Electoral-Vote dot com Peanut Gallery

[Rhea]

I’m a big fan of the site www.electoral-vote.com for its poll aggregation and political commentary. I’m starting a thread to comment on their content and the comments of their commenters because they bring up interesting arguments and factoids and links regularly.

They do short blog posts on a variety of political topics on weekdays, and have Q&A on Saturdays and reader’s comments on Sundays. When elections are in progress, they discuss poll results and current numerical trends. But I’ve always enjoyed the commentary on their opinion of WHY things are happening and they bring up some background that I would not have seen elsewhere.

The site was originally started to increase the vote-from-abroad activity and they still promote that strongly. It’s written by a university computer professor living in europe and a university history professor in California.


Join us here if you, too, like the site and would enjoy discussing it with others.

 

[Rhea]

Today, for example, in the Saturday Q&A feature, there’s an interesting question on think tanks.

Civics​

J.S. in Dayton, NJ, asks: What exactly is a "think tank"? Who works there? What do they do there? I'm sure it's not just a room full of nerds sitting around thinking about things. Probably not a room full of philosophers either, though that might be more interesting.

And while I'm on the subject of familiar words/terms I should know but actually don't, what exactly is a pundit? Can any journalist, columnist, or blogger be a pundit? Are (V) & (Z) pundits? Do pundits work at think tanks?
V & Z answer: Think tanks are research institutions that study policy issues and that try to steer policymakers in the direction desired by the institution's sponsors by speaking publicly about and publishing their results. They are very much like a university department/research institute, except without students and teaching (usually), and they tend to employ the same sorts of people that work at universities, namely academics and former officeholders. In fact, many think tanks are affiliated with (and often even located at) universities. For example, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is located at Harvard, the Hoover Institution is at Stanford and the Earth Institute is at Columbia.
Pundits are people, including journalists, columnists, and bloggers, who share their expertise and opinions with the general public. At least, that's the literal definition. Today, the word sometimes carries connotations of vacuousness and/or sensationalism. (V) & (Z) would like to think of themselves as pundits in the first sense, but not the second.

I think it’s a great question because there seems to be insufficient scrutiny of the official and professional institutions trying to influence policy, and more light should be shined on it, IMHO.

 

[Gospel]

I can dig it. This is one of the rare good things that happened because of Trump. Not the founding of Electoral-Vote but them deciding to stay active year round instead of only covering major elections. They realised how important it is to stay informed.

 

[Tigers!]

The site was originally started to increase the vote-from-abroad activity and they still promote that strongly. It’s written by a university computer professor living in europe and a university history professor in California.


Join us here if you, too, like the site and would enjoy discussing it with others.

When a saw the words university computer I thought you were going to say that it was a chatbot doing the work.

 

[Rhea]

Another thing I love about that site is the experience and wit of the readers/commenters. Today, LOLd…

T.V. in Kansas City, MO, writes: A letter home from the Great M&M War:

My dearest Penelope,

I write to you with the smoke of scorched candy shell coatings hanging in the morning air like tears. The carnage of the Battle of the Milky Way can scarcely be conveyed. In the infirmary, men bore wounds that exposed their chocolatey centers, and the battlefield ran with rivers of Red Dye #3. Yet I believe the Woke Army will prevail.

Tomorrow, we march on the garrison at Snickers Point. It is a perilous mission; the reinforcements there are hangry and desperate, led by the Mad General himself, Tucker Carlson. I may never look upon your face again, nor share with you the beauty of a Skittles-colored sunrise. But know that whenever you detect the scent of nougat on the air, I am with you.

Your faithful servant,

Beauregard

 

[Rhea]

This comment today captures a lot of questions I have about the trans hate: I sometimes wonder if it is an evolutionary artifact; the extreme discomfort of men being unable to accurately identify their rivals that leads to a highly emotional lashing out. Subconscious, irrational, but visceral. ‘I male: do I mate with this or kill it?’ And being unable to figure that out, rage ensues. (Notwitstanding that in today’s society you don’t get to mate with whoever you want to dominate, and even if the person were cis-female the male would not mate with them, there’s a visceral need to know, that, when thwarted, results in rage.)

P.R. in Arvada, CO, writes: Your item "Trans Is The New Abortion" got me wondering why people hate trans people so much. One of the biggest changes I have made in myself was becoming an atheist (a very long time ago). One thing that forced me to do was to justify my feelings towards others. There was no longer a book or "pillar of the community" I could look towards to justify hating groups of people. The result of that was a quick realization that my previous negative opinions of other groups were not based on anything I truly believed, and so I went from dislike of other groups to a more apathetical—I don't care about the label you have been given, I either like you as a person or I don't.

After reading your item I ran through some reasons why I thought people would not like trans people and to be honest, I am at a loss as to why someone would dislike them so much.

My first thought was it has to be religion. That will be why trans people are so hated. It doesn't make any sense to me, though. I mean, why that particular group? Maybe there is something about it in the Bible or another religious text but surely there are worse things people do. When someone gets divorced, they break their vow to God. How is breaking a vow to God not worse than surgery? If there was a reason to hate people based on religion, surely making a promise to God and breaking it would be the worst thing you could do. I'm pretty sure no one has made a promise to be male or female and gone back on it. I struggle to see how you could use religion to justify this level of hatred, but be fine with other behaviors. A woman talking in church has an actual penalty spelled out so it must be more offensive to God, but no one seems to care about that. If someone says their religion leads them to discriminate against trans people, then they have to justify why that is so bad but so many other things specifically called out in the Bible are OK.

Maybe it is because they think trans people are somehow sexual perverts just trying to molest children or people of the other sex. If that was the case, though, people like Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Donald Trump, et al., would be absolute pariahs. They clearly aren't so there cannot be any real desire to hold sex perverts to account.

Maybe they are scared of people who are different than themselves. Maybe if it was liberals who had this fear, I could get on board. It seems to be the people who are most definitely not snowflakes, though, who are against trans people. These big brave people clearly are not going to be scared of someone they see as inferior, though, are they?

I can't figure out why anyone would truly be against trans people. Maybe someone can explain to me why they feel trans people should be discriminated against and how they justify it. The trans people I personally know are some of the nicest people I have the pleasure of knowing. They have had a lot of hate thrown at them and their journey has been far from easy. I may not truly understand what they went through or why they made the decisions they did but I do know it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing or to have a chance at winning a medal or some other petty reason. Just once it would be nice to see people on the right stand up and tell their representatives that they do not support this kind of baseless hatred of people. Of course, maybe it isn't baseless, and they can actually justify their position. Somehow I doubt it, though.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This comment today captures a lot of questions I have about the trans hate: I sometimes wonder if it is an evolutionary artifact; the extreme discomfort of men being unable to accurately identify their rivals that leads to a highly emotional lashing out. Subconscious, irrational, but visceral. ‘I male: do I mate with this or kill it?’ And being unable to figure that out, rage ensues. (Notwitstanding that in today’s society you don’t get to mate with whoever you want to dominate, and even if the person were cis-female the male would not mate with them, there’s a visceral need to know, that, when thwarted, results in rage.)

P.R. in Arvada, CO, writes:

I can't figure out why anyone would truly be against trans people. Maybe someone can explain to me why they feel trans people should be discriminated against and how they justify it. The trans people I personally know are some of the nicest people I have the pleasure of knowing. They have had a lot of hate thrown at them and their journey has been far from easy. I may not truly understand what they went through or why they made the decisions they did but I do know it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing or to have a chance at winning a medal or some other petty reason. Just once it would be nice to see people on the right stand up and tell their representatives that they do not support this kind of baseless hatred of people. Of course, maybe it isn't baseless, and they can actually justify their position. Somehow I doubt it, though.

I think there are two factors:

1) Related to the mate with it or kill it: They're afraid they'll find a hookup has the wrong bits and that they'll not be repulsed.

2) I think the main issue is not about trans at all, but rather the right is doing standard cult behavior and trying to isolate it's members from outside influences. Trans-panic is a means towards this isolation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Quiz today. Sadly, I don't know the answer to most of them. So some are guesses, others, wild guesses. No online researching first!

1. Which of these four presidents is the only sitting president to command troops in a battle against a foreign enemy?

1. #1 George Washington
2. #2 John Adams - I'm going with Adams because Washington seems like a trap.
3. #3 Thomas Jefferson
4. #4 James Madison

2. Which of these four presidents issued zero vetoes during his term in office?

1. #5 James Monroe
2. #6 John Quincy Adams - I honestly don't know. JQA got into the White House poorly, so maybe that impacted his Veto pen?
3. #7 Andrew Jackson
4. #8 Martin Van Buren

3. Which of these four presidents never cast a ballot in an American election, including the one in which he was chosen as president?

1. #9 William Henry Harrison
2. #10 John Tyler
3. #11 James K. Polk - Again, don't know. I'm feeling Polk here.
4. #12 Zachary Taylor

4. Which of these four presidents was the first president or ex-president to publish an autobiography while still living?

1. #13 Millard Fillmore
2. #14 Franklin Pierce
3. #15 James Buchanan
4. #16 Abraham Lincoln - I'm going with Lincoln because the three others are the W Bush's of their time.

5. Which of these four presidents was the first person elected to the White House under something other than his birth name?

1. #17 Andrew Johnson
2. #18 Ulysses S. Grant
3. #19 Rutherford B. Hayes
4. #20 James Garfield - Jon Arbuckle. Don't know this at all, but James is a possible made up name.

6. Which of these four presidents was the last veteran of the Civil War to serve in the White House?

1. #21 Chester Arthur
2. #22/24 Grover Cleveland
3. #23 Benjamin Harrison - Really feel stupid at this point, not knowing any of these.
4. #25 William McKinley

7. Which of these four presidents' final words were: "The machinery is broken.. I am ready."?

1. #26 Theodore Roosevelt - That just sounds like Roosevelt.
2. #27 William Howard Taft
3. #28 Woodrow Wilson
4. #29 Warren Harding

8. Which of these four presidents often spoke to his wife in Chinese so that visitors could not eavesdrop?

1. #30 Calvin Coolidge
2. #31 Herbert Hoover - Hoover was smart. So I'm going with Hoover.
3. #32 Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. #33 Harry S. Truman

9. Which of these four presidents won an Emmy Award?

1. #34 Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. #35 John F. Kennedy
3. #36 Lyndon B. Johnson
4. #37 Richard Nixon - Tricky dick? Why not.

10. Which of these three presidents had 12 of his vetoes overridden, placing him second all-time behind Andrew Johnson?

1. #38 Gerald Ford
2. #39 Jimmy Carter
3. #40 Ronald Reagan - Ford wasn't President long enough. 12 vetoes against Carter, don't think so.

11. Which of these three presidents is the only president ever to reach 90% approval in a Gallup Poll?

1. #41 George H.W Bush
2. #42 Bill Clinton
3. #43 George W Bush - Two words, 9/11.

12. Which of these three presidents was the first president whose official White House portrait was taken with a digital camera?

1. #44 Barack Obama
2. #45 Donald Trump
3. #46 Joe Biden - Such an odd question. Again, Obama would seem to be a trap.

 

[Gospel]

Hmm, lets see, if I had to answer these to become a citizen I'd probably fail. Here goes.

1. Which of these four presidents is the only sitting president to command troops in a battle against a foreign enemy?

1. #1 George Washington
2. #2 John Adams - Going with this guy because the others don't leap out to me & I don't know WTF he's known for.
3. #3 Thomas Jefferson
4. #4 James Madison

2. Which of these four presidents issued zero vetoes during his term in office?

1. #5 James Monroe
2. #6 John Quincy Adams
3. #7 Andrew Jackson
4. #8 Martin Van Buren - Going with this one because I never herd of him. Which makes it highly likely he didn't veto anything noteworthy.

3. Which of these four presidents never cast a ballot in an American election, including the one in which he was chosen as president?

1. #9 William Henry Harrison
2. #10 John Tyler
3. #11 James K. Polk
4. #12 Zachary Taylor - Going with this dude because his name is Zack. All 3 people named Zack I've known in real life were passive. Not voting for yourself is passive.

4. Which of these four presidents was the first president or ex-president to publish an autobiography while still living?

1. #13 Millard Fillmore
2. #14 Franklin Pierce
3. #15 James Buchanan
4. #16 Abraham Lincoln - This the only one on the list that seems to need to write one ASAP.

5. Which of these four presidents was the first person elected to the White House under something other than his birth name?

1. #17 Andrew Johnson
2. #18 Ulysses S. Grant - Not sure why I think it's this guy, I just know I'm right.
3. #19 Rutherford B. Hayes
4. #20 James Garfield

6. Which of these four presidents was the last veteran of the Civil War to serve in the White House?

1. #21 Chester Arthur
2. #22/24 Grover Cleveland
3. #23 Benjamin Harrison
4. #25 William McKinley - I have absolutely no clue. Choosing McKinley because..... McKinley.

7. Which of these four presidents' final words were: "The machinery is broken.. I am ready."?

1. #26 Theodore Roosevelt
2. #27 William Howard Taft - Has to be this guy because he's the only answer that lists first middle and last name.
3. #28 Woodrow Wilson
4. #29 Warren Harding

8. Which of these four presidents often spoke to his wife in Chinese so that visitors could not eavesdrop?

1. #30 Calvin Coolidge - Picking Calvin because the others are too well known to have had that detail go unnoticed.
2. #31 Herbert Hoover
3. #32 Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. #33 Harry S. Truman

9. Which of these four presidents won an Emmy Award?

1. #34 Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. #35 John F. Kennedy - Going with Kennedy on this one. Likely got one for one of his speeches?
3. #36 Lyndon B. Johnson
4. #37 Richard Nixon

10. Which of these three presidents had 12 of his vetoes overridden, placing him second all-time behind Andrew Johnson?

1. #38 Gerald Ford
2. #39 Jimmy Carter - Has to be Jimmy, nobody liked Jimmy.
3. #40 Ronald Reagan

11. Which of these three presidents is the only president ever to reach 90% approval in a Gallup Poll?

1. #41 George H.W Bush
2. #42 Bill Clinton
3. #43 George W Bush - That 911 boost is the only thing that explains this idiot getting a second term.

12. Which of these three presidents was the first president whose official White House portrait was taken with a digital camera?

1. #44 Barack Obama
2. #45 Donald Trump - Has to be Trump, because digital photos are easier to edit to make the portrait look better.
3. #46 Joe Biden

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hmm, lets see, if I had to answer these to become a citizen I'd probably fail. Here goes.

These are basically trivia questions, nothing like the citizenship test. (And, yes, I helped my wife study for it, I saw the sort of stuff they would be asking.)

 

[Gospel]

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

 

[TomC]

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

Here's a hint on taking tests.
Do not rank multiple choice questions. Pick one. That's how it works.

I scored 98 on the SAT. I might not be smart, but I know how to take tests.
Tom

 

[Gospel]

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

Here's a hint on taking tests.
Do not rank multiple choice questions. Pick one. That's how it works.

I scored 98 on the SAT. I might not be smart, but I know how to take tests.
Tom

I always thought the process of elimination was more helpful than random selection. Sure my elimination process may be flawed depending on the question but it's likely to be right more that just picking a random answer would be. At least I think so.

 

[TomC]

I always thought the process of elimination was more helpful than random selection.

Why would you think that?

Checking the correct box, according to the testing people, is the helpful selection.

Of course, it depends on your goals. If your goal is demonstrating how woke you are it's different than if your goal is furthering your ambitions. Whatever those might be.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

Here's a hint on taking tests.
Do not rank multiple choice questions. Pick one. That's how it works.

I scored 98 on the SAT. I might not be smart, but I know how to take tests.
Tom

I always thought the process of elimination was more helpful than random selection. Sure my elimination process may be flawed depending on the question but it's likely to be right more that just picking a random answer would be. At least I think so.

That's how I always did it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

Here's a hint on taking tests.
Do not rank multiple choice questions. Pick one. That's how it works.

I scored 98 on the SAT. I might not be smart, but I know how to take tests.
Tom

If you scored 98 on the SAT I'm amazed you can use a computer.

 

[Gospel]

I always thought the process of elimination was more helpful than random selection.

Why would you think that?

Checking the correct box, according to the testing people, is the helpful selection.

Of course, it depends on your goals. If your goal is demonstrating how woke you are it's different than if your goal is furthering your ambitions. Whatever those might be.
Tom

Yeah, you definitely scored a 98.

 

[TomC]

If you scored 98 on the SAT I'm amazed you can use a computer.

Ask the staff how good I am at computer stuff. They'll tell you.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, I got three out of the twelve. Amazed that Ford had 12 over-ridden vetoes for the amount of time he was in office. Should have gotten four. I went with Polk because I figure voting and being military was problematic. But... Polk was never in the military, I swore he was. I knew Taylor was. I knew Buchanan was a do nothing President, but I had no idea he was so self-deluded to try to defend himself regarding his lack of action when America was splitting apart. What a dick!

Doubt I got any of them right. I can't even find the answers (for the first few) on google.

Here's a hint on taking tests.
Do not rank multiple choice questions. Pick one. That's how it works.

I scored 98 on the SAT. I might not be smart, but I know how to take tests.
Tom

If you scored 98 on the SAT I'm amazed you can use a computer.

I will say, I tried three different styles of taking the SAT (including PSAT), and scored verbal the same unfortunate score three times.

 

[Rhea]

The series on “why trans hate” has been very interesting. This week included letters from people who are trans.

Why the Trans Hate?, Part IV: Trans Readers Weigh In

Click on the map for the article

www.electoral-vote.com

I was particularly interested in the stories of those who transitioned, or came out late in life. One thing I hear from liberals who feel they occupy a woke lane but can’t seem to wrap their head around trans is that it’s about “confused teenagers, who are confused by media”. But reading he stories of the people who are 40 or 50yo and finally expressing something that they’ve lived with throughout their lives is valuable context.