David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics • Hacker News Board

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#31

Post by obscoth » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 7:51 AM UTC

salamimonger wrote: post #16

bumbledraven wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean by demographic destiny? Presumably he means the same thing CNN means by it. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/election-2020-trump-... (emphasis mine): “It happened four years ago when Donald Trump scored an Electoral College victory with his turn-back-the-clock campaign to Make America Great Again. He'll have trouble pulling it off again. That's partly because the pace of demographic change k…

I love how acceptable it is to brag about how eventually white people in the US will be outpopulated by non-white people who we assume will all vote Democrat. How would the reaction be if the mainstream media was bragging about white people outbirthing Mexicans in Mexico and soon taking over their politics? Note: I'm not white btw so don't @ me, just making an observation

Maybe it would be less acceptable if white people hadn’t produced so many atrocities against nonwhites. I don’t feel sorry for them.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#32

Post by shoo » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #2

> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…

here's some pointers to results summarising

1. higher racial resentment correlated with higher votes for trump 2. most positive views of rising diversity correlated with switching from voting for romney to voting for not-trump ; least positive views of rising diversity correlated with switching from voting for obama to voting for trump 3. correlation of support for trump and more negative views of rising diversity

the analysis for 2 & 3 "[...] controls for education, gender, age, income, ideology, party, views on immigration, racial resentment and personal finances"

https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1304772188030066689

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#33

Post by LaundroMat » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:19 AM UTC

imperfectcats wrote: post #18

rayiner wrote: post #2

> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…

I think this sort of response to the interview misses the forest for the trees. This is the best article on elections I have ever read. When I first read it I felt for the first time I understood how the game is scored. These two quotes stand out and are what matter: > Persuadable voters trust the parties on different issues. And there’s a pretty basic pattern — both here and in other countries — in which voters view…

Lakoff's "Don't Think of an Elephant" says something similar: don't let the other side provide the frame for your narrative.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#34

Post by alttab » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #2

> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…

This dude knows nothing about why Trump won if he thinks I went from Obama to Trump because I'm a closet racist.

Maybe it had to do with all the war, bombing, and drone campaigns?

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#35

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:24 AM UTC

alttab wrote: post #34

rayiner wrote: post #2

> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…

This dude knows nothing about why Trump won if he thinks I went from Obama to Trump because I'm a closet racist. Maybe it had to do with all the war, bombing, and drone campaigns?

It's the company you keep...

As if the Republican side didn't have enough bombings, drone strikes and so on. Yes, Obama disappointed on quite a few fronts. But choosing Trump of Clinton was just plain stupid, face it.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#36

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:30 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #21

imperfectcats wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this sort of response to the interview misses the forest for the trees. This is the best article on elections I have ever read. When I first read it I felt for the first time I understood how the game is scored. These two quotes stand out and are what matter: > Persuadable voters trust the parties on different issues. And there’s a pretty basic pattern — both here and in other countries — in which voters view…

I agree the advice is astute. But you don’t necessarily get to pick what to talk about. Luckily, this election became a referendum on COVID—where the general empathetic association of Democrats plays strongly. But say COVID hadn’t happened. Instead, the last major pre-election issue was what happened this summer and law-and-order issues? (As Schor notes, this issue favors Republicans.) A whole lot of progressive Demo…

Possibly, but you could project the same argument backwards: "why is this King guy talking about race when it's incredibly unpopular with white voters?"

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#37

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:32 AM UTC

AYBABTME wrote: post #19

weakfish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment lives in an alternative reality. Calling someone a Karen is racist? Please.

It depends how you define racism! According to "Defining Racism" by Beverly Daniel Tatum, it isn't. But in other interpretations of the word, it would be. I don't think it's far fetched to assume it might rightfully feel like a racist slur to the grand-parent. Whether racism or not, it's probably an -ism of some sort. Despite disagreeing with the GP, at least their painting of "Karen" as an -ism gave me pause and mad…

[deleted]

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#38

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:34 AM UTC

salamimonger wrote: post #16

bumbledraven wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean by demographic destiny? Presumably he means the same thing CNN means by it. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/election-2020-trump-... (emphasis mine): “It happened four years ago when Donald Trump scored an Electoral College victory with his turn-back-the-clock campaign to Make America Great Again. He'll have trouble pulling it off again. That's partly because the pace of demographic change k…

I love how acceptable it is to brag about how eventually white people in the US will be outpopulated by non-white people who we assume will all vote Democrat. How would the reaction be if the mainstream media was bragging about white people outbirthing Mexicans in Mexico and soon taking over their politics? Note: I'm not white btw so don't @ me, just making an observation

There's an entire genre of white supremacist media that goes on about this "replacement" endlessly, and has politics to match such as the "quiverful" movement encouraging white women to have lots of children.

I don't think people on the other side are bragging.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#39

Post by rendall » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

From the article: But a lot of people on the Clinton campaign tricked themselves into the idea that they didn’t have to placate the social views of racist white people.

This seems like a pretty important insight and I really wish the interview could have unpacked this a lot better. It seems to be an operating assumption of the Democratic campaign, and I imagine if one is locked into this view (by implacable statistical analysis), then it would be really difficult to hear any other concern as anything but dog-whistling racism. While Shor did somewhat outline his thinking, it would be nice to be able to follow this trail to see why, exactly

From the article: There’s a paper by the political scientist David Broockman that made this point really famous — that “moderate” voters don’t have moderate views, just ideologically inconsistent ones.

The words a paper in that quote links not to the paper itself, but to a Vox interview, from which all links are to a draft paper that 404. I would like to read this paper for myself, but apparently it has been withdrawn

I wonder if David Shor is quick to cite papers that support his preconceptions, rather than let the quality of the papers lead him to conclusions? This is why I would like to actually see the results of these polls and such for his first assertion.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#40

Post by forest_dweller » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 9:14 AM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #11

ZeteticElench wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is obviously racist and divisive.

Curious that you're downvoted without comment. I was hoping some of your detractors would've explained why they think you're wrong. As an outsider to the US bunfight, your statement seems, based on what we see, pretty self-evident.

I am also an outsider and it isn't obvious to me how he is both. Divisive sure (most politicians of note are), racist though? I personally don't see it.

It suits some people to conflate immigration policy and racism. It then allows them to then label anyone opposed to immigration as racist. It is further confounded by the fact that those people that are deeply racist are almost always opposed to immigration. They do it all the time in the UK and I see no reason why it would be different in the US.

For "evidence" of Trump's racism, most will bring up his clumsy statement when he first announced he was running for president. To me he was clearly referring to hardened criminals and gangs, others say he is referring to every illegal immigrant. Again if you take it in the worse possible intent yes then you could say it is racist. However that is the worst possible interpretation and it shouldn't be your default. From my observations Trump was speaking off the cuff and I can forgive a poorly worded statement.

I am not particularly partisan (I am a centre -> centre-right libertarian when taking political compass tests). However after spending a lot of time paying attention to what is going on both sides will try to spin any issue in their favour.

I've been duped a few times by both sides of the political spectrum when it comes to contentious statements. Sp when a media outlet claims someone has made such a statement, I find the original clip of what was said and listen to it in context before I form an opinion.