Thursday Open Thread [9.3.15]

This makes me want to just give up and pray that a comets comes to strike the Earth as soon as possible, so that the planet is wiped clean of our horrible existence and a new species, perhaps a smarter species, could take our place. Ariel Edwards-Levy shows us what happens when you poll listing an idea but then obscure the source of the idea.

Figuring out what the public really thinks isn’t always an exact science, as anyone who’s seen two polls touting completely contradictory results can affirm.

One reason for that: most Americans, regardless of their political views, don’t have a solid opinion about every single issue of the day, particularly when it concerns a complicated or obscure topic. People tend, reasonably, to rely on partisan cues — if a politician they support is in favor of a bill, they’re likely to think it’s a good idea, or vice versa.

As a classic case in point, Republicans are more likely to oppose repealing the 1975 Public Affairs Act — which doesn’t actually exist — when they’re told that President Barack Obama wants to do so, while Democrats object when they’re told it’s a Republican proposal. But even when it comes to real issues, reactions to polls can vary greatly, depending on the wording.How much can namedropping a politician matter? Conveniently, Republican front-runner Donald Trump shares a couple of policy positions with Obama and other leading Democrats. In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, we randomly assigned one half of the 1,000 Americans surveyed to say whether they agreed with positions Trump held. The rest were asked whether they agreed with positions held by Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry or current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The trick: the positions were actually the same.

The one thing that is clear from this poll: ideologically, many Republicans are just opposed to universal healthcare in principle.

First Read on whether Biden is running (hint: he’s not): “The truest signals of Biden’s 2016 plans are 1) setting up some sort of fundraising committee, and 2) hiring staff who could work on a campaign. And after a month of intense speculation about Biden’s White House intentions, he still has done neither. Remember, having a sitting vice president traveling to Iowa or New Hampshire for campaign events would cost tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of dollars per day. So Biden can’t run on the cheap.”

IOWA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Gravis Marketing: Trump 32, Carson 16, Cruz 7, Rubio 6, Walker 6, Jindal 5, Fiorina 5

IOWA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Gravis Marketing: Clinton 45, Sanders 17, Biden 13, O’Malley 5

IOWA–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Loras College: Clinton 48, Sanders 23, Biden 16, O’Malley 4, Webb 0, Chafee 1

IOWA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Loras College: Trump 25, Carson 18, Cruz 7, Walker 6, Fiorina 5, Bush 10, Rubio 4, Huckabee 4, Paul 2, Kasich 3, Christie 2, Jindal 1, Santorum 1, Perry 1, Graham 0

NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—PPP: Clinton 55, Sanders 20, Biden, O’Malley 4, Webb 3, Chafee 1

The Des Moines Register poll that I cited earlier in the week shows that 47% of likely GOP caucusgoers say it’s a good idea to gather up an estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally and send them to their home country. 73% of Donald Trump supporters agree.

In the PPP poll I also cited earlier in the week, we find that the average GOP voter is too dumb to operate large machinery, or complete simple tasks like tying one’s shoes:

“The new poll finds that Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country, and that immigrant children should be deported. 66% of Trump’s supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just 12% that grant he’s a Christian. 61% think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21% who accept that he was. And 63% want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep things the way they are.”

Steve Benen:

Let that one roll around in your head for a moment. Nearly seven years into the Obama presidency, less a third of Republican voters believe the president was born in the United States. A significantly higher percentage believe Ted Cruz was born in the U.S – and he wasn’t.

If you are a Republican reader of this blog, don’t you feel ashamed to be associated with a group of people so obviously stupid and paranoid? Aren’t you embarrassed to call yourself a Republican?

Nate Silver: “What’s interesting is how Trump seemed to go out of his way after the debate to ensure that he’d remain the center of attention, with his tirade against Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (a feud that he’s since resurrected). That tended to drown out most of the coverage of whether, say, Fiorina or Kasich had gained momentum after the debate, perhaps preventing them from having the sort of feedback loop of favorable attention that can sometimes trigger surges in the polls.”

“I don’t know whether this was a deliberate strategy on Trump’s behalf. But if so, it’s pretty brilliant. Trump is perhaps the world’s greatest troll, someone who is amazingly skilled at disrupting the conversation by any means necessary, including by drawing negative, tsk-tsking attention to himself. In the current, ‘free-for-all’ phase of the campaign — when there are 17 candidates and you need only 20 percent or so of the vote to have the plurality in GOP polls — this may be a smart approach. If your goal is to stay at the center of attention rather than necessarily to win the nomination, it’s worth making one friend for every three enemies, provided that those friends tell some pollster that they’d hypothetically vote for you.”

Bret Stephens from the Washington Post on the Donald:

If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.

If you have reached physical maturity and still chuckle at Mr. Trump’s pubescent jokes about Rosie O’Donnell or Heidi Klum, you will never reach mental maturity. If you watched Mr. Trump mock fellow candidate Lindsey Graham’s low poll numbers and didn’t cringe at the lack of class, you are incapable of class. If you think we need to build new airports in Queens the way they build them in Qatar, you should be sent to join the millions of forced laborers who do construction in the Persian Gulf. It would serve you right.

Since Mr. Trump joined the GOP presidential field and leaped to the top of the polls, several views have been offered to explain his popularity. He conveys a can-do image. He is the bluntest of the candidates in addressing public fears of cultural and economic dislocation. He toes no line, serves no PAC, abides no ideology, is beholden to no man. He addresses the broad disgust of everyday Americans with their failed political establishment.

And so forth and so on—a parade of semi-sophisticated theories that act as bathroom deodorizer to mask the stench of this candidacy. Mr. Trump is a loudmouth vulgarian appealing to quieter vulgarians. These vulgarians comprise a significant percentage of the GOP base. The leader isn’t the problem. The people are. It takes the demos to make the demagogue.

There will be other opportunities to write about the radical affinities and moralizing conceits of Democrats and liberals. For now let’s speak plainly about what the Trump ascendancy says about the potential future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by 82% of Hispanics, with 68% feeling “strongly so.” Just 15% of those surveyed view Trump favorably. But of course, according to Trump, Latinos and Hispanics love Trump, just love him. They think he is the best, the greatest, the hugest, candidate of all time.

“As Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican presidential race, frustration and panic have become high enough to make some inside the party Establishment pine for a candidate they roundly rejected as recently as January: Mitt Romney,” according to Gabriel Sherman.

Said on Romney insider: “Mitt wants to run. He never stopped wanting to run. These guys like Walker and Perry, they were big deals in their states, but you get them onto the national stage and it’s a different story. It’s like they were in middle school, and now they’re freshmen in high school and they’re getting their faces slammed in the toilets.”

Oh… joy. Just what this race needed. More Romney.

Jeb Bush said “that he would run for president only if he could do so with a sunny spirit, but Mr. Trump, the surprise leader in the polls, has turned this summer into a miserable one for Mr. Bush, gleefully ignoring the traditional rules of political engagement,” the New York Times reports.

“There is the personal ridicule — constantly questioning Mr. Bush’s vigor, invoking a since-retracted statement by his mother, Barbara Bush, that ‘we’ve had enough Bushes’ in the White House, and even alluding to his wife’s Mexican heritage in discussing immigration. But the torment goes deeper than that. Emphasizing bluster over ideas, Mr. Trump has turned the campaign into a tabloid-style clash of personalities, heavy on provocation and insults. What little policy that has been discussed mostly revolves around Mr. Trump’s appeals to anxious white conservatives: stoking fears about immigrants, gang members and foreign countries that, in his telling, are eclipsing America.”

“It is a race, in other words, that embodies what Mr. Bush likes least about politics.”

Molly Ball: “The other candidates who’ve gone after Trump aggressively (Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, Rand Paul) haven’t exactly soared in the polls. Trump is like an electric fence that the candidates keep running at, only to get zapped and fall back.”

“On the other hand, supporters of the strategy say, somebody had to do it—Trump isn’t going away on his own. And Bush risked looking weak if he left Trump’s attacks, which were essentially shots at his manhood, unanswered. Bush isn’t trying to win over Trump’s supporters, who are unlikely ever to favor him; he’s trying to consolidate the two-thirds of the party that dislikes Trump and wants to see the bully knocked down. And he’s trying to reassure his nervous donors—you know, the ones who’ve already poured $100 million into his candidacy—that he has some fire in the belly.”