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Maybe he will win the popular vote on those things in 2024. (it would not surprise me) He didn't win it in either 2020 or 2016.

rayiner 3y ago
The “popular vote” doesn’t mean anything, because nobody is trying to win it. It makes way more sense for Trump to spend a bunch of time trying to turn out 5,000 more votes in Georgia than to spend any time trying to turn out a million votes in California. Issue polling, however, shows that Trump is winning on all those issues. For example, 74% of Americans oppose affirmative action in hiring: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans-and-affirmative-action-how-the-public-sees-the-consideration-of-race-in-college-admissions-hiring/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans.... The median American thinks abortion should be banned after 15 weeks: https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chart2-1536x1515.png https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chart2-1536x15.... It’s the rest of Trump that keeps his support under 50%.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Yes. The "popular vote" is about as meaningful in the context as picking a President on the basis of how many 3 point shots the candidates can make in a game of 1-on-1 basketball. People who go off on the "popular vote" are generally those who are unwilling to accept that they have lost the election. In other words, sour grapes. Oh, they might argue that they'd be in favor of using the "popular vote" even if that worked against them, but you know what? I don't believe them. If it worked against them, they'd be arguing for a "return to the original system as conceived by the Founders" or some such.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  I bring up the popular vote because the original claim was: > Trump is aligned with your average American ... against your average American college professor. and the popular vote is evidence that in fact the other candidate in both 2016 and 2020 was aligned with your average American. (as to college professors, although there are only <600k American college professors, which would make them "elite", in recent generations over half of Americans have had at least some college education, which means that the average American knows at least one college professor, which is not so elite. On the other hand, although I've had after-work beers with billionaires, and I'm sure you have too, I'm willing to bet that the average [modal or median, maybe even mean] American has not shared beers with any billionaires. Therefore I would find it more statistically defensible to claim: Trump's opponents in 2016 and 2020 were aligned with your average American ... against your average American billionaire.) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State...
  - rayiner 3y ago
    > Trump is aligned with your average American ... against your average American college professor. Your ellipses edits-out the very point I was making, the specific issue of affirmative action. Your average American is indeed aligned with Trump on affirmative action against the average college professor. And on immigration and a host of other issues. > and the popular vote is evidence that in fact the other candidate in both 2016 and 2020 was aligned with your average American. The popular vote is evidence that Trump is a crass, unstable, unlikable person, who lost the election to someone who people perceived to be a decent guy. And “billionaires” aren’t the only elites. For all of history we have recognized the people purporting to answer questions about the nature of the universe and humanity as clerical elites. University professors serve that exact same function in our society and are, in anthropological terms, properly classified as elites.
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      > The popular vote is evidence that Trump is a crass, unstable, unlikable person OK, that's a very defensible claim. Let's see how he does (on both metrics) in November?
- tptacek 3y ago
  People say this, but the alternative you propose, that Trump's 2016 electoral college win was meaningful, is self-evidently false; people in Wyoming aren't 3 times more representative of the country than people in Massachusetts. You can coherently say elections don't mean anything, but you can't coherently say that the popular vote is meaningless but the electoral college isn't. Your argument has to at least make some kind of logical sense, right?
  - belorn 3y ago
    From a European perspective, the purpose of voting is to give everyone a voice in how the country is run. The purpose of the voting system is to make encourage people to participate in the vote and honor the outcome. Popular vote in general are not used in Europe, and as a voting system it does not have the desired property of getting people to participate and respect the result. Degressive proportionality is one of the most common property of voting system in EU, and the reason for it depends. For Iceland the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure the capital do not have a majority decision of the rest of the country. In Sweden, the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure that the small island of Gotland have a minimum 3 seats in parliament (a purpose which would require a larger explanation). For the European Parliament the reason of degressive proportionality is there to basically not give Germany too much power. The most common argument for the degressive proportionality of electoral college in the united states of America seem to be that it encourage the states to remain part of the union, rather than split the continent into multiple independent countries. Whatever that is still true 200 years is worth having a discussion on, especially now with the low voter participation and low respect for the outcome.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      I'm not arguing that we should abolish the electoral college, only that people shouldn't interpret it to mean anything more than it does.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Trump’s electoral college win is meaningful not because the electoral vote is inherently more meaningful than a popular vote, but because it counts and the popular vote doesn’t. In any competition, the rules affect the contestants’ behaviors. You can’t judge a competition outcome under different metrics post hoc. If you’re running a 400 meter, it’s irrelevant who was winning in the first 100 meters—nobody was trying to win that milestone. If they were, they would have run the race differently. Because the Electoral College is the only thing that counts, politicians have every incentive to optimize their campaigns for winning the EC, not the popular vote. Indeed, whichever party has greater support from small rural states (currently the GOP, but for a long time it was democrats) has every incentive to run further to one direction until they lose the popular vote while still winning the EC. Winning the popular vote is actually sub-optimal for the GOP. That means they could’ve run on a more right wing platform while still winning the election.

rayiner 3y ago

The “popular vote” doesn’t mean anything, because nobody is trying to win it. It makes way more sense for Trump to spend a bunch of time trying to turn out 5,000 more votes in Georgia than to spend any time trying to turn out a million votes in California. Issue polling, however, shows that Trump is winning on all those issues. For example, 74% of Americans oppose affirmative action in hiring: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans-and-affirmative-action-how-the-public-sees-the-consideration-of-race-in-college-admissions-hiring/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/16/americans.... The median American thinks abortion should be banned after 15 weeks: https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chart2-1536x1515.png https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chart2-1536x15.... It’s the rest of Trump that keeps his support under 50%.

Turing_Machine 3y ago
Yes. The "popular vote" is about as meaningful in the context as picking a President on the basis of how many 3 point shots the candidates can make in a game of 1-on-1 basketball. People who go off on the "popular vote" are generally those who are unwilling to accept that they have lost the election. In other words, sour grapes. Oh, they might argue that they'd be in favor of using the "popular vote" even if that worked against them, but you know what? I don't believe them. If it worked against them, they'd be arguing for a "return to the original system as conceived by the Founders" or some such.
082349872349872 3y ago
I bring up the popular vote because the original claim was: > Trump is aligned with your average American ... against your average American college professor. and the popular vote is evidence that in fact the other candidate in both 2016 and 2020 was aligned with your average American. (as to college professors, although there are only <600k American college professors, which would make them "elite", in recent generations over half of Americans have had at least some college education, which means that the average American knows at least one college professor, which is not so elite. On the other hand, although I've had after-work beers with billionaires, and I'm sure you have too, I'm willing to bet that the average [modal or median, maybe even mean] American has not shared beers with any billionaires. Therefore I would find it more statistically defensible to claim: Trump's opponents in 2016 and 2020 were aligned with your average American ... against your average American billionaire.) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State...
- rayiner 3y ago
  > Trump is aligned with your average American ... against your average American college professor. Your ellipses edits-out the very point I was making, the specific issue of affirmative action. Your average American is indeed aligned with Trump on affirmative action against the average college professor. And on immigration and a host of other issues. > and the popular vote is evidence that in fact the other candidate in both 2016 and 2020 was aligned with your average American. The popular vote is evidence that Trump is a crass, unstable, unlikable person, who lost the election to someone who people perceived to be a decent guy. And “billionaires” aren’t the only elites. For all of history we have recognized the people purporting to answer questions about the nature of the universe and humanity as clerical elites. University professors serve that exact same function in our society and are, in anthropological terms, properly classified as elites.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    > The popular vote is evidence that Trump is a crass, unstable, unlikable person OK, that's a very defensible claim. Let's see how he does (on both metrics) in November?
tptacek 3y ago
People say this, but the alternative you propose, that Trump's 2016 electoral college win was meaningful, is self-evidently false; people in Wyoming aren't 3 times more representative of the country than people in Massachusetts. You can coherently say elections don't mean anything, but you can't coherently say that the popular vote is meaningless but the electoral college isn't. Your argument has to at least make some kind of logical sense, right?
- belorn 3y ago
  From a European perspective, the purpose of voting is to give everyone a voice in how the country is run. The purpose of the voting system is to make encourage people to participate in the vote and honor the outcome. Popular vote in general are not used in Europe, and as a voting system it does not have the desired property of getting people to participate and respect the result. Degressive proportionality is one of the most common property of voting system in EU, and the reason for it depends. For Iceland the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure the capital do not have a majority decision of the rest of the country. In Sweden, the purpose of degressive proportionality is to make sure that the small island of Gotland have a minimum 3 seats in parliament (a purpose which would require a larger explanation). For the European Parliament the reason of degressive proportionality is there to basically not give Germany too much power. The most common argument for the degressive proportionality of electoral college in the united states of America seem to be that it encourage the states to remain part of the union, rather than split the continent into multiple independent countries. Whatever that is still true 200 years is worth having a discussion on, especially now with the low voter participation and low respect for the outcome.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I'm not arguing that we should abolish the electoral college, only that people shouldn't interpret it to mean anything more than it does.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Trump’s electoral college win is meaningful not because the electoral vote is inherently more meaningful than a popular vote, but because it counts and the popular vote doesn’t. In any competition, the rules affect the contestants’ behaviors. You can’t judge a competition outcome under different metrics post hoc. If you’re running a 400 meter, it’s irrelevant who was winning in the first 100 meters—nobody was trying to win that milestone. If they were, they would have run the race differently. Because the Electoral College is the only thing that counts, politicians have every incentive to optimize their campaigns for winning the EC, not the popular vote. Indeed, whichever party has greater support from small rural states (currently the GOP, but for a long time it was democrats) has every incentive to run further to one direction until they lose the popular vote while still winning the EC. Winning the popular vote is actually sub-optimal for the GOP. That means they could’ve run on a more right wing platform while still winning the election.