rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

A rundown: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/17/biden-trump-polling-democratic-convention-396275

"We are a non-partisan group keeping you informed with trusted political polls, predictions and election night results. We are all you need to be in the know!"

very pedantic take, i know, but how can this account be all i need to be in the know?

also, i can think of one more thing i need to be in the know: a link to the actual poll in the goddamn tweet

*shakes fist at social media, the fucking worst*

why would trump be gaining in the polls at all, though? like who is saying "i was going to vote biden, but then i heard trump making a moronic spectacle of himself on television and changed my mind. he's the guy i want."

important context about the poll that @Ppolling numbers doesn't have enough twitter characters to explain or even link to:

Across 15 battleground states, the survey finds Biden has the backing of 49% of registered voters, while Trump lands at 48%.

The pool of battleground states in this poll includes more that Trump carried in 2016 (10) than were won by Hillary Clinton (5), reflecting the reality that the President's campaign is more on defense than offense across the states. Taken together, though, they represent a more Republican-leaning playing field than the nation as a whole.

xpost Have you ever seen a leaf blowing in the wind only to be caught in a crosswind and blown in the opposite direction? The leaf cannot help it, it has no autonomy.

if CNN is lucky, one of their 4th tier guests will whisper that little piece of context during the 19th segment they run on the poll today. then if the human race is lucky, some 3rd tier celebrity will tweet out the CNN clip where they explain the context so a rando polling aggregator can inform everyone else about how the most exciting little tidbit they could find in a poll description was misleading

god DAMN the replies to that tweet. it's not the fucking cnn poll that's an indicator of the decline of the united states, it's the fucking people replying to it without even pausing to consider about what they're complaining about

I found that poll (and front-page headline on their site) alarming and inexplicable too; the context helps.

(Knowing how much CNN despises Trump, a ridiculous conspiracist idea flashed across my mind; they're trying to bait Trump into letting a legitimate election go forward.)

Before you freak out about any one poll (or some exotic summary function of polls) that a twitter account has cherry picked for you, look at all of them yourself and make up your own mind:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/?ex_cid=irpromo
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

"battleground states average" is inherently misleading because which states are included as "battleground" is subjective (as I see now that Karl just pointed out)

CNN really is a garbage organization. jake tapper makes a good "you don't know what you're talking about" face to the people he interviews, so maybe keep him for some other gig, but otherwise burn the whole thing down plz

i mean, they want a "horse race."

the fact that Trump is constantly attacking them has convinced a lot of people that they are in fact good

that poll includes Texas as a battleground state btw

so sick of being surrounded by legitimately panic-worthy things, only to be constantly bombarded* by stuff that seems panic-worthy but is actually manipulated just to get more clicks

*not by xyz or other ilxors - yelling at the garbage media outlets who create this stuff and the 80% trustworthy social media ecosystem that spreads it

the fact that Trump is constantly attacking them has convinced a lot of people that they are in fact good

― frogbs, Monday, August 17, 2020 10:55 AM (fifty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a problem with a lot of things

it's a shame we didn't have this "cancel culture" twenty years ago as Trump would've been one of the most cancelled people in the world.

Insofar as I watch any cable news, it's ten minutes of MSNBC in the afternoons when I'm sure an NBC reporter is on. I'm rather surprised y'all watch CNN at all; 2016 may have been the last time I peeked.

i try to avoid it but little pieces of it appear on my screen all the time

I know there's a handful of decent people doing decent work but even so I sez nuke the entirety of tv news from orbit.

despite the name you are not obligated to C that NN

I don't have cable. I only see CNN clips when someone shares them on Twitter.

joe biden needs another schtick besides hiding and being senile.

Possibly by making decently well-publicized (if lackluster) speeches and announcements, including announcing a long-anticipated (and reasonably well-received) announcement of his running mate, and participating significantly in a new kind of national party convention, making due with a completely unprecedented set of circumstances?

Or are we really going to continue saying that the Biden campaign is Nothing But Basement?

* making do, gah

Knowing how much CNN despises Trump

Citation needed

They do. They're monomaniacal about it, one of the reasons they've become unwatchable. I've tried to explain this...you'd have to watch a day or two of CNN to understand, and no one's going to do that who doesn't already, so it's a Catch-22.

Hating Trump is the only acceptable response to Trump. But for a news channel, it leads to stories like this:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/investing/coronavirus-vaccine-stocks-goldman-sachs/index.html

CNN: Trump is so annoying!

Trumps
they wanna have fu-hun

That's just not accurate, OL. They're unwatchable, but it's not because they tread lightly around Trump. They've spent five hours a night almost since the day he took over assiduously chronicling every last lie--they're still going on about hydroxychloroquine--and their pandemic coverage has been unrelentingly end-of-the-world. I'm not even sure why I feel the need to frame their unwatchability accurately, but it's simply not true that they give Trump a pass.

For me, it's just exhaustion.

No no, you misunderstand. It's like that thing where a guy is all like, ugh that girl is soooo annoying.

Ugh these boffo ratings are soooo annoying.

we get the joke you can move on

I think they profit off of Trump’s outrageous behavior. And Trump profits from the endless negative coverage because it keeps him at the center of attention and he cares more about that than anything. Besides, his own attack dogs need negative coverage to react against, it provides a pretext for their flattery. It’s just a sick co-dependency, Trump and cable news.

Whether the reporters themselves like him secretly—they probably don’t. But like it or not they’re in the Trump business now.

I'll agree with that, and again plug a book that analyzes that brilliantly: James Poniewozik's Audience of One.

like it or not they’re in the Trump business now

Forget it Jake, it's Donaldtown.

joe biden needs another schtick besides hiding and being senile.

― treeship.

we need another ticket besides biden/harris.

Unmet needs are everywhere you look.

Unmet needs are everywhere you look.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless)

and yet this is the one you prioritize pushing back on. interesting.

uh, kate, the prioritization was that your remark was literally under my nose, so I remarked back. how my remark qualifies as 'pushing back' at you is something I do not understand. I didn't contradict you in any way, but only expanded on your observation.

Whether the reporters themselves like him secretly—they probably don’t. But like it or not they’re in the Trump business now.

Their boss is definitely in the Trump business

This was not a coincidence. Zucker is a big sports fan and from the early days of the campaign had spoken at editorial meetings about wanting to incorporate elements of ESPN’s programming into CNN’s election coverage. “The idea that politics is sport is undeniable, and we understood that and approached it that way,” he told me. Toward that end, the network built “pregame” sets outside debate halls with excited crowds in the background and created a temporary rooftop studio for the final weeks of the campaign with sweeping views of the White House and the Washington Monument. An on-screen countdown clock ticked down the days (then hours) to Nov. 8. Trump, the trash-talking (and trash-Tweeting) underdog who inspired raw, powerful feelings among supporters and detractors alike, was the ideal subject for this narrative framework.

...

Zucker lives about 10 blocks from Trump Tower, and three of his four children still attend the same Upper West Side private school as Trump’s youngest son, Barron. “I like Donald,” Zucker told me, before quickly correcting himself. “I guess I shouldn’t call him that. I like President Trump. He’s affable. He’s funny.” He paused, searching for another adjective.

“He’s good company?” I suggested.

“He’s good company,” Zucker agreed. (The White House declined to comment on the record for this article.)

joe biden needs another schtick besides hiding and being senile.

― treeship., Monday, August 17, 2020 2:28 PM (yesterday)

can we stop with the "senile" crap already

He should stop being senile then.

three of his four children still attend the same Upper West Side private school as Trump’s youngest son, Barron

My first thought: Barron lives in DC and goes to school in MD right? Then, never mind, that article is from 2017.

xp he's just regular old

you should save "senile" for the real thing, if and when it happens, because otherwise people like me will be like "yeah but you were calling him senile back when he was just regular old"

old like we all will be sooner than we think

you should save "senile" for the real thing, if and when it happens, because otherwise people like me will be like "yeah but you were calling him senile back when he was just regular old"

― The GOAT Harold Land (Karl Malone)

senility gatekeeping olympics

post-Covid athletics looking truly dire

i'll still take it over gridiron football