ex-President Trump

Which election results are you referring to?

Are you saying that publishing poll results affects the event for which they're polling, or have I misunderstood?

Is this the same water that's been turning the frogs gay?

He is suggesting that issue polling proves that a majority of voters in swing states (and perhaps in red states) favor Bernie-style policies.

As usual, this argument ignores the most definitive polls we have, which are the actual election results in those states.

How do you get that reading?

You said:

ES2 responded:

I am reading that as "progressives do poorly in swing states because of polls and prior results", but "it" is a very ambiguous reference in his statement, since the phrase (or sentiment) "for some reason" did not actually appear in your post.

I understood him to be responding to this sentence:

Replace "somehow" with "for some reason."

Ah, ok, that's what I was missing, thanks.

ES2 may interpret my views on this topics as reflecting some sort of antipathy toward the progressive politicians or the progressive wing of the Democratic party. That isn't the case. I obviously can't provide definitive proof of my actual beliefs, but if someone in a fit of insanity reviewed all of my posts on politics in 2+2, that person would quickly conclude that I never put Bernie or any other progressive politicians on blast, and that I more than once had described progressives as an important part of the Democratic party.

Can you explain what you mean?

I would be inclined to say that issue polling is much easier to manipulate. If you want polling to skew in the direction of progressive policies, especially on economic issues, then frame the question as if the "progressive" option doesn't entail any trade offs. An example of such a question would be as follows: "Should the minimum wage be increased from X to Y?"

If you wanted the respondents to appear more conservative, then you would frame the question as follows: "Should the minimum wage be increased from X to Y, even if doing so increases the risk of inflation or unemployment?"

As an aside, I understand that the relationship between minimum wage and inflation/unemployment is itself a divisive issue.

sure, I dont think that exit polling is representative of unbiased polling, especially with regards to candidates that were not on the ballot

polling people who went and voted Dem or R isnt going to give you unbaised or accurate information as to the mindset of the public when questioned about voting for bernie sanders or ron paul or JFK jr.

these are people that clearly care enough about their candidate or their party such that they vote dem/rep

I do not think they are a good representation of americans that would vote for bernie or rfk had they been on the dem ticket

I am not just talking about general elections between Republicans and Democrats. Progressive Democrats tend to break through and win Democratic primaries in exactly the states and districts where you would expect them to do so. They don't tend to win statewide primaries or general elections in swing states. This isn't an iron rule, of course, but is an easily observable trend if you look at a chart like this:

https://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?...

bernie didnt win primaries because the DNC was plotting against him to ensure Clinton and Biden were the nominees.

the DNC was even sued for said conspiracies and it was ruled that said plots were not illegal.

Is that the same reason that progressives unsurprisingly do best at the statewide level in the most liberal states?

I do not know enough about that stuff to comment tbh

It's also worth noting that Democratic primary voters often have been perceived as more liberal on average that people who vote Democratic in general elections, especially in states where you have to be a registered party member to vote in the primary. On the Republican side, primary voters often have been perceived as more conservative on average than people who vote Republican in general elections. That why presidential candidates historically have played more to the more hardcore wings of their respective parties in the primaries and then tacked to the center in general elections.

You realize he is not a Democrat, don't you?

Correct. All of the policies Dems claim would make a candidate unelectable are hugely popular. Legalized weed. Even full decriminalization of possession is 55% yes. Single payer. Family leave. Higher wages. Level or reduced military spending. Etc

I cannot painstakingly go through every election result and try to figure how this is distributed relative to electoral college results. However, in most cases these policies are favored by 60-80%. So hard to imagine this would matter.

I can cherry pick a few things to suit my narrative. $15/hr passed in a landslide in Florida. Something the DNC has oposed. Florida, of course, is a redish battleground state. Why not favor a policy that was popular there?

The Dem governor of Colorado opposed legalization citing all kinds of refer madness lies but it passed anyway. This is another policy that is about as close to objectively good as it gets. (Do we make $$$ taxing a less dangerous drug, or spend $$$$ investigating, prosecuting and jailing people over a less dangerous drug?) It's passed in other states too, usually by referendum. Meanwhile, Chelsea was going around saying people can die from weed.

I don’t know how else to say that Bernie, Obama and Trump have all over performed as outsiders running anti corruption and pro material well being, while people like Biden and Hilary underperform, running business as usual. How does any one look at the Biden campaign and think, "this is the way,?"

A couple more things to consider. When you look at these races, don't forget that special interests give literally billions to the Bidens of the world. This is a huge advantage. Bernie ran on people sending him their date night money and they still had to cheat to beat him. Trump is a dipchit reality TV star with a red hat and they have photo finishes with him.

Maybe some disagree, but the media favors people like Biden over Bernie and BIGLY over Trump. Yet everyone still hates DNC candidates and they struggle. The old media are only going to lose influence moving forward.

Lastly, imagine if the Dems actually lead on these issues. You've had 2 parties and most media lying their azzes off about things like weed and UHC and fighting tooth and nail against it. Yet the GP still disagrees.

What if your average Dem simply told the truth about weed or HC, sided with the GP, championed good policies and could take credit for implementing them?

Just no chance that would work better than what they are doing now?

I keep coming back to this same problem with this logic. For the most part, progressive candidates do much better at the state and district level in strongly liberal areas and much worse in swing areas.

Why, then, should we suddenly expect a progressive candidate to do well in a national election in both strongly liberal and swing areas. Why would voting behavior change in swing areas just because the election was national?

My understanding of the story is that radical left wing policies like, lowering our incarceration rate to Russia or Turkey's or American workers having vacations make a candidate unelectable.

If you think people would be happy to get vacations and that it's a good policy, why have Dems never implemented it over many opportunities?

Even if it's not a great policy for some reason, wouldn't it be worth making this compromise to "save democracy?"

62% like Obamacare. Obama won. Is it crazy to think this would happen with Hil-cation and Biden-leave?

Because Obama beat two excellent candidates while Hillary lost to a terrible candidate and Biden barely beat him when he was an even worse candidate, having show who he was. How else can I say this?

I also think this is a flawed way of looking at it. Firstly, of course more "progressive" candidates do well in liberaler areas. This is trivial.

Second, you have to define progressive. This is a superficial way of looking at it.

I mean, it's a little far fetched that this factoid means Dems should side against 70% of the GP on issues like weed and 80% on family leave. Especially as most of those in the minority would never vote for them.

He was asking for a citation to whatever MSM article you were referring to.

Obama wasn't an especially progressive candidate and he certainly wasn't an especially progressive president. If you are pivoting to the argument that Obama was a much better candidate than HRC or Biden, I agree, but I don't think that had much to do with differences on policy.

I don't get the impression he was meaning a particular article, but that this was a thing generally believed to be true (that Democrats who supported these more progressive policies would lose). The problem is that I have never heard anyone claiming the part in parentheses, so I don't know where he's getting the idea that it is the conventional wisdom.

Because they aren’t competing against big money once they are the sole Dem candidate