The Trump Presidency 2.0

amlove21 said:
I can't possibly format this message like @Box (cause lazy), but I channeled His Holiness on this one.

I was working out at the gym this morning (legs, obv), and I was about to put more weight on. I thought, "Sheesh, the last set was tough; if I put more weight on, it's gonna tax me even more, but I want these big beefy legs. My dad never had big legs, he just never got to that next level."

A gym employee came over and said, "You know, if you just stayed at that weight, you'll never realize your full potential and that's ok. Grinding it out, never making gains is virtuous. We did the math, and we figured out that the top 10% of lifters here pay 75% of our total revenue, but 90% of the rest of the population doesn't use the gym as much, so we will give them a discount. If you get into that top 10%, we will have to charge you a little more. I'd recommend just staying at this weight, honestly. There's no real incentive to go higher; you'll get charged more, the rest of the population will get jealous and say you used steroids and cheated (even though you're here at 0400 6 days a week), and gym leadership will tell you you're not paying your fair share while simultaneously creating a class of lifting surfs destined to remain at their station... so just accept your position in the lower lifting class and keep paying your dues. Granted, you'll never lift more than your dad or his dad, and you'll never realize the LifeTime™ Athletic Dream- but we are a pretty progressive gym."

Then I put on 315 freedom units for a slick 5 spot (ass to grass, everyone clapped) because I was never meant to stay in the middle class of lifter, that's meant to be a transitory phase. The gym should be giving me every opportunity to rise to that 10% from my lowly beginnings. The guys that started LifeTime™ wrote that down in their founding documents, it turns out, but they recently dealt with 16 years of new management that seemed hell-bent on keeping their members down and stealing their money. They have a new GM now, and everything the guy does (even good ideas that benefit 80% of the gym) seems to make everyone mad for no other reason than they don't like the guy. It's Vegas, he probably does tan too much.

The folks who wanted to stay at their current weights were happy with the discount, and with the money they saved every month, they could invest in some supplements and a trainer, and it turns out a few of them used that investment to lift more, and now they're in the top 10% too. Every time I see one of them get into that top 10%, it makes me happy, and the gym makes way more money like that. I wish more people were like that, but the lifting community is super weird and fractious, and a sect of lifters (all doing some retarded thing called "CrossFit™") insist that the weakest people should pay just as much as the strongest people and that the weak people will actually be disincentivized to get stronger if you give them a discount. That doesn't make any sense to me, but I am positive that LifeTime™ is the best gym in the world, and why wouldn't I want the gym to help me, and why wouldn't I want to help the gym by my own success?

This is solely a story about a workout and not an allegory about taxation under $150k.
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The DoD is paying for your $200/month LifeTime membership? I'm gonna get DOGE on your ass.
 
amlove21 said:
I look at polls with healthy skepticism for sure, but I’m not in the ‘they’re total bs’ camp either.
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They were wrong in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The election polls, months and months' worth, were wrong but now the opinion polls are right or usually right? Nah.

The same media and the same polling companies botched 3 elections and people still think they have value, particularly where Trump is concerned? The most polarizing president in our lifetime, maybe ever in American history (can you imagine Andrew Jackson today?) and we're going to trust any poll results about the man? We approve, we disapprove, we hate him, we love him...words, words, words.

I think history has given us enough examples to not trust a single poll about Trump, no matter where the numbers fall.
 
AWP said:
They were wrong in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The election polls, months and months' worth, were wrong but now the opinion polls are right or usually right? Nah.

The same media and the same polling companies botched 3 elections and people still think they have value, particularly where Trump is concerned? The most polarizing president in our lifetime, maybe ever in American history (can you imagine Andrew Jackson today?) and we're going to trust any poll results about the man? We approve, we disapprove, we hate him, we love him...words, words, words.

I think history has given us enough examples to not trust a single poll about Trump, no matter where the numbers fall.
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Most polls were accurate in 2024, even if the outcome wasn't what they 'predicted' (wrong word, but it's 0800 and I am undercaffeinated), within the margin of error. Some polls were egregiously wrong and some were scarily good usually because of home-grown baking (bias).

Part of the problem wasn't the polling itself but rather the democrats cherry-picking and inflating the data which was magnified by an anti-Trump MSM.
 
Devildoc said:
Most polls were accurate in 2024, even if the outcome wasn't what they 'predicted' (wrong word, but it's 0800 and I am undercaffeinated), within the margin of error. Some polls were egregiously wrong and some were scarily good usually because of home-grown baking (bias).

Part of the problem wasn't the polling itself but rather the democrats cherry-picking and inflating the data which was magnified by an anti-Trump MSM.
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… which is called “astroturfing”.

@AWP nailed it with his post. I think we learned that you have to read in between the lines in every poll. It doesn’t mean you throw them out- it means you read them understanding the nuance and context and you don’t just take them at face value.
 
amlove21 said:
… which is called “astroturfing”.

@AWP nailed it with his post. I think we learned that you have to read in between the lines in every poll. It doesn’t mean you throw them out- it means you read them understanding the nuance and context and you don’t just take them at face value.
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I am not a young whippersnapper like y'all, I have zero clue what "astroturfing" means. I am still trying to figure out "on fleek".

I don't really blame anyone, really. Politicians and media are going to do what they do with the results-- spin baby, spin! --and the outlets put out words like 'margin of error' and 'bias' and 'sample' and no one takes the time to learn about polling or methodology. It took me three tries to find the wiki page, and it's actually pretty good.

So candidate X wins instead of candidate Y when the polls had called for candidate Y and everyone blames the polls. People do not care about nuance and context.

Sorry, this is one of my soap boxes because a lot of people think they know but really don't, and they really don't care to learn.*

*Not using this to throw shade at anyone here, either.
 
Devildoc said:
I am not a young whippersnapper like y'all, I have zero clue what "astroturfing" means. I am still trying to figure out "on fleek".

I don't really blame anyone, really. Politicians and media are going to do what they do with the results-- spin baby, spin! --and the outlets put out words like 'margin of error' and 'bias' and 'sample' and no one takes the time to learn about polling or methodology. It took me three tries to find the wiki page, and it's actually pretty good.

So candidate X wins instead of candidate Y when the polls had called for candidate Y and everyone blames the polls. People do not care about nuance and context.

Sorry, this is one of my soap boxes because a lot of people think they know but really don't, and they really don't care to learn.*

*Not using this to throw shade at anyone here, either.
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Haaha, dude you're more astute than you give yourself credit for.

@Salt USMC and I were talking about how (my contention) polls are influenced by astroturfing, the social media tactic of manufacturing online support (like when you have Tik Tok'ers all dancing to remixes of Kamala saying dumb shit) for the express purpose of fooling people into thinking a thing has wide-ranging support, or to denigrate something you want to discredit.

"Look at all these (paid) chicks dancing for Kamala! The vibes are so good! She's gonna win this in a landslide!" Then the media "reports" on this trend in glowing terms, causing further virality.

A bunch of creators get together and decide that drag queen story hour isn't only good, it's necessary. They coordinate the same message, the algorithm pumps it out as hard as it can, then the MSM further supports the trend, and then people who are largely unaware of this extremely small issue think that the country writ-large thinks drag queens grooming and sexualizing children is fine. You know what a "grass roots" movement is- well, if that movement was in fact fake, it's called "astroturfing".
 
amlove21 said:
Haaha, dude you're more astute than you give yourself credit for.

@Salt USMC and I were talking about how (my contention) polls are influenced by astroturfing, the social media tactic of manufacturing online support (like when you have Tik Tok'ers all dancing to remixes of Kamala saying dumb shit) for the express purpose of fooling people into thinking a thing has wide-ranging support, or to denigrate something you want to discredit.

"Look at all these (paid) chicks dancing for Kamala! The vibes are so good! She's gonna win this in a landslide!" Then the media "reports" on this trend in glowing terms, causing further virality.

A bunch of creators get together and decide that drag queen story hour isn't only good, it's necessary. They coordinate the same message, the algorithm pumps it out as hard as it can, then the MSM further supports the trend, and then people who are largely unaware of this extremely small issue think that the country writ-large thinks drag queens grooming and sexualizing children is fine. You know what a "grass roots" movement is- well, if that movement was in fact fake, it's called "astroturfing".
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Copy, and thanks for explaining. Not 'mansplaining' because it's not gender but age. "Youngsplaining"? "Millenisplaining?"

I definitely think the assumption of poll results are skewed by influences like you mention, and I do think the left has mastered that. My father-in-law had a saying, "the less you have to sell the more you have to advertise." They do well at this, drum up all of this social media excitement, then are legit dumbfounded when they realize it didn't work.

People who are willing to look at the world with a 50,000 view will sit back and say, 'wait a minute,' that rally (or whatever), I am not sure it was as meaningful as you think it was,' then get criticized for drinking the right's kool-aid when they were right all along.

I'd love to write a book on the sociology of the left over the last 10 years.
 
amlove21 said:
Haaha, dude you're more astute than you give yourself credit for.

@Salt USMC and I were talking about how (my contention) polls are influenced by astroturfing, the social media tactic of manufacturing online support (like when you have Tik Tok'ers all dancing to remixes of Kamala saying dumb shit) for the express purpose of fooling people into thinking a thing has wide-ranging support, or to denigrate something you want to discredit.

"Look at all these (paid) chicks dancing for Kamala! The vibes are so good! She's gonna win this in a landslide!" Then the media "reports" on this trend in glowing terms, causing further virality.

A bunch of creators get together and decide that drag queen story hour isn't only good, it's necessary. They coordinate the same message, the algorithm pumps it out as hard as it can, then the MSM further supports the trend, and then people who are largely unaware of this extremely small issue think that the country writ-large thinks drag queens grooming and sexualizing children is fine. You know what a "grass roots" movement is- well, if that movement was in fact fake, it's called "astroturfing".
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Canadian media and the government are currently astroturfing hatred towards the US and the whole 51st state BS. All for votes to keep our unelected Prime Minister and the Liberal's in power. So much that now Trump has embraced it.
 

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