Trump wins presidency for second time

Shower thought: People vote for Trump because he is actually predictable. You never have to guess whose interests he is protecting. It's always his own. You never have to guess whether he is lying. He sure as hell is but there is also no hidden agenda. It's unfiltered mental diarrhea but it's raw and authentic.

I think a lot of the unease and disdain for the Western political class stems from their attempts to be inoffensive and appeal to everybody. Whatever policy you enact there is always going to be a trade-off, winners and losers, and if you do now acknowledge that, how can I be sure that you are acting in my interest?

“Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.” ― Captain Jack Sparrow

Polling has fundamental issues that can't be solved with statistics. The biggest one is the unknown difference between who responds to the poll and who votes. And poll response areas are very low these days - I've heard well under 1% is common (that is, less than 1 out of 100 individuals contacted by the pollster answer the questions).

Nate Silver nailed this in the 2016 election. He said Trump's victory there was consistent with historically normal polling errors.

What may have been less widely appreciated is these errors are not related to causes like limited sample size that are straightforwardly amenable to statistical analysis. They come from the deeper problems with polling and the way those problems shift under our feet a little bit with each election.

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For some people, the consequences won't be as benign.

Well, my hope for humanity is permanently eroded. Half the populace elected a blubbering rapist, felon, and fascist to lead them. Again.

I'm making rapid plans to get the fuck out of this shithole country, and as far as business goes, no known Trump supporter will ever get my handshake.