One possible explanation is “social desirability bias,” or in other words, people being reluctant to select Trump when talking to another person because they do not believe it will be viewed as a socially acceptable decision..... Of course, that perceived weakness is also a huge part of Trump’s appeal. He is the billionaire who is hated by the elites, the bombastic candidate who breaks out of politico-speak and tells it like it is.When did the drive to be considered socially desirable become so strong on the left? When I was coming of age in the 1960s and 70s, wanting to be socially desirable was associated with conservatives. That put us in the awkward position of finding it socially desirable not to care about being socially desirable. Where do you go from there? I guess we found out!
December 21, 2015
"Republicans are more likely to say they want Donald Trump in the White House if they are taking a poll online versus in a live telephone interview."
"And, if you’re a highly-educated or engaged Republican voter, it turns out that you’re far less likely to tell another human being you want Trump as president," according to a Morning Consult study.
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Every day I talk to people who are aghast that TrUmp is the leader in the primary. Every day I talk to people who are no longer aghast and support him. This social pressure to avoid the outsider was obvious. It is crumbling.
People who don't need to be told what to think break out sooner. Hillary couldn't be a better foil as the corrupt crony insider. She is the epitome of the bought and paid for politician.
And do not underestimate the effect the omnibus passed by the GOPe will have on the race. It is becoming clear to the people that the GOPe and Hillary are on the same side.
Yes it is important to those on the left (modern liberals and progressives) to be "socially acceptable" as an outcropping of a desire to not be associated with things most of us on the left abhors. These abhorrent behaviors would include racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, Xenophobia. No one on the left wants to be associated with people who try to pull us backward into a time when LGBT, women and people of color were systematically denied equal rights, when women died of septicemia due to back alley abortions. It's anathema to those of us on the left to support anyone who would sabotage advances made in these areas. Why would any modern liberal identify with most things on the Republican platform or conservative ideology that has been tainted by the extreme conservatism of today? Modern liberals fought too hard to advance human rights to just sit back and ignore the insane drive by so many rightists to erase those advances. Rightists won't drag us backwards without a fight.
No wonder some conservatives are ashamed to admit they would vote for Trump, especially the educated ones who should know better. It should embarrass anyone with any sense of human decency to admit that they identify with the rantings and ravings of a Trump.
When did the drive to be considered socially desirable become so strong on the left?
Late 70s and 80s. Exactly when leftist politics came to dominate the institutions. I'm sure that's a coincidence though.
It's the exit poll paradox all over again. People tell pollsters what they think they want to hear. The folly of using college kids to do exit polls was shown years ago.
The inevitable paradox of progressive or generational liberalism.
Amanda resorts to the quintessential straw man argument.
Progressives are truly devoid of ideas or the ability to critically think. People like Amanda will always do the bidding of the aristocracy no matter what century we are in.
Is this related at all to the Bradley effect?
@Amanda,
I've been on the fence about supporting Trump, mainly because I've never supported a primary candidate.
Your dreary rant has almost convinced me to come out full tilt for Trump. That brain dead bleating about bigotry wore me out 20 years ago.
"I'm a nigger, too!" threatrics are boring and corrupt. American women never had a bitch. Neither did gays or your lettuce, bacon and tomato goofballs.
And, Dr. Gosnell and Parenthood Parenthood have just brought the back alley butchery into the open and endorsed it.
Keep going with the pretend suffering theatrics and I might just decide to fully support Trump.
Amanda: "Yes it is important to those on the left (modern liberals and progressives) to be "socially acceptable" as an outcropping of a desire to not be associated with things most of us on the left abhors. These abhorrent behaviors would include racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, Xenophobia."
LOL
That Al Sharpton. Totally not racist. At all.
And just how amusing is it that Amanda decided to list "homophobia" right before listing "islamaphobia"?
Irony abounds.
Let that one sink in for a moment.
Another explanation is that we are dealing with two different samples. People who are online a lot are exposed to more stuff like this: (I am not quoting anything, just summarizing the gist of the arguments)
True, all Muslims do not believe in killing infidels at random. But those are the Muslims that are not particularly religious, that do not know their religion, which may very well be most of them in the United States. But Muslims who become more devout, who study their religion, who study the Koran, must inevitably slide toward the position that it is all right and in fact exemplary, and the height of piety, to kill people, and this not a perversion of Islam, but it is true
authentic Islam.
Look: Sura such and such says this, and that's the source of all Islamic legislation, and according to Muslims, what Mohamamed did was perfect, and he did this and that, and the hadith says this, and the Barbary pirates justified attacks against merchant ships and taking their crewmen prisoner and making them into slaves, as following the teachings of Islam.
And if only 1 out 100, 1 out of 1,000 or even 1 out 10,000 Muslims is a
would-be killer, it right to discriminate against all of them, particularly
if they are not Americans. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS KILLS.
As a result of that, people don't act on their suspicions, and people die. Our problem is Islamophilia.
This argument is not being met except with platitudes and denuniciations.
Of course the rejoinder should be if this was the true authentic Islam, why has
this not been happpening throughout all the generations. Why are we just suddenly noticing this in the last 35 years?
To the possible claim it has been happening throughout all the generations, bring proof that it has not.
And if you want to say the reason this didn't happen before is because they were so weak, when did they become so strong?
And furthermore, not even Abdullah Azzam, the predecessor of Osama bin Laden, whom bin Laden was probably complicit in killing in 1989, did not say that killing infidels at random was right. He argued taht it wasn't always forbidden to kill women and children - they could be killed if they were collateral damage.
And if this was true Islam, why is it that most if not all of the people doing
this thing are either "born-again" Muslims or converts? Why shouldn't this be even stronger with lifelong devout Moslems? Not just the "born-again" ones? Did nobody know what Islam teaches before the 1980s?
Is this not because it is in fact a perversion of Islam, and it is not the Koran and the hadith that leads people to this, but a special Twentieth Century interpretation of them?
And Islam is indeed being hijacked. The only problem being that some of the people supposedly against the hijacking of Islam are among the hijackers themselves!
The first person to attempt to hijack Islam was Kaiser Wilhelm in the 1890s. The source of Osama bin Laden's theology goes back to fatwas written in German by Max von Openheim in Berlin in 1914 and translated into Arabic, Turkish and several other languages spoken by Moslems in the Turkish dominions. And it survived World War I because this theology was also used to justify killing Jews in the 1920s and later in Israel.
By the way, people aren't ashamed of admitting they support Trump.
They are afraid of being blacklisted out of their jobs.
The left bleats endlessly about blacklisting back in the 50s, while it practices it ruthlessly today. I am retired from my career as a multimedia technology developer and artist in NYC. If I were still working, I wouldn't dare speak a word in support of Trump in public lest I be blacklisted from ever working again. Same is true in academia, where I once worked teaching tech courses.
I'm a graduate of the University of Illinois. Take a look at the faculty rosters in liberal arts. Blacklisting on a massive scale has frozen out any job candidate who does not preach the race, sex and class bullshit.
It's not about shame. It's about blacklisting.
"No one on the left wants to be associated with people who try to pull us backward into a time when LGBT, women and people of color were systematically denied equal rights, when women died of septicemia due to back alley abortions. "
I guess that's why you want hundreds of thousands of Muslims over here.
AA is right that it is valuable to have an Amanda here.
Amanda
As a reformed leftist I am always curious about how it is possible for current day leftists to ignore the damage their ideology has done to the black community while smugly claiming to support it. The evidence of the last forty years can't be ignored and the cities that have been governed by Democrats over the decades are evidence indeed.
"Modern liberals fought too hard to advance human rights to just sit back and ignore the insane drive by so many rightists to erase those advances. Rightists won't drag us backwards without a fight."
I assume here you are ignoring the love of modern liberals for the leaders who killed fifty plus million people in the name of social justice in the last century, abetted very loudly by modern liberals. Those wouldn't be the human rights you fought so hard for would they? Or do you only ride the high horse from time to time?
Ann - maybe because in the 60s and 70s liberals like you felt the FREEDOM to speak your minds because the conservatives had no POWER to punish you. Now look at the situation on 90% of college campuses. If you are a conservative and DARE speak your mind, the consequences are severe.
Shouting Thomas, very apt handle BTW,
After reading several of your insane sounding diatribes against Althouse, I'm shocked that you already aren't a full blown Trumpeteer, maybe you were simply in the closet, glad to know I've given you a way out. Shout out your Trumpism!
In comes Amanda to illustrate the argument from shame that underlies the polling problem in the story.
Lefties so want to believe the non-argument of equating opinions they don't like with "racism, sexism," etc. works -- but mostly it just pisses off the people who know exactly why they disagree with her and that their reasons for disagreeing have squat to do with "racism, sexism," etc.
Of course, they can instantly see and shoot down the same kind of argument when it's coming at them from the right. And it only convinces them further that they're the side operating 100% on facts and reason while the other side is 100% lies and hate.
That's a relief. People should be embarrassed.
I can definitely believe that Trump has some "hidden" support by folks who like some of what he says, but don't want to come out and say it.
This happens, particularly in Blue States, like California.
15 or so years ago, California voters passed Proposition 209 -- which abolished affirmative action in the public universities. Many white liberal voters quietly and privately voted for this, as it was in the interest of their college bound kids.
Trump, at a minimum, speaks loudly on two hot button issues: immigration and Radical Islam. Sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth, but so be it. These two issues scare people. They also intersect at the decision point on whether to allow hordes of Syrian refugees into our country. No sane person in American, liberal or Conservative, wants a flood of non-assimilated Syrian refugees in their community, although Liberals will toy with the idea, in theory.
My own sense about Trump is twofold: (1) his supports should calm down a bit, as he will not be anyone's savior and (2) his detractors should calm down a lot more, since he is neither, Hitler nor the anti-Christ.
I'm more interested in that Trump ratio among Democrats and independents.
Blogger Amanda said...
Yes it is important to those on the left (modern liberals and progressives) to be "socially acceptable" as an outcropping of a desire to not be associated with things most of us on the left abhors. These abhorrent behaviors would include racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, Xenophobia.
These rants by Amanda are illustrative of why Trump is needed. Every Republican in Amanda world is extreme. If some liberal like Snowe got the nomination, she would instantly become all of those terrible, extreme right bogies that Amanda imagines above. Snowe, like McCain and many other Republicans would propose Democrat lite programs and the screaming would begin. They'd suggest women pay for their own abortions and it'd be back alley abortions all over again. They'd suggest women buy their own contraception and Stephenopolous would ask why they wanted to ban contraception. It would be hyperbolic attack after hyperbolic attack.
The only way to overcome this is to go full Trump.
First of all, no one believes it anymore. We have become accustomed to being told hyperbolic lies by the media.
Second, the savvy conservative on the right will be more motivated to get behind someone who is truly conservative. Or, if not a life conservative, is actually doing things to pull Overtones Window to the right, which Trump is doing.
Why would you vote for the Luke warm candidate when you can have the hot candidate who will fight and you might just get what you really want, instead of just promises?
ST - good point about blacklisting. Obviously the professor feels safe with her tenured position. The rest of us don't have that luxury, and ivory tower types like her just DO NOT GET IT.
I think that the phenomenon is explained by three things:
1) There are a lot of young people who have yet to outgrow progressivism. Young people tend to be much more conformist.
2) The internet plus social media has created a society in which young people never unplug from the influence of their peer group. In the 1960s, the influence of your peer group was pretty much over after you came home for dinner with the family.
3) As noted, the progressive side is much more concerned about the consequences of public dissent from progressivism. I have had my sister-in-law ask me to quit writing conservative opinions in the blog of our local newspaper - I refused. My brother, a law professor in the Mid-west, asked my father to quit writing his conservative political blog because "he would handicap future generations of the family" - Dad refused.
Anyone with a modicum of understanding or respect for American tradition (and this may be part of the explanation) should be deeply alarmed about this.
We Republicans always lie in polls. What union member is going to be honest answering affirmative to Trump or any Republican candidate, slashed tires anyone?
@Achilles
It is not that Trump is an outsider. It is that he is a nut and he is NOT a conservative.
I am not so much scared as royally pissed.
And I do not like to be talked down to.
The "extreme conservatism of today" - was in many respects the universal values of yesterday. I figure one could poll the members of Buenaventura Durruti's column in 1936 and get very "Republican" attitudes (little joke there).
Anyway, these awful people, all of them, left and right, made a world, today, better than any before. They are the giants on whose shoulders we stand. The left, such as it is today, hates them with an implacable passion. They despise their fathers and mothers, their grandfathers and grandmothers, and all their works. They wish to raze the foundations of centuries, in an idiotic frenzy.
When did the drive to be considered socially desirable become so strong on the left?
Since when has social conformity not been associated with the left? They used non-conformity to attack liberal western values as a tactic when it was convenient, not based on any consistent principle.
"It is not that Trump is an outsider. It is that he is a nut and he is NOT a conservative."
So, the billion dollars was an accident ? Won the lottery ?
I don't like Trump but there are quite a few people who know him that I respect and they are not alarmed at his campaign at all.
Others have read his books and consider him a viable candidate. I am always amused at people who have never accomplished anything in life pronouncing opinions on others with genuine accomplishment.
Everyone secretly wants to be "The Man".
It goes to show what happens when groups get power. Clinton - the first baby boomer president - was just as obsessed with power as his predecessors. I imagine if by stroke of miracle that a libertarian is ever elected, the same thing will happen.
I'm guessing that 'Amanda' is a sock puppet. She appeared suddenly and very conveniently right after the last liberal disappeared and she spouts suspiciously conventional 'liberal' pap that helps to keep the conversation moving along.
Just a thought.
Free speech has never been free at all. In England it is still a crime. Watching Trump pay the price to speak the past 4 months has emboldened many, but not all want to take the risk and chose sides except in secret.
Meanwhile Hillary literally threatens any to dare to speak the truth as she spits in our eye and sends out minions to destroy the trailer park trash and vast right wing conspirators.
"When did the drive to be considered socially desirable become so strong on the left? "
Long, long ago. It just looks different when the left dominates the popular culture, or at least the mainstream media part of it.
@ARM/
Erm, "Amanda" should be be familiar to you as she used to comment here as our dear long departed Inga. PS: She obviously hasn't improved any with age..
ARM
Would that it were true but I am afraid she is too exactly progressive. No liberal or conservative could mimic that cloying virtue so perfectly.
When I was coming of age in the 1960s and 70s, wanting to be socially desirable was associated with conservatives.
Which ones?
Blacklisting ... you mean like the online Walker recall database that WI conservatives built years ago and still keep running?
The one I hear about them running on people trying to get jobs?
The hypocrisy is strong in Shouting Thomas. I am also quite certain he doesn't go to church on Sunday, ad he doesn't turn the other cheek nor give a shit about the least of his brothers.
AReasonableMan said...
I'm guessing that 'Amanda' is a sock puppet. She appeared suddenly and very conveniently right after the last liberal disappeared and she spouts suspiciously conventional 'liberal' pap that helps to keep the conversation moving along.
Just a thought.
12/21/15, 8:19 PM "
While I suspect that you might be right about Amanda I'm curious to know whom you consider to be the last liberal commenting in this blog.
All this hidden and not-so hidden for Trump sentiment reminds me of Nixon's Silent Majority and the Reagan Democrats. Neither man would have won without a large crossover vote. While I doubt that Trump will be the Republican nominee let alone the winner its worth noting that Nixon and Reagan won 49 states each in large part to appealing to what Amanda calls Trumpism.
cubanbob said...
While I suspect that you might be right about Amanda I'm curious to know whom you consider to be the last liberal commenting in this blog.
As a moderate, I try to avoid the harsh Manichean world view that underpins this question.
The one I hear about them running on people trying to get jobs?
Such as?
Examples?
@Michael K
It is not that I begrudge him his successes. I think his success as a deal maker has been somewhat overstated (after all, his casinos are not doing that well) but that is the nature of the real estate business. I love how he remains a bit of a dreamer (the new Trump building here in Chicago is an ornament to the city and how he beat Emmanuel in the ego battle they had last year was awesome). But he has not real ideology other than Trump. Too much seems to be:
Step 1 -- Elect me
Step 2 -- something
Step 3 -- America is Great Again!
He flirts with birtherism and anti-vaxers and anyone who has abused eminent domain as he has tried too cannot be called a conservative in 2015 America.
As a moderate, I try to avoid the harsh Manichean world view that underpins this question.
You're not a moderate. You're a crazy, easily enraged far leftist. The moderation is a self-delusion.
Remember how you jumped to the conclusion that my assertion that I'm a retired pro musician was based on your belief that the one thing that you knew about me was that I played in one cover band that you knew of? You're assumption was completely wrong, wasn't it?
You're an angry, crazed nutjob leftist and egomaniac, not a moderate. I don't think anybody's buying the pretense.
Michael said... 12/21/15, 4:31 PM
As a reformed leftist I am always curious about how it is possible for current day leftists to ignore the damage their ideology has done to the black community while smugly claiming to support it.
It's easy. You merely deny there's any kind of social pathology in the black communiy, because to assert that there is, is invidious. And if there's no social pathology, what kind of damage are you talking about??
Now they might "admit" maybe that there are too many guns loose in the country, or that not enough money is being spent on schools. (Leftists believe markets are inefficient, except when the government is spending the money. Then, you get what you pay for.)
And perhaps, that they have second-rate doctors there, and no or not enough fruit stores.
The evidence of the last forty years can't be ignored and the cities that have been governed by Democrats over the decades are evidence indeed.
In the end, people vote with their feet, but that can be mitigated by legally mandating gerrymandering, so that incumbents representing these areas are protected. And if the areas are declining, they are protected even more. Gentrication is the danger!
Shouting Thomas said...
You're a crazy, easily enraged far leftist. The moderation is a self-delusion. You're an angry, crazed nutjob leftist and egomaniac, not a moderate.
Your carefully considered comments and well reasoned arguments certainly certainly give one pause, when considering who is or is not a moderate.
Uh, does this mean that voters will be more likely to vote for Trump using a modern, impersonal, electronic voting machine, as opposed to those nasty --but tactile-- pre-Bush-v-Gore mechanical and punch card voting machines?
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