Are American voters actually just stupid? A new poll suggests the answer may be “yes”

[senseamp]

By voting for pro-life politicians, they got themselves these higher death rates, so I think it's pretty clear.

 

[Jhhnn]

I would add to the stupidity a whole lot of laziness in this recipe for disaster that we've now had prepared and served to us on a billionaire's golden platter.

It's small wonder that the GOP relies on low information voters to garner wins because emotional issues without substance now become the foremost weapon of choice and we've all seen how effectively that worked for Trump.

What we've also witnessed is that you can't put out a fire with a bucket of facts and figures that points to the truth of the matter that that fire is merely a mirage, a figment planted in the hopes of overgrowing the reality of things.

The only thing that prevents the GOP from REALLY going to town on their propaganda war against the people of the nation is the fact that their own greed and selfishness constantly exposes their hypocrisy, their agenda that speaks to how their propaganda really is nothing more than empty words fashioned to trigger raw emotions in order to overcome the true enemy of the BIG LIE they hide behind so as to allow them to do their dirty work for the few very wealthy people who own their asses.

Splitting the working class (of whom coincidentally represent the vast majority of voters) into two warring camps is the prime goal of the very wealthy and they are doing one fine job of it.

For if the working class would unite against them, all is lost.

Add a string of conspiracy theories about the Dirty Democrats to fill in the blanks between the usual wedge issues. Keep 'em riled up & irrational so that they'll ignore the economic horror wreaked on the middle class by trickle down economics.

Confused & afraid, they'll run right into the arms of the devil more often than not.

 

[DrunkenSano]

So, 4% of his voters won't vote for him again. That's way, way, way above the number of fringe voters (77k) that actually gave him the win.

It basically now puts him at a 5 point? loss to Hilary? lol.

This shows that it would not be a loss to Hillary, instead it would be a loss to anyone but Hillary. Which I am sure a lot of people recognize unless they had their heads up Hillary's ass. We had two garbage candidates, Trump won because more Republicans showed up. The article says that most of the voters will still be able to vote Trump, but to see the amount of people that would not re-vote Hillary shows how bad of a candidate she is. Democrats basically fielded the only candidate that was destined to lose to Trump.

 

[Jhhnn]

This shows that it would not be a loss to Hillary, instead it would be a loss to anyone but Hillary. Which I am sure a lot of people recognize unless they had their heads up Hillary's ass. We had two garbage candidates, Trump won because more Republicans showed up. The article says that most of the voters will still be able to vote Trump, but to see the amount of people that would not re-vote Hillary shows how bad of a candidate she is. Democrats basically fielded the only candidate that was destined to lose to Trump.

Please. It's more like "Knowing that Trump won, I'm gaslighting myself into saying I wouldn't have voted for Hillary". It's bullshit.

Trump supporters are totally brainwashed so of course they won't change.

 

[Indus]

I am honestly beginning to think he'll be a 8 year president because whatever he does is "normal" for him and his voters accept it as what they can live with.

 

[Moonbeam]

Please. It's more like "Knowing that Trump won, I'm gaslighting myself into saying I wouldn't have voted for Hillary". It's bullshit.

Trump supporters are totally brainwashed so of course they won't change.

I don't think that's all of it. Given that the democrats offer endless hope while failing to deliver, frustrated people become willing to 'burn it down'. It is our system of broken democracy that makes people willing to be brainwashed. Democrats cater to creating a coalition of outsiders while alienating the insiders by calling them stupid and ignoring their pain. Democrats are supposed to represent and work for everybody including stupid people who are easily brainwashed, and even especially them, because they are the most unfortunate among us by being so willing to fuck themselves. Meanwhile the rich are fully represented by both parties in so far, particularly, in the choices of candidates offered up by the parties.

I would say that if a candidate isn't a screaming left with fanatical lunatic that wants to dive head long into the abyss from a high bridge, that candidate isn't worth shit. In a world of madness where the insane call themselves sane, we need madmen.

 

[hal2kilo]

I don't need a friggin chart or poll or anything. The fact that he's in the office says it all.

 

[Moonbeam]

I am honestly beginning to think he'll be a 8 year president because whatever he does is "normal" for him and his voters accept it as what they can live with.

His voters are full of rage and are satisfied with their choice of Trump because at least he is fucking the party that let them down.

 

[ImpulsE69]

How will that change anything? Reagan did this to them, G Dubs did this to them. It has happened over and over, yet they still don't believe it? How will that change with Trump, who is also very vocally distracting them with soundbytes that finally reflect the very things that they have always believed? (blacks are evil! Gays are the devil! Jews stole this country from good Christians! Immigrants killed my dog and took my job!)

A shitton of Trump voters were first-time voters. These are people that finally came out of hiding because he was feeding them the racism and hate and ultrapopulist nonsense babble that their traditional major party only ever merely paid lipservice to, without directly addressing. Trump took those Klansmen and American Nazis back into the republican fold that they had long rejected, for not being "honest" enough about the decades of dog whistling that had long been used to court them, if only in spirit.

I want to believe that this is merely a fringe group of voters in this country, but I honestly don't know. It's often the smallest groups are the loudest, so I'll stick to that. But the American Nazis that Trump has brought into the forefront of political discussion these days sure seem to be the dominant paradigm.

You ARE leaving out the large portion of the population that did not want Hillary in office. They knew her track record. This included older demographics that always vote. They voted against Hillary, and for the unknown on purpose. Honestly, I don't really blame them, but they are partly responsible for why Hillary was the choice to begin with.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

1) Of course American voters are stupid. We just had an election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. We proved our stupidity long before we had to choose one or the other. The fact that either one of them was allowed to run in the first place is proof that our distant ancestors never should have crawled out of the ocean or down from the trees. All that evolution was completely wasted. Prison gangs who choose their leaders via assrape are laughing at us for not coming up with a better way.

2) It's not just American voters, it's all voters everywhere. "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." ~ Winston Churchill

 

[DrunkenSano]

I am honestly beginning to think he'll be a 8 year president because whatever he does is "normal" for him and his voters accept it as what they can live with.

I'd hope not. Hopefully this is enough of a wake up call to the Democrats that the way they've been doing things is completely obsolete and wrong. Wrong to the point where Trump actually won a Presidential race. And don't get me wrong, it wasn't the Democrats who should heed the wake up call, the Republicans as well. Trump beat the snot out of everyone else they fielded and don't forget, even before the runoff between The Orange Baboon and the Wicked Witch of the West, the entire Republic party was against Trump as well, to the point where he said if they ignored his victory, he would just run as an Independent. So the Republicans better not be sitting back and celebrating but come up with a solution as well to field better candidates. The party that smartens up and realizes that the old guard needs to be removed and the system changed, will be the party that is able to grab the votes for the next major election.

 

[Jhhnn]

1) Of course American voters are stupid. We just had an election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. We proved our stupidity long before we had to choose one or the other. The fact that either one of them was allowed to run in the first place is proof that our distant ancestors never should have crawled out of the ocean or down from the trees. All that evolution was completely wasted. Prison gangs who choose their leaders via assrape are laughing at us for not coming up with a better way.

2) It's not just American voters, it's all voters everywhere. "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." ~ Winston Churchill

And yet another episode of "They're just as bad!"

So vote Republican to satisfy your deep moral outrage at what free market trickle down jerb creators inflict on the Nation. Cuz Freedumb.

 

[Moonbeam]

And yet another episode of "They're just as bad!"

So vote Republican to satisfy your deep moral outrage at what free market trickle down jerb creators inflict on the Nation. Cuz Freedumb.

How about not 'just as bad' but both 'bad enough'? I mean, the problem with Clinton wasn't what was wrong with her in particular but her failure to grasp or deliver on what a proper Democrat message should have spoken to to get enough votes to win. Her message was directed at winning the votes of Democrats and as a result the better message that Sanders had never got the chance to win. That is the fault of democrats who could not see her message would fall flat in the general. This is the result of a brain defect among liberal, the notion that their logic is so superior they are guaranteed to win. Clinton was seen as the logical choice by having earned her chance. Personally, I felt a sense of betrayal to women and to Clinton when my personal sense of the situation was that Trump was very capable of beating her and Sanders was polling better against him and I decided to support him over her. To me it was clear that was the result of the broad and outside the party appeal of his message.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

And yet another episode of "They're just as bad!"

So vote Republican to satisfy your deep moral outrage at what free market trickle down jerb creators inflict on the Nation. Cuz Freedumb.

In this case, just as bad or even worse. Try to get this into your head: Hilary lost because her own party hated her and Trump won because he was running against the only person on Earth he could beat. The two most repugnant candidates in US electoral history squared off and every one of us lost because one of them was forced to win. AMERICA FUCKED UP! Both parties should be ashamed of themselves for not laughing both of those idiots off the platform at stage one.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

The Democrats have had no shame since Nixon won, and the GOP has had no shame since the Depression if not slightly before. That concept is alien to the kind of people who have so much money and power.

 

[agent00f]

http://www.salon.com/2017/04/26/are...id-a-new-poll-suggests-the-answer-may-be-yes/

Are tens of millions of Americans really this stupid? If the findings from a new ABC News poll are any indication, then the answer is yes:

There’s no honeymoon for Donald Trump in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll but also no regrets: He approaches his 100th day in office with the lowest approval rating at this point of any other president in polls since 1945 — yet 96 percent of those who supported him in November say they’d do so again today. . . .

Among those who report having voted for [Trump] in November, 96 percent today say it was the right thing to do; a mere 2 percent regret it. And if a rerun of the election were held today, the poll indicates even the possibility of a Trump victory in the popular vote among 2016 voters.

This is despite all the lies Donald Trump has told and all the campaign promises he has betrayed: He has not “drained the swamp” of lobbyists and corporate fat cats, has not built his “huge” and “amazing” wall along the Mexican-American border, has not returned jobs to the United States and has not repealed the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, as of Day 100 of his presidency Trump has fulfilled few of his main campaign promises.

Moreover, the fact that 96 percent of Trump’s voters would make the same decision again despite overwhelming evidence that President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of installing Trump as a puppet candidate raises many troubling questions about how tens of millions of American voters were “flipped” by a foreign power to act against their own country.

It is easy to mock Donald Trump’s voters and suggest that their loyalty reflects poorly on their intelligence and capacity for rational thinking. Before doing so, one should consider the following ABC News-Washington Post data about Hillary Clinton’s voters:

Among surveyed Americans who say they voted in the 2016 election, 46 percent say they voted for Hillary Clinton and 43 percent for Trump — very close to the 2-point margin in the popular vote. However, while Trump would retain almost all of his support if the election were held again today (96 percent), fewer of Clinton’s supporters say they’d stick with her (85 percent), producing a 40-43 percent Clinton-Trump result in a hypothetical redo among self-reported 2016 voters.

That’s not because former Clinton supporters would now back Trump; only 2 percent of them say they’d do so, similar to the 1 percent of Trump voters who say they’d switch to Clinton. Instead, they’re more apt to say they’d vote for a third-party candidate or wouldn’t vote.

President Donald Trump is the antithesis of what Hillary Clinton’s voters desired in a candidate. And in many ways Donald Trump’s incompetent, ignorant, reckless, racist, demagogic and cruel behavior in office is worse than even his most concerned and cynical critics had predicted. This outcome should motivate Clinton’s voters to become more engaged and more active, instead of making a hypothetical decision, in a hypothetical election, that might actually give Trump a victory in the popular vote.

The findings from this new poll are troubling. But they should not come as a surprise.

Political scientists and other researchers have repeatedly documented that the American public does not have a sophisticated knowledge on political matters. The average American also does not use a coherent and consistent political ideology to make voting decisions. As Larry Bartels and Christopher Achen demonstrate in their new book “Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government,” Americans have identities and values that elites manipulate, which voters in turn use to process information — however incorrectly.



While some groups of voters may apply decision-rules based on community concerns (African-Americans fit this model), American voters en masse are not rational actors who seriously consider the available information, develop knowledge and expertise about their specific worries and then make political choices that would maximize their goals.

These matters are further complicated when considering right-wing voters. While Trump may have failed in most of his policy goals, he has succeeded symbolically in terms of his racist and nativist crusade against people of color and Muslims. Given the centrality of racism and white supremacy in today’s Republican Party specifically, and movement conservatism more generally, Trump’s hostility to people of color can be counted as a type of “success” by his racially resentful white voters.

American conservatives and right-leaning independents are also ensconced in an alternative news media universe that rejects empirical reality. A combination of disinformation and outright lies from the right-wing media, in combination with “fake news” circulated online by Russian operatives and others, has conditioned Trump voters and other Republicans to make decisions with no basis in fact. American conservatives do, however, possess a surplus of incorrect information. In that context, their political decisions may actually make sense to them: This is a version of “garbage in, garbage out.”

Republican voters also tend to be have more authoritarian views than the general public. As a type of motivated social cognition, conservatism is typified by deference to authority, groupthink, conformity, social dominance behavior and hostility to new experiences and new information. These attributes combine to make Trump voters less likely to regret supporting him and in some cases — because of a phenomenon known as “information backfire“— to become more recalcitrant when shown that Trump’s policies have failed in practice.






This ABC News/Washington Post poll also signals a deeper problem. In different ways, both Trump and Clinton voters appear unable to connect their personal political decisions to questions of institutional power and political outcomes. This is a crisis of civic literacy that threatens the foundations of American democracy.

For example, many of Trump’s voters know that his policies will hurt people like them. Yet they still support Trump anyway. The Clinton supporters who reported that they either would not participate or would choose a third candidate if they were able to vote again would select a decision that would make matters worse, by effectively guaranteeing that Trump — the candidate they claim to reject — would be elected.

This is but one more reminder that Donald Trump’s victory was not a sudden crisis or unexpected surprise. The neofascist movement that Trump represents was an iceberg of sorts — one that was a long time in the making. If this new poll is correct, many millions of Americans would make choices that would steer the ship of state into that same iceberg all over again. Such an outcome is ominous. The thought process that would rationalize such a decision is deranged.

Yale historian Timothy Snyder has argued that a democracy has about one year to reverse course if it has succumbed to fascism and authoritarianism. America’s civic literacy crisis may mean that the country has even less time than Snyder’s prediction suggests.








I have to say decent read, good conjecture but still she was the wrong candidate at the wrong time. That said in my experience Trump voters are unmovable. The only way to beat Trump is by courting the undecided, anti- Trump's like Bernie is doing even if we don't all agree on their views.

The general sentiment underlying these articles/threads reveal that american liberalism really don't understand how politics of the other side works. In the liberal view, "politics" is about policy laid out from principled virtue to make the world a better place. This is the legacy of the enlightenment per kantian categorical imperative and the like, whereby the right path to take in life is that which benefits everyone the most.

In contrast the world which predates that ideal is focused on personal self-interest. That's why Trump's transparent pandering & such is the perfect conception of conservatism, and liberals literally cannot believe how anyone can vote for that sort of person. That disbelief is very illuminating evidence of the aforementioned misunderstanding. It's why liberals are obliged to think conservatives must be tricked into their course of action, and that if said tricks are revealed then these folks will instead join them; so they put considerable effort into explaining the plain deceit of conservative PR or whatever.

The complete utter failure of that recourse only proves just how erroneous the base assumption is. Many people just don't care about some abstract egalitarian cause, just that if they're ever up against some mexican in a work situation or whatever they can see eye to eye with the superior who likes Trump for the same reason they do. This is especially important to the lower edu/iq crowd who might think of ethnicity/heritage as their main qualification, so it's no surprise who Trump particularly appeals to. It shows that contemporary liberals have the ethics model backwards: instead of dispelling aforementioned "tricks", it takes a learned intelligence to grasp and follow modern ethical virtue, and their counterparts evidently failed even after 12 years of liberal education.

Conservatives also understand that said status benefits don't come for free, and the price they pay is the democratic vote ironically entrusted to them by students of the enlightenment. If those who build & maintain the stratification apparatus eg Trump & friends get something out of it, then so be it. Better to divide the spoils among themselves than given any to lower status groups. Seems obvious that liberal ideals have no purchase with such a crowd.

 

[Jhhnn]

In this case, just as bad or even worse. Try to get this into your head: Hilary lost because her own party hated her and Trump won because he was running against the only person on Earth he could beat. The two most repugnant candidates in US electoral history squared off and every one of us lost because one of them was forced to win. AMERICA FUCKED UP! Both parties should be ashamed of themselves for not laughing both of those idiots off the platform at stage one.

And the double down into lies & innuendo. Conveniently forget that she actually got 3M more votes than Trump. Conveniently forget the irrational rapport Trump the charlatan built with the deplorables. Conveniently forget the massive concern trolling wreaked on Bernie's supporters & the very timely release & gleeful employment of Russian-hacked emails.

Forget that she was simply overwhelmed by a tsunami of slime that you're still pushing.

 

[chowderhead]

And the double down into lies & innuendo. Conveniently forget that she actually got 3M more votes than Trump. Conveniently forget the irrational rapport Trump the charlatan built with the deplorables. Conveniently forget the massive concern trolling wreaked on Bernie's supporters & the very timely release & gleeful employment of Russian-hacked emails.

Forget that she was simply overwhelmed by a tsunami of slime that you're still pushing.

She earned the third most votes EVER behind someone named Obama. If it wasn't for the FBI assist and the 20 years of vitriol directed at her, she would have won. Yes, she thought the American people would go high when the choice was so stark but the everyone is just as bad did her in. She never fully articulated why she was running and why she was the superior choice. Too bad we all have to suffer because she overestimated the American electorate,

 

[agent00f]

And the double down into lies & innuendo. Conveniently forget that she actually got 3M more votes than Trump. Conveniently forget the irrational rapport Trump the charlatan built with the deplorables. Conveniently forget the massive concern trolling wreaked on Bernie's supporters & the very timely release & gleeful employment of Russian-hacked emails.

Forget that she was simply overwhelmed by a tsunami of slime that you're still pushing.

As a convincing exhibit of my point, would you say that in all the time you've been pointing out these "tricks" there's been any supposed sheeple who've seen the light? OTOH it's very easy to demonstrate that the same folks are willing to say or do anything to legitimize/validate their status above various browns & such. I'd like to think we live in an age of science where theories bear practical fruit.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

She earned the third most votes EVER behind someone named Obama.

People like YOU are why the American electorate are idiots. Do you understand how desperately pathetic you sound with that "third most votes ever" crap? Of course not, if you did you'd shoot yourself for even thinking it. The country gets bigger, votes get higher. Walter Mondale got creamed worse than anyone else in modern history and picked up 10 million more votes than FDR ever got. And if AT was around then there would have been some monumental fucktard talking how much more popular Wally was than FDR and that only the Russians and Bigfoot backing Reagan kept Mondale out of the White House.

 

[agent00f]

People like YOU are why the American electorate are idiots. Do you understand how desperately pathetic you sound with that "third most votes ever" crap? Of course not, if you did you'd shoot yourself for even thinking it. The country gets bigger, votes get higher. Walter Mondale got creamed worse than anyone else in modern history and picked up 10 million more votes than FDR ever got. And if AT was around then there would have been some monumental fucktard talking how much more popular Wally was than FDR and that only the Russians and Bigfoot backing Reagan kept Mondale out of the White House.

She got about as many votes as Obama in 2012, but it's understandable that idiots are pretty terrible at comparing sizes of numbers.

 

[Indus]

Well the electoral college has fucked us over twice in 16 years by giving us idiots but the guy and girl the democrats ran had something to do with it both times. Its just bad that the voters suffer more than the politicians.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Well the electoral college has fucked us over twice in 16 years by giving us idiots but the guy and girl the democrats ran had something to do with it both times. Its just bad that the voters suffer more than the politicians.

Anyone who voted for Bronco not once but twice was not only stupid but doubly stupid.

 

[nickqt]

People like YOU are why the American electorate are idiots. Do you understand how desperately pathetic you sound with that "third most votes ever" crap? Of course not, if you did you'd shoot yourself for even thinking it. The country gets bigger, votes get higher. Walter Mondale got creamed worse than anyone else in modern history and picked up 10 million more votes than FDR ever got. And if AT was around then there would have been some monumental fucktard talking how much more popular Wally was than FDR and that only the Russians and Bigfoot backing Reagan kept Mondale out of the White House.

Talk about desperately pathetic. Nice example.

Mondale ran 52 years after FDR.

Clinton ran, uh, right fucking after Obama.

Keep that BothSidesDoIt™ horseshit flowing, champ.

 

[nickqt]

Anyone who voted for Bronco not once but twice was not only stupid but doubly stupid.

Hilarious analysis.

How's the billionaire globalist doing in draining the swamp by hiring fellow billionaires and failing at everything his aides touch while he's busy golfing and dreaming of incesting up Ivanka?

Keep on keepin' on, clown.