US into a socialism/communist hellhole, that he would take everyone's guns, put all white people into camps, the whole spiel. In contrast, most of the coverage of Trump is simply detaling what new stupid thing he did. But if it's so simple, why haven't you done it yet?
grzm 9y ago
> "a relatively small number of extreme right wingers" Like the sitting US President: * https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/ https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-b... * https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/10/opinions/why-trump-clings-to-birtherism-dantonio/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/10/opinions/why-trump-clings-to-... * http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-donald-trump-talked-birtherism/story?id=41927366 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-donald-trump-talked-birt... * https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-birther-obama-birth-certificate/500420/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-b... * https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-proud-birtherism_us_57eda937e4b082aad9ba82ba https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-proud-birt...
- downandout 9y ago
  Don’t bother posting HuffPo links as references. I hope nobody is taking anything they read there as fact these days. If they are, we are in bigger trouble as a country than I thought. I’d say the politics section of CNN falls in the same category. With regard to the rest of your comment... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714508
  - grzm 9y ago
    I didn’t reference them for the editorial or analysis: None of these are sources I generally read but they were among the top that came up when searching. Take a look at the quotes in the pieces. If you dispute them as inaccurate or out of context, please do point them out. Edit to add: You say birtherism as being fringe and rightly dismissed as nutjobs. My response is to show that it’s not fringe as it was supported by the current president. Part of the disapproval you’re trying to dismiss can be attributed to people frustrated with things like this. There are legitimate reasons regardless of the hype you’re trying to use to dismiss the high disapproval ratings. There are well-known Republican/conservative voices that are speaking out against Trump as well. We’re also no longer in a period where people are necessarily comparing Trump and Clinton, choosing the lesser of two bad options. Anyway, I’m out. Have a good $timeOfDay.
  - 9y ago

lazyasciiart 9y ago

You realize that movement included Donald Trump, right?

downandout 9y ago
Don’t take my assessment of the numbers as a defense of Trump. I didn’t vote for him or Hillary, and I think he is both way off in the weeds on many issues and making us look bad on the world stage. But that doesn’t mean that we should go painting things as being worse than they are, embracing hypocrisy, or misinterpreting facts like the media does.
- lazyasciiart 9y ago
  We also shouldn't go making up facts in order to paint Trump's approval ratings as better than they are.
  - downandout 9y ago
    And I’m not. But I think even you would agree that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage - almost all of it opinion based - has some effect on the disapproval ratings. 50% was going to be built in from the start. Somebody should do the math to figure out the correlation between the ratio of positive to negative press stories and the disapproval ratings for both Trump and Obama. I think you’d find that if you normalize that ratio for both of these guys, Trump actually wins that race.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Trump is objectively a terrible person and an even worse politician. His approval reasons would be in the dumps, media influence or not. You're making a pretty wild assertion, that Trump's and Obama's approval ratings would be equal if it wasn't for media influence. How do you propose normalizing that? How would you do that? Please give an example that doesn't entail making up numbers from subjective whole cloth.
      - downandout 9y ago
        Trump is objectively a terrible person and an even worse politician. That's quite the objective statement statement you have there. How would you do that? Please give an example that doesn't entail making up numbers from subjective whole cloth. It would be relatively simple, though it would involve some data collection. Count the number of positive and negative stories published at various time frames, and come out with a ratio. Then figure out the correlation between that ratio and approval/disapproval ratings at that time. Then you'd multiply Obama's disapproval number by the delta between his positive/negative ratio and Trump's (and probably include some multiplier that would be less than 1 based on how strong the correlation turns out to be) to show what Obama's disapproval numbers would be if he had suffered the same media bias as Trump. That's off the top of my head, but the process would be fairly close to that. Nobody in the liberal media will do it, but the whole point is that comparing Obama's disapproval numbers to Trump's is not an apples-to-apples comparison because of the extraordinary bias of the media against Trump.
        KozmoNau7 9y ago
        >"That's quite the objective statement statement you have there." I feel very confident making that statement. Considering his personal and professional conduct, his backpedaling on earlier statements, his absolutely disastrously inept attempts at diplomacy and a whole host of other issues, it is accurate to say that he is absolutely not a person you would want to have any sort of relationship with, what so ever. >"It would be relatively simple" You're arguing from a biased starting point. You're assuming that media coverage is the most important factor in a president's popularity rating, not his actual actions and fuckups. >"show what Obama's disapproval numbers would be if he had suffered the same media bias as Trump." >"the whole point is that comparing Obama's disapproval numbers to Trump's is not an apples-to-apples comparison because of the extraordinary bias of the media against Trump." You're ignoring the massive backlash, smear campaigns and outright hate spewed by the right-wing media during Obama's presidency. I'm not sure if you've just forgotten it, or if you're willfully ignoring it, but it was everywhere, endless pandering to birtherism, outright racism, doomsay prophecies that he would turn the US into a socialism/communist hellhole, that he would take everyone's guns, put all white people into camps, the whole spiel. In contrast, most of the coverage of Trump is simply detaling what new stupid thing he did. But if it's so simple, why haven't you done it yet?

grzm 9y ago

> "a relatively small number of extreme right wingers" Like the sitting US President: * https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/ https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-b... * https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/10/opinions/why-trump-clings-to-birtherism-dantonio/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/10/opinions/why-trump-clings-to-... * http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-donald-trump-talked-birtherism/story?id=41927366 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/time-donald-trump-talked-birt... * https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-birther-obama-birth-certificate/500420/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-b... * https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-proud-birtherism_us_57eda937e4b082aad9ba82ba https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-proud-birt...

downandout 9y ago
Don’t bother posting HuffPo links as references. I hope nobody is taking anything they read there as fact these days. If they are, we are in bigger trouble as a country than I thought. I’d say the politics section of CNN falls in the same category. With regard to the rest of your comment... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714508
- grzm 9y ago
  I didn’t reference them for the editorial or analysis: None of these are sources I generally read but they were among the top that came up when searching. Take a look at the quotes in the pieces. If you dispute them as inaccurate or out of context, please do point them out. Edit to add: You say birtherism as being fringe and rightly dismissed as nutjobs. My response is to show that it’s not fringe as it was supported by the current president. Part of the disapproval you’re trying to dismiss can be attributed to people frustrated with things like this. There are legitimate reasons regardless of the hype you’re trying to use to dismiss the high disapproval ratings. There are well-known Republican/conservative voices that are speaking out against Trump as well. We’re also no longer in a period where people are necessarily comparing Trump and Clinton, choosing the lesser of two bad options. Anyway, I’m out. Have a good $timeOfDay.
- 9y ago