this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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[–] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 44 points 10 months ago (30 children)

Polls are completely unreliable, especially this far out. They predicted trumps loss the first go around and we endured 4 years of that POS. They predicted red waves the last 2 election cycles and it never manifested.

Its a problem with the techniques they're using to gather data I guess. Whether it's the cold calling or what, I don't know, but it clearly isn't effective to get honest assessments anymore.

That being said it will never not blow my mind that it's even slightly close. Last election millions of Americans sat through 4 years of trump and said yep that worked out great for me. Everyone I talked to who was in that camp had various incorrect reasons but you don't need to be right, you just have to feel like you're right.

I think the reality is that Biden is not and has never been a popular candidate. His age works against him. Kamala is equally unappealing and doesn't help things either. The biggest problem right now is that Biden has come out very strongly pro Israel (which every single president has done including Trump) and he has not done enough to condemn the Israeli genocide. Millenials and Gen z are at the very least anti genocide and largely pro Palestine so that's not helping his case, although they're short sighted if they assume Trump would be the better answer here.

If Trump wins our democracy is over. 'Oh you're overreacting'. Yeah they said that to me before Trumps presidency and I was correct then as I am correct now.

We have to get through 24 and not have a deranged traitorous lunatic take the reigns of the country again. We can discuss the next steps in the post Trump era but we won't get the option to discuss it if Trump somehow wins.

Vote like you value this country. Convince others to vote. Apathy is a vote for Trump. Choosing not to vote for Biden because you're anti Israel is voting for Trump, who is also going to continue right along supporting Israel.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

We have to get through 24 and not have a deranged traitorous lunatic take the reigns of the country again. We can discuss the next steps in the post Trump era but we won’t get the option to discuss it if Trump somehow wins.

This has been every election since 2012, and the discussion doesn't happen.

[–] RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip 22 points 10 months ago (19 children)

No I don't think that's accurate. If McCain or Romney had won I never had a fear that our democracy would have eroded. I certainly wouldn't have agreed with all of their policy choices but both men I think are old guard politicians and would have largely done the job with an undercurrent of honor that just doesn't exist with trump. I never would have had any fear that if they lost the next election they wouldn't peacefully turn over power.

With trump all of that has changed. The only reason his coup didn't work is because most everyone involved was dense as fuck and couldn't come up with a cohesive strategy to get it done. Give him another chance and 4 years to prepare and he will find success.

Biden is not the candidate I wanted, but he's the candidate we've got, and in our broken political system that's as good as it's going to get. We can talk about 3rd parties and changing the system but none of that is happening before 24.

The polls are right about one thing. Trump definitely could win again. That should be very alarming to any rational American.

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[–] return2ozma@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

2020: "Elect Biden and once he's POTUS then we can push him left!" ... They never pushed him left.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Precisely. It was a steaming crock of shit then, and has no credibility as a message now.

[–] Thecornershop@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (10 children)

So vote for the white nationalist Fascist instead?? Yeah that's what the left should do.

How about instead you get this drowning US democracy onto the safety of the beach then you can start resuscitating it.

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[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The game is rigged, and if you lose people die. Potentially heaps of them.

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And that's one of the main reasons why Biden is the candidate AND why most people who weren't alive the last time the US had a president to the left of Reagan don't trust the DNC much.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

I reckon the techniques they use favor older people. For example, I can see a boomer answering a cold call no problem, but I couldn’t say the same for a younger generation.

[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A part of the problem with the 'get through 24' thought line is that Trump and the circus surrounding him has morphed into something that's functionally it's own entity with a R painted on it for convenience. That whole branch of the political tree has become some sort of monstrosity that the few remaining normal-ish conservatives fear to cross lest they become a target just like everyone else who's an 'other'.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

The rest of the problem with the "get through 24" message is that it will become "get through 28" the day after election day.

[–] Hypx@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

One problem is cost. It takes millions of dollars to do a truly scientific poll these days. Robocalls don't work anymore due to cell phone penetration. The phonebook is dead, and along with it any credible listings of numbers that represent real people. Plus very low response rates and spam filters blocking much of polling calls even then. You pretty much have to go door-to-door in order to get a truly good poll, which is something few organizations can do.

As a result, most cheaply done polls use non-random samples and add a giant "fudge factor" to make it look random. It's not clear how there models really work and there's no way to audit them.

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[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, Romney & Clinton were also "winning" at this point in their respective elections. The media wants a horse race.

Polls are garbage & Democrats have been beating them by 9+ points at the voting booth since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Biden has a $1B election warchest that hasn't even been tapped into yet.

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[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Good, the last thing we need is for people to get complacent and think Biden has this in the bag. People stay home when they think it's a sure thing.

[–] n1ckn4m3@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

If anyone has watched the last 8-12 years, they'd realize polls exist solely to suck people into a false sense of security to manipulate the vote.

Ignore the fucking polls. GO VOTE. Vote in your local elections. Vote in the primaries. Vote in national elections. Polls are completely and utterly bullshit, just ignore them and GO VOTE.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Centrists are just gonna dismiss any poll they don't like. Gonna see a lot of that in this thread. "I imagine they only called landlines, therefore [vaguely ageist sentiment]!"; "The election's a year away!"; "Clinton lost, so polls mean nothing!"

Generally speaking, you want polls to get better for your candidate, not worse. Even if all the flaws they imagine are present in every poll as part of a nefarious plot by multiple pollsters to make Biden look bad, the numbers shouldn't be dropping relative to the last round of polls that were totally all rigged by the evil conspiiiiiracy of pollsters.

They really need to restructure how they do polls in general to specifically address the fact that American politics are extremely polarized and kind of a shitshow at this point. All they’d need to do is to tweak the questions asked to include the context “in the election” as well as “in the general election”.

Biden’s definitely done some decent stuff, but he’s also done a bunch of stuff that I legitimately hate, as well as sandbagged and slow-walked a bunch of really crucial stuff. At the same time: there is no fucking way I will ever vote for a GOP candidate ever again after watching them become what they are today. The Republican party is, with complete seriousness, too far gone.

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

People are so far gone with the lesser evil now we are just expected to endorse two choices of evil. Genocide enabling is evil. If Biden is the best shot on "Saving Democracy" Then it is already over. Dem messaging has been so disconnected from what issues people are dealing with yelling at people to go vote won't cut it.

[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

lol…. Polls.

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