Even here in the Chicago area, most of the political messages I saw were about the border.
We’re nearly 1500 miles away from the Mexican border (because you know they aren’t talking about Canadians). Yes, we have a lot of refuges here because we offered to host them plus we had Abbott busing extras here, which was only his fault (and, again, no consequences), but that was the #1 message we heard.
It would have been nice to hear more about the progressive topics. Both sides here talked border border border immigration lost jobs all the time.
A definite “hear! hear!” for that one (posted here previously, i think) That guy comes off as properly empathetic, utterly rational, and as ‘traditional’ (for those who like that sort’ve thing) as possible. I wish that could be widely media dispersed; if for nothing else as a admonishment of sorts to the 51% of the voters who have endangered us all.
It’s almost as if some people want an issue to run on and are afraid to fix it; thinking they’ll lose support after it’s done.
LGBTQ nondiscrimination legislation was introduced in Congress by Bella Abzug in 1974.
50 years ago
A far-right, pro-Russia candidate is set for a shock victory in the first round of Romania’s presidential election, with preliminary results leaving the prime minister, his main pro-Europe rival, out of the race.
Almost all of those numbers seem absolutely nuts to me. Like, “do people even know what a percentage is” level irrational. I realize those are averaged, but that just means everyone with a reasonable guess was balanced out by people with even higher estimates, which only feels more inexplicable to me. Is it possible that whatever method they used to make it a weighted average rather than a regular average is throwing off the accuracy? Whatever ignorant ideas people have about minorities, I have a hard time imagining anyone really thinks one out of every five Americans is a millionaire.
Yeah, it’s wild. 40% veterans? 27% Muslim? 30% live in NYC? Each one of those percentages makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for even half a second.
There’s your problem. Assuming thought.
People are notoriously bad with percentages of people in groups. Trying to dig up a link, but IIRC, a group of 25%-30% women is considered majority woman. This is with a picture or the group right in front of them, not some mythical population that they never encountered. Looks like that’s may not be true, that’s only showing as anecdote or popsci, not finding anything definitive.
my tendency to be surprised at some quality remaining on the NYT’s opinion page continues with a powerful guest editorial by Joel Grey (the consummate actor). tl;dr: his most famous role, stage and screen was as the “Emcee” for “Cabaret”, and he’s seeing some clear parallels between what the character experiences and deals with in 1930s Berlin and in the current U.S. Here’s a link-ish.
This is one of the more powerful clips in my humble estimation:
…don’t know which of these versions I find most ominous, but all of them should serve as a glaring reminder of how dangerously easy it is to accept bigotry when we are emotionally exhausted and politically overwhelmed.
and i’m fairly ‘emotionally exhausted and politically overwhelmed’ -sigh-
Found the source!
Anytime there is phone based polling (like this one, unless i’m much mistaken) i always fecklessly think something like: “Too bad there isn’t a question of general awareness of reality they could throw in to the mix and use that in their secret subsequent weighting (“un-skewing”) of the data”. In this particular case, it’s almost like the whole result amounts to a ‘question of general awareness of reality’ and the dismal hypothesis it supports.
We also have to consider the outsized focus of the media on certain topics. They fuel fear and panic by promoting certain narratives about “others” - or by making headline news featuring folks doing the “othering.” Way back when they started talking about 2050 as the year minorities would become a majority in the US, the counterattack began. Quiverfull movements, Great Replacement theories, and every anti-immigrant, anti-education (banning books that mention anything about marginalized groups), or anti-inclusion group we could imagine came out swinging.
Unfortunately, those groups and the media are well-financed and positioned to influence public opinion. If there’s ever a Renaissance of Reason to follow the current age, maybe the folks involved will be very apologetic about their role in all this. 
Apologies don’t stop them from continuing in the same vein, though. Finding other ways to educate the public so the majority stops consuming or believing everything these outlets/groups put out there is the only real solution.
ah… YouGov polls are really cranking out the despair (flawed) data these days, aren’t they?
Majority Approve of Trump Transition, Democrats Exhausted, Poll Finds
MAGA BOUNCE [Sean Craig]
Published 11.25.24 12:24PM EST[image of orange blob elided]
Nearly three in five Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump’s handling of his transition to the White House, according to a CBS/YouGov poll released Monday. Over half of Americans—55 percent—also said they were “happy” or “satisfied” with Trump’s election victory. Underscoring the poll, however, was a sense of doom and fatigue among the Democratic base: Just 15 percent of Democrats said they feel excited or optimistic as Trump prepares to take office, and only 44 percent said they feel motivated to oppose him. “The bottom line is this: Republicans are very motivated by Donald Trump’s win and, compared to eight years ago, Democrats are just really, really, tired,” …
(rule number seven in the golden book of autocrats: Churn out endless surveys that the majority is happy with the new regime)
Pardon me while I channel my late grandmother:
“if the majority jumped off a bridge…”
I for one am delighted to be at war with Eastasia
I would be happier?