Quote of the Day

"None of this is all that surprising, however. White people blaming Black people for the horrors white people inflict upon Black people is as American as apple pie. They blamed the slave who ran away for forcing the master to whip him. They blamed the Black people agitating for freedom for causing the Civil War. They blamed the Freedom Riders trying to register Black people to vote for getting themselves killed. Now, Black people are being blamed as being too violent to police our own communities, and too strident to build a coalition with “moderate” whites who would totally be on our side if we weren’t all arsonists who wanted to eat white people, or something....

"If you thought Floyd’s murder was going to lead to structural change, then you don’t know white people as well as I do."

Elie Mystal, "The Inevitable Whitelash Against Racial Justice Has Started"
thenation.com
8/31/2020

Voter Enthusiasm

Don't wet your pants over "enthusiasm" polls. They are a real thing and probably accurate, but don't necessarily translate to actual votes. An unenthusiatic vote counts just as much.

Let's say we have 10 voters. Five are for Trump, five for Biden, or 50% each. They each have four enthusiastic voters and one unenthusiastic, i.e., each have 80% enthusiastic voters. Let's say one of those unenthusiastic Trump voters switches to Biden, and becomes an unenthusiastic Biden voter. Now Biden leads 60% to 40%, but his enthusiastism ratio goes down from 80% (4÷5) to 67% (4÷6). Trump's has increased to 100% enthusiastic. Lots of liberals would see that and declare that we are doomed. But clearly one would rather be in Biden's position than Trump's.

Sometimes the enthusiasm numbers might actually measure an increase in support. But when undecideds decide on a candidate, those voters will tend to be less "'enthusiastic". Same for a voter who switches from one candidate to the other.

So don't despair. The enthusaism numbers may not be telling you what you think.