Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the statistics-or-lies? dept.

Scott Alexander gives a great breakdown of Trump and how the portrayal of him as being "openly white supremacist" is probably (likely) wrong.

I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he's "the candidate of the KKK" and "the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement" is made up. It's a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.

I avoided pushing this point any more since last October because I didn't want to look like I was supporting Trump, or accidentally convince anyone else to support Trump. But since we're past the point where that matters any more, I want to present my case.

He further states: "I realize that all of this is going to make me sound like a crazy person and put me completely at odds with every respectable thinker in the media, but luckily, being a crazy person at odds with every respectable thinker in the media has been a pretty good ticket to predictive accuracy lately, so whatever."

So do his claims hold up under scrutiny, is he manipulating the figures, or is he just a 'crazy person' ?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:18PM (#429595)

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/05/millions-of-americans-changed-their-racial-or-ethnic-identity-from-one-census-to-the-next/ [pewresearch.org]

    The researchers, who included university and government population scientists, analyzed census forms for 168 million Americans, and found that more than 10 million of them checked different race or Hispanic-origin boxes in the 2010 census than they had in the 2000 count. Smaller-scale studies have shown that people sometimes change the way they describe their race or Hispanic identity, but the new research is the first to use data from the census of all Americans to look at how these selections may vary on a wide scale.

    “Do Americans change their race? Yes, millions do,” said study co-author Carolyn A. Liebler, a University of Minnesota sociologist who worked with Census Bureau researchers.

    But clearly buzzard knows better than all of those people and the scientists who study them.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:43AM (#429764)

    Man, you're a fucking Genius with a capital G!

    What I need now is an official form with check boxes for the length of my penis, how many minutes I can last with 10 cheerleaders, and my yearly income. Three check boxes away from being able to change reality!

    "I have seen the top of the mountain ....... and it is good"

    - Butthead

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:15AM

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:15AM (#429774) Journal

    Okay, so my car is a Corvette, but I sometimes call it a Yugo and sometimes a Ducati motorcycle.

    It's still a Corvette, though.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:40AM (#429781)

      Since we aren't actually talking about cars, you fail.

      In kindergarten you learned one simplified age-appropriate definition of race and despite growing up, your understanding never matured.

      You know that definition that buzzard cut-n-pasted?
      Do you know why he didn't include the URL?
      Because the rest of the definition totally contradicts him.

      Go ahead, google that definition. The link will take you right to the whole thing. He cited 1.1, take a look at 1.2.

      Or don't. You seem more interested in rationalizing remaining ignorant of what all of science settled decades ago.

      BTW, do you know what a definition of bigot is?
      a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

      Being obstinately devoted to a child's definition of a word pretty much qualifies.
      I'm guessing its not the only opinion of yours that would qualify. Seems to go hand-in-hand with a lot of other ones.