What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Admiral Yi]

Am I right in assuming Silver based his conclusion of autocorelation across states on historical evidence of autocorelation?

Or did he just say "it's possible" therefore his model incorporated this unproven possibility?

[FunkMonk]

Silver is a shitty political pundit but his 2016 model was the most correct and closest to reality. I remember people (not here) were dunking on Nate and calling him a quack for giving a Trump win too high probability.

[The Minsky Moment]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-users-guide-to-fivethirtyeights-2016-general-election-forecast/

Look at the section entitled demographic and regional error.

[crazy canuck]

That is wading too far into the weeds for the simple point I was making to Valmy, that the polls were all predicting a Clinton win.

I was there. I was reading 538 obsessively like everybody else and he was saying it was really close in several key states and only have Hillary a 70% chance which in his metrics is "slightly favored". She was favored but even in a Clinton victory it was going to be close. That in itself was very worrying.

I have this recollection she got a little separation after the Democratic convention, then it tightened up the rest of the way. And then that FBI stuff right at the end. It was nerve wracking as fuck.

Both of what we are saying is true CC. Sure the polls predicted a Clinton win but the margins in many key states were razor thin, which is what gave Trump his punchers chance. And the way he did win was predicted by the polls so far as I saw it, it was just not the most likely outcome.

Oh well, if you were there then certainly that sets you apart from everyone else here 

[viper37]

That is wading too far into the weeds for the simple point I was making to Valmy, that the polls were all predicting a Clinton win.

And more crucially I think 2016 was proabbly the highpoint for "decent Republicans will flee and he'll drive people away". All the Never Trumpers (of whom some have gone back), National Review disowning etc.

In fact I think decent Republicans did flee more in 2018 and 2020 - but I think the talk about it was far more prominent in 2016 while 2018/20 were more around the die-hards/shoot someone on 5th Avenue levels of support. Not the first time discourse has been wildly disconnected from what actually happens

Lots of Democrat celebrities said they'd leave the US if Trump won, too.  Somehow, they idea that they'd pay upward of 50% in income tax if they'd move anywhere else seemed more repulsive than living under Trump.  Decent people do change their opinions over time.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's a lot of tax havens lefty celebrities could move to, the thing that really keeps them in the United States is if you're a media personality, LA and NYC are in the United States and if you aren't in or near those cities all the time your career is going to struggle in that field, so the reality of emigration is difficult when so much of your self-worth is tied into the U.S. media / film / tv industry.

[alfred russel]

That is wading too far into the weeds for the simple point I was making to Valmy, that the polls were all predicting a Clinton win.

And more crucially I think 2016 was proabbly the highpoint for "decent Republicans will flee and he'll drive people away". All the Never Trumpers (of whom some have gone back), National Review disowning etc.

In fact I think decent Republicans did flee more in 2018 and 2020 - but I think the talk about it was far more prominent in 2016 while 2018/20 were more around the die-hards/shoot someone on 5th Avenue levels of support. Not the first time discourse has been wildly disconnected from what actually happens

Lots of Democrat celebrities said they'd leave the US if Trump won, too.  Somehow, they idea that they'd pay upward of 50% in income tax if they'd move anywhere else seemed more repulsive than living under Trump.  Decent people do change their opinions over time.

If you are in the highest tax brackets in NY city or California, you are around 50% in income taxes...the top US federal rate is 37%, the top state rates (inclusive of NYC income taxes) are over 13% for those states, and you have additional medicare taxes on your income in the US which are effectively income taxes.

[alfred russel]

Yeah I've no idea what's the appeal of Nate Silver - never quite understood it

Although I did love it when he tried to do British politics got it catastrophically wrong and never tried again

I love Nate Silver because I'm a math nerd that thinks the right way to analyze things is with quantitative rigor, but reading journal articles is tedious. He is the accessible middlebrow type of guy that looks at things the way I think they should be analyzed but doesn't make me do any work, but gives enough insight into the factors going into his work that it makes me feel like a part of his smart guy club because I'm like, "yep seems right, this is aligned with what I learned in my college probability classes".

[alfred russel]

On a more personal note, he doesn't have an advanced math degree, just like me, went to work for a big accounting firm for 3.5 years out of school just like me, goofed around with professional sports stats like we all dream of, became a professional poker player like I dreamed of doing. He is a dilettante -- done a variety of things but not really a true expert in any field. People call him a pollster all the time but he is truly not a pollster in any fashion; it is probably fairer to say he is a guy with a math aptitude that went into professional gambling with some success and started turning those skills into other interests of like politics.

[Valmy]

Oh well, if you were there then certainly that sets you apart from everyone else here 

Not CDM.

[Syt]

Damn libs, soft on crime! 







 

(I wonder if someone there has money invested in legal slave camps the private prison economy. )

[Valmy]

Wow, I never thought I would hear somebody say we don't have enough people in prison.

The party of liberty strikes again.

[The Brain]

Wow, I never thought I would hear somebody say we don't have enough people in prison.

https://youtu.be/iTJrNHdzm0k?t=141

[The Minsky Moment]

Damn libs, soft on crime! 

He's got a point.

America is under-incarcerated right now, by one man.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psa1sgHRuxo

The Democratic candidate for Congress in my district is kind of cute by politician standards.