May 15, 2020

"According to a CNN poll released this week, nearly three-quarters of Democrats said the worst of the crisis is still ahead of us..."

"... while only about a quarter of Republicans said the same. This marked a 15 percentage-point drop among Democrats since CNN last asked the question in April, and a 44-point drop among Republicans. A YouGov/Economist poll also found a similar divide this week; 58 percent of Democrats said the pandemic is going to get worse compared with only 20 percent of Republicans...."

FiveThirtyEight reports.

Why should predictions about what a virus will do have so much to do with political orientation? I might be missing something, but I see 2 types of reasoning:

1. Optimism or pessimism is a psychological orientation that is more fundamental than political affiliation. It affects which party you feel drawn to and how you see the virus going in the future. Pessimists picture things going wrong, so they want more help from the government, and the Democrats are there to offer to help. Optimists think they can make good things happen and the Republicans offer to get government out of the way.

2. A Republican is in the White House, and Democrats don't trust him and assume he's screwing things up, so they're more likely to picture bad things happening in the future. There's also wishful thinking: They want him to fail, and more death and sickness is something that — in a perverse and unacknowledged way — they want. Republicans are the opposite. They're more able to trust Trump, and the ordinary wishful thinking that the virus will go away aligns nicely with the hope that Trump will triumph.

214 comments:

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RichardJohnson said...

Howard:
"Ironically, the Coronavirus pandemic is improving in the panicked libber blue States while the new case and corpse rates are increasing in the cocksure Trumpian red States."

Howard, wishing does not make it so. COVID-19 (a.k.a. Winnie the Flu) deaths peaked around April 21, (using the 7-day average metric). Let us compare deaths by state on April 21 and on May 12, 3 weeks later. (using just deaths on those days- no averaging.)

COVID-19 (a.k.a. Winnie the Flu) deaths, April 21
Hillary-voting states 1809
Trump-voting states 992
total 2801 (I used only places electoral votes)

COVID-19 (a.k.a. Winnie the Flu) death, May 12
Hillary-voting states 911
Trump-voting states 653
Total 1564

Contrary to what Howard claims, the pandemic is ebbing in both Hillary-voting areas and in Trump-voting areas. Hillary-voting areas, as Howard correctly claimed, reduced deaths by 49.6%. Contrary to what Howard claimed, deaths fell by 34.2% in Truump-voting areas.



Corona virus USA

Wikipedia for 2016 election results.

Ambrose said...

Since when are we polling people on future predictions?

RichardJohnson said...

538 reports
Republicans are the opposite. They're more able to trust Trump, and the ordinary wishful thinking that the virus will go away aligns nicely with the hope that Trump will triumph.

I can speak only for myself. I have been tracking COVID-19 (a.k.a. Winnie the Flu) data for over a month. My opinions are based on my interpretations of the data.
Off hand though, I trust Trump more than I do, for example, Nancy "Vote for the bill to find out what's in it" Pelosi.

Jon Ericson said...

Josephbleau:
Chill. It's the stalker.
Blogger platform can't block stalkers because Google doesn't support modern things like IP or profile blocking.
Can't migrate to different platform because 15 years of posts won't look right if ported.
Stalker has Althouse over a barrel.
Grin and bear it I guess.

RichardJohnson said...

Easing up in Texas, by the numbers.
COVID-19 (a.k.a. Winnie the Flu) death rate, per million
USA 267
NY 1,417
Texas 45



7-day average of daily deaths in Texas has been trending down for several weeks

20-26-Apr 22
21-27-Apr 24
22-28-Apr 23
23-29-Apr 28
24-30-Apr 32
25 Aor-1-May 35
26 Apr 2-May 33
27 Apr-3-May 33
28 Apr-4-May 35
29 Apr-5-May 39
30 Apr-6-May 37
1-7-May 32
2-8-May 33
3-9-May 34
4-10-May 35
5-11-May 34
6-12-May 31
7-13-May 30
8-14-May 33
9-15-May 34
I find the TX gvt site difficult to navigate, so I got my data from Worldometer. BTW, it has TX deaths of 41 for May 14 and 50 for May 15. Not the 58 for May 14 that was in article Inga linked to.

Corona virus USA link to Texas

bagoh20 said...

I think Howard is easily confused, and thinks that blue states going from thousands of deaths to mere hundreds is better than red States going from tens to single digits. It is a bigger improvement like when they shut down Auschwitz compared to closing the USO.

bagoh20 said...

"Contrary to what Howard claims, the pandemic is ebbing in both Hillary-voting areas and in Trump-voting areas."

Which to Democrats means the worst is ahead of us. By next season, if this thing is even seasonal, immunity will be many times more robust than it was in round one, and it looks like we will have treatments and maybe even a cure by then. One thing we will have no excuse to not have is a better strategy than what was used this time, espcially in blue states. Protect the vulnerable, let everyone else man the ship, expanding immunity at the same time. What we did was the absolutley worst possible response, except maybe doing nothing at all, although that is how we have managed similar pandemics in 1968 and 2018, and the world did not end.

Yancey Ward said...

Inga, you dumb fuck- a peak day isn't a peak rate. And, even at that, that data you did cite is a specifically picked 24 hour period- the 12 hour periods on either side of it were very low- basically, the site you quoted deliberately picked up the deaths of two different days and made it look like one.

This is why you get no respect- you lie without shame, and you quote sites that do the exact same. But, keep it up dumbass- your lies are transparent.

stlcdr said...

What you believe and what is are two different things. Since, in this case, the is Is in the future, this is purely a political posturing point. The media wants to put forward that point.

Th e difference is as most people above have said.

MayBee said...

I think the people who think the worst is yet ahead think that primarily because it never got as bad here as they expected it too, or as they were told it would, and so they are still expecting that to come.

Bill Peschel said...

This tweet thread via Ace of Spade is a good example of the hard-headedness of the "shutdown everything crowd."

Note: Ron Fournier was an Associated Press reporter. Washington beat. I saw his byline frequently. He decried Georgia's reopening and even said "mark my words" death rates are going up.

A month later, they declined. Called out on it, he said, "give it two weeks."

No change.

He refuses to admit he was wrong. Refuses to admit Georgia was right.

And this guy wrote "news" for the Associated Press.

Mea Sententia said...

Mass psychosis on the left. A blend of apocalyptic and magical thinking. The world is coming to an end, but you can avert it if you do these impossible things. Climate change or COVID, it’s the same mindset.

Bilwick said...

Wuxtry! Wuxttry! Read all about it! Statists like statism and coercion!

In related news, scientists again confirm: Water remains wet.

Nichevo said...

steve uhr said...
So why are republicans much less likely to wear a mask in public. Pick all that apply:

What am I missing?

5/15/20, 6:45 PM


Maybe they read this.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/05/14/neurosurgeon-says-face-masks-pose-serious-risk-to-healthy-people-n392431

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