99 years ago, in the midst of the insanity sweeping the country over the Scopes Monkey Trial, H.L. Mencken made the following observation: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” Proof of that fact is shown in the results of a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, conducted last week, November 15-16, AFTER Trump made his “vermin” speech that even had the Washington Press Corpse calling out the Nazi antecedents.
I don't know how you can watch the average dumbass with a phone smarter than they are and think intelligence has anything to do with it. I have been nearly hit so many times I've lost count by dumbasses paying more attention to the damn phone than to their driving.
I have too, and probably several times. one of the things that gets me really crazy is when I'm watching a movie or something on TV and the person I'm watching with (it's more often a guy) feels compelled to consult his fucking phone a dozen or so times during the movie.
for me, it's brought no joy at all and plenty of the opposite.
now that's only me, but it's what I know best.
I quite enjoyed the twentieth century. I know it was a nightmare, but I liked it (the half to which I had access). this one's been an unmitigated disaster, made tolerable only by dogs. and one of mine seems like he might be on the way out.
add to this a computer at death's door on which I have no access to my files.
Do you have anything like Geek Squad there in NYC? Traveling computer techs, will come to your house. A new desktop (or a reconditioned one) can be gotten for under $200, have them ghost your old desktop onto it.
As Robert Hubbell is bound to say - “Don’t pay attention to polls”. The reason polls give wacky results is because they are wacky polls. When something doesn’t seem right it’s because it’s not right. That’s what I’m saying to myself to stay sane!
I’m not surprised with the “results” of this poll, just as I am not surprised with the intellectual capacity of most Americans. I worked with so many of these bozos at my job and their ignorance of history and politics is bottomless. The main reason why RFK Jr. scores so high is mostly name recognition from his father and uncle, nothing else. Same with trump from his reality(?) TV days…it’s the brand, nothing else…
in the case of this sometimes ex-junkie headed for another slip (the grandiosity will do it this time, I'm thinking), I'd say 90% of it is name recognition. for some reason, this country LOVES the idea of being "saved" by a Kennedy. granting JFK's good sense during the Cuban missile crisis, when else has this ever been true. Teddy was a very good senator (the vagaries of his personal life being irrelevant), but this guy is an asshole pure and simple. and a crook.
I'm also prepared to boycott any and all of the Big Hollywood Assholes who are campaigning for him because celebrities must stick together or something.
I keep trying my thought experiment about what happens if TFF actually "wins" (which, if it comes, will occur with another popular vote loss), but I can't really get past the first day or two. that none of this will have much effect on me or the people I'm closest to is no consolation whatsoever.
on Sunday, I put off as long as possible peeking into the NYT Sunday Opinion section. then I did, only to discover that in swing states, there is a general understanding that TFF was much better at "The Economy." a lot of people are angry at the lockdowns (which really DID fuck things up, but everywhere in the world) and the inflation (about which Biden has the power to do almost nothing). how is it they don't remember who initiated said lockdowns? how quickly they've forgotten the delicious irony that TFF's "greatest accomplishment" was vaccine development and then BANG!...it was TFF's biggest flaw. but hey, people forgot about that fact within, like, a week.
as for those parents who want to keep their kids' immune systems exactly the way god made them, this is gonna sound very cold and lose me some friends but...when they're staying up all night while their kids make horrible whooping cough noises or spend four or five days burning up with measles (I averaged almost 105 degrees for about that long) or get German measles, give it to their pregnant moms and have to deal with a disabled kid or end up with a dead kid who didn't have to die...(you get the picture)..when these things happen, it'll be on them. just as the vax deniers were very happy to let US "die off," I have no problem wishing some equally bad shit on them.
with any luck, I'll look at this post later and it'll mortify me and I'll remove it.
Proof that propaganda works, or just flat stupidity. I sort of discounted RFKJ because his ignorance is just over the top. Of course, I discounted chump for the same reason. I am so proud to be one of the population that has half a brain. These precious body parts are missing in too many of our citizens. Stevenson was as astute as Mencken. When told that he would have the votes of the intelligent voters, he said that’s not nearly enough. Or words to that effect. The poll must have been taken in Texas. Morons all around me are proud of their ignorance.
Mitch has a point. How was the poll designed. Very troubling poll however. I’d disagree with TC in one particular. Calling the people morons permits dismissing them. These are people who need to be won over (if possible) even though they have drunk gallons of the kool-aid. The battle has begun for sure.
Baby. Sweetie put down the polls. I swear every poll is gaslighting us. Fuck em. Have a snort of whiskey and let the pollsters stick those polls where the sun don't shine
2000+ with no other info on the data. Fuck that man. That many people see Jesus on a piece of toast
"That many people see Jesus on a piece of toast" OMG. That sentence made my day! I almost fell off my chair laughing. Thanks for that and the little piece of sanity!
That hurts. My parents met as graduate students at that institution in 1946. But I suspect the polling is only loosely connected to the rest of the institution.
actually, David, I'm convinced that in fact, the current crop of students at "elite" institutions are a lot dumber than they used to be because PEOPLE are dumber. any class at Harvard (say) has a certain number of places to fill. and those places will be filled. my own knowledge of Harvard in particular is based on the fact that my best friend of sixty years went there and I'd visit frequently and hear all his stories. and I know perfectly well that there are genius kids everywhere. BUT.
when I was in graduate school, I studied with John Hollander, who was as close to a flat-out genius as any professor I ever had. he was in the habit of asking a VERY idiosyncratic question (with an idiosyncratic answer...the one I most remember was his sense that a line in a John Donne poem was most like a haiku) and, when everyone was cared to answer, he'd tear into us as being unfit to be any sort of scholar of English Lit. the thing is, I KNEW he was right insofar as guys in the generation just a few years later than that of my parents were, as a group, a lot better-read than we were. it stands to reason that the generation twenty years younger than OURS would be that much less prepared to teach English Lit than WE were.
I've had conversations with AP History students who were gloriously well-trained in American History and Politics. I've had more conversations with college graduates who didn't know what the Electoral College was.
so no polling result from ANY institution of higher learning would surprise me.
Very good Marsha. People don’t need to know about politics or history to know who not to vote for in this election. Common sense, common decency, and simply keeping abreast of the facts will do.
Every word you said is true, but are we sure the poll isn't designed to reach exactly this conclusion. Remember, if my call for Clinton, Obama, and Biden to prosecute traitors had been heeded, Penn would be in prison.
Nothing with Mark Penn's name on it has ever been termed legitimate. He has record of being wrong and biased. As soon as I saw his name I dismissed this poll as bullshit.
You are so right about the mindlessness of so many. True to from this morning's right wing radio smuglets hailed the runaway election of Argentina's version of Trump and are telling their afflicteds that we need to be just like Argentina because, as the smuglets have been conditioning the listeners to believe, the US is a throbbing hell hole and needs such radical change. Yeah, Argentina where inflation is at 143% and 40% of the population lives in hopeless poverty. Unlike the optimistic Grover here, I've given up on these folks.
It's never a good sign when a candidate's family tries to warn you about him. Look at Paul Gosar, a maga dentist who may have fallen into his mercury stash.
Why are you giving oxygen to yet another damn poll? It seems to me to prove that name recognition is the critical feature for way too many voters. Loads of folks have noted (most recently Heather Cox Richardson in today's post) that people want authoritarian rule because they get to stop having to think about issues--apparently even remembering a famous name is too much strain. All polls do at this point is to exacerbate the follow-the-herd mentality. "Oh, everyone likes RFK JR? Better plan to vote for him."
We live in a society lobotomized by reality TV and car chases as an art form. Why think when your brain can be FED comforting lines? TV, TikTok, Instagram tell us what we think we need to know. The most telling new word for our mindlessness is "influencers."
Not all of society is prey to this. November 2024 is really going to be a test of whether there are more thinkers or comfortable sponges in our voting population.
the phenomenon of preferring authoritarian rule, because freedom is scary, is hardly a new thing. Wilhelm Reich wrote eloquently about this in a BUNCH of books. and if the Reichian Orgonomy stuff struck readers as being a bridge or two too far, there's always Erich Fromm. these guys were Jewish thinkers writing in the immediate wake of WWII, so they had plenty of skin in the game, as did the members of the Frankfurt School, who get trashed today by people who have no idea what they were actually about.
Reich is indeed a bit much, but I am cool with the Frankfurt School., at least those I've read. I actually knew Leo Lowenthal. I worked for the library at the Stanford Behavior Science Center when he was a Fellow there. Fetched many a book from the Stanford Library for him; he was big on Interlibrary Loan.
It has been a long time since we've seen so many people actually YEARNING to be under Big Father's protective thumb, as opposed to accommodating a fait accompli. They have truly no idea what will happen when the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party starts getting hungry.
"though it is unclear how much of his ratings are from in depth knowledge of Kennedy vs. his popular family name,” Mark Penn, co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, said. UNCLEAR??!!! I am 100% certain that it's all in his name! "Kennedy"?! Uh, yeah. And I'm 99% sure that his "fans" haven't a clue as to what he "stands for". Yup, getting toward time to leave the US of A.
Our political fates are being measured by the only people left in America who fail to screen their telephone calls. That can't be a good thing.
Excellent point and further proof they are indeed morons.
They are measuring people who haven’t gotten cell phones yet.
No wonder Harding has an early lead!
Gary...are you ABSOLUTELY SURE that possession of a cell phone is in any way a sign of intelligence?
I don't know how you can watch the average dumbass with a phone smarter than they are and think intelligence has anything to do with it. I have been nearly hit so many times I've lost count by dumbasses paying more attention to the damn phone than to their driving.
I have too, and probably several times. one of the things that gets me really crazy is when I'm watching a movie or something on TV and the person I'm watching with (it's more often a guy) feels compelled to consult his fucking phone a dozen or so times during the movie.
wtf is so important?
No. But it is a sign they acknowledge living in the 21st century.
yes, but then what?
and what's so swell about this century?
for me, it's brought no joy at all and plenty of the opposite.
now that's only me, but it's what I know best.
I quite enjoyed the twentieth century. I know it was a nightmare, but I liked it (the half to which I had access). this one's been an unmitigated disaster, made tolerable only by dogs. and one of mine seems like he might be on the way out.
add to this a computer at death's door on which I have no access to my files.
perfect fucking storm.
Do you have anything like Geek Squad there in NYC? Traveling computer techs, will come to your house. A new desktop (or a reconditioned one) can be gotten for under $200, have them ghost your old desktop onto it.
As Robert Hubbell is bound to say - “Don’t pay attention to polls”. The reason polls give wacky results is because they are wacky polls. When something doesn’t seem right it’s because it’s not right. That’s what I’m saying to myself to stay sane!
I think you are right though.
I think so too!
...and ME.
I’m not surprised with the “results” of this poll, just as I am not surprised with the intellectual capacity of most Americans. I worked with so many of these bozos at my job and their ignorance of history and politics is bottomless. The main reason why RFK Jr. scores so high is mostly name recognition from his father and uncle, nothing else. Same with trump from his reality(?) TV days…it’s the brand, nothing else…
in the case of this sometimes ex-junkie headed for another slip (the grandiosity will do it this time, I'm thinking), I'd say 90% of it is name recognition. for some reason, this country LOVES the idea of being "saved" by a Kennedy. granting JFK's good sense during the Cuban missile crisis, when else has this ever been true. Teddy was a very good senator (the vagaries of his personal life being irrelevant), but this guy is an asshole pure and simple. and a crook.
I'm also prepared to boycott any and all of the Big Hollywood Assholes who are campaigning for him because celebrities must stick together or something.
I keep trying my thought experiment about what happens if TFF actually "wins" (which, if it comes, will occur with another popular vote loss), but I can't really get past the first day or two. that none of this will have much effect on me or the people I'm closest to is no consolation whatsoever.
on Sunday, I put off as long as possible peeking into the NYT Sunday Opinion section. then I did, only to discover that in swing states, there is a general understanding that TFF was much better at "The Economy." a lot of people are angry at the lockdowns (which really DID fuck things up, but everywhere in the world) and the inflation (about which Biden has the power to do almost nothing). how is it they don't remember who initiated said lockdowns? how quickly they've forgotten the delicious irony that TFF's "greatest accomplishment" was vaccine development and then BANG!...it was TFF's biggest flaw. but hey, people forgot about that fact within, like, a week.
as for those parents who want to keep their kids' immune systems exactly the way god made them, this is gonna sound very cold and lose me some friends but...when they're staying up all night while their kids make horrible whooping cough noises or spend four or five days burning up with measles (I averaged almost 105 degrees for about that long) or get German measles, give it to their pregnant moms and have to deal with a disabled kid or end up with a dead kid who didn't have to die...(you get the picture)..when these things happen, it'll be on them. just as the vax deniers were very happy to let US "die off," I have no problem wishing some equally bad shit on them.
with any luck, I'll look at this post later and it'll mortify me and I'll remove it.
but I'm not feeling lucky today.
My mind does not accept the authenticity of how this poll measured to get its outcomes.
Proof that propaganda works, or just flat stupidity. I sort of discounted RFKJ because his ignorance is just over the top. Of course, I discounted chump for the same reason. I am so proud to be one of the population that has half a brain. These precious body parts are missing in too many of our citizens. Stevenson was as astute as Mencken. When told that he would have the votes of the intelligent voters, he said that’s not nearly enough. Or words to that effect. The poll must have been taken in Texas. Morons all around me are proud of their ignorance.
Mitch has a point. How was the poll designed. Very troubling poll however. I’d disagree with TC in one particular. Calling the people morons permits dismissing them. These are people who need to be won over (if possible) even though they have drunk gallons of the kool-aid. The battle has begun for sure.
True, but they'll still be "persuadable morons."
won over??
I know one person--and a very decent one, on balance--who espouses SOME of this stupid shit, and he is in no way persuadable.
and I leave winning over the minds of these troglodytes to people with much more energy and much less cynicism. I'm fucking DONE with that.
None near me are persuadable. Devoted to a Hitler wannabe. After all, he got the crowds.
Baby. Sweetie put down the polls. I swear every poll is gaslighting us. Fuck em. Have a snort of whiskey and let the pollsters stick those polls where the sun don't shine
2000+ with no other info on the data. Fuck that man. That many people see Jesus on a piece of toast
Rock on
"That many people see Jesus on a piece of toast" OMG. That sentence made my day! I almost fell off my chair laughing. Thanks for that and the little piece of sanity!
How far Harvard has fallen.
That hurts. My parents met as graduate students at that institution in 1946. But I suspect the polling is only loosely connected to the rest of the institution.
actually, David, I'm convinced that in fact, the current crop of students at "elite" institutions are a lot dumber than they used to be because PEOPLE are dumber. any class at Harvard (say) has a certain number of places to fill. and those places will be filled. my own knowledge of Harvard in particular is based on the fact that my best friend of sixty years went there and I'd visit frequently and hear all his stories. and I know perfectly well that there are genius kids everywhere. BUT.
when I was in graduate school, I studied with John Hollander, who was as close to a flat-out genius as any professor I ever had. he was in the habit of asking a VERY idiosyncratic question (with an idiosyncratic answer...the one I most remember was his sense that a line in a John Donne poem was most like a haiku) and, when everyone was cared to answer, he'd tear into us as being unfit to be any sort of scholar of English Lit. the thing is, I KNEW he was right insofar as guys in the generation just a few years later than that of my parents were, as a group, a lot better-read than we were. it stands to reason that the generation twenty years younger than OURS would be that much less prepared to teach English Lit than WE were.
I've had conversations with AP History students who were gloriously well-trained in American History and Politics. I've had more conversations with college graduates who didn't know what the Electoral College was.
so no polling result from ANY institution of higher learning would surprise me.
I think the big picture you're providing was in the comment I was responding to. And that dumbing down is why it hurts.
it does indeed. and not just at Harvard.
Truly Sick… I don’t trust ANY Polls
Full stop …. Just Vote Biden 2024
Please save our country..our children
Our grandchildren need us! ✅Marsha
Very good Marsha. People don’t need to know about politics or history to know who not to vote for in this election. Common sense, common decency, and simply keeping abreast of the facts will do.
Susan Burgess blessings for your decency, empathy and heartfelt
Generosity…your response deeply
Touched my heart and soul. Marsha
I believe many of your comments pierce through people’s defenses. You help them remember their true depth and touch all our hearts.
Susan Burgess .. my heartfelt
Gratitude …you’re saying that my comments are somehow able to pierce through people’s defenses
AND that I’m somehow able to help them remember their true depth and touch all our hearts …has me
Overwhelmed with gratitude ..
I trust and write from feelings deeply felt in my soul YOUR
Empathy and Kindness May be
One of the ten kindest responses
I’ve been bleesed to receive and shall forever be grateful to you..
You are a soulmate forever and I shall cherish your bleesed comment…with love, Marsha 🌹
Thank you, Marsha.
Thanks for your response…
Grateful 🌹marsha
Every word you said is true, but are we sure the poll isn't designed to reach exactly this conclusion. Remember, if my call for Clinton, Obama, and Biden to prosecute traitors had been heeded, Penn would be in prison.
Traitors rule the fools
Nothing with Mark Penn's name on it has ever been termed legitimate. He has record of being wrong and biased. As soon as I saw his name I dismissed this poll as bullshit.
You are so right about the mindlessness of so many. True to from this morning's right wing radio smuglets hailed the runaway election of Argentina's version of Trump and are telling their afflicteds that we need to be just like Argentina because, as the smuglets have been conditioning the listeners to believe, the US is a throbbing hell hole and needs such radical change. Yeah, Argentina where inflation is at 143% and 40% of the population lives in hopeless poverty. Unlike the optimistic Grover here, I've given up on these folks.
How many in this Harvard poll
were Harvard students?🤪 Right now, I trust little coming
out of anything to do with Harvard or those associated with it.
And let's try, very hard to remember, this particular Kennedy has been basically
DISOWNED by his family. With very good reasons.
It's never a good sign when a candidate's family tries to warn you about him. Look at Paul Gosar, a maga dentist who may have fallen into his mercury stash.
Tom, re your HL Mencken quote, it has a following sentence which is “Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
But DJT, the moron’s moran DID lose public office thanks to whom? The not very stupid American people.
Why are you giving oxygen to yet another damn poll? It seems to me to prove that name recognition is the critical feature for way too many voters. Loads of folks have noted (most recently Heather Cox Richardson in today's post) that people want authoritarian rule because they get to stop having to think about issues--apparently even remembering a famous name is too much strain. All polls do at this point is to exacerbate the follow-the-herd mentality. "Oh, everyone likes RFK JR? Better plan to vote for him."
We live in a society lobotomized by reality TV and car chases as an art form. Why think when your brain can be FED comforting lines? TV, TikTok, Instagram tell us what we think we need to know. The most telling new word for our mindlessness is "influencers."
Not all of society is prey to this. November 2024 is really going to be a test of whether there are more thinkers or comfortable sponges in our voting population.
What you say is why I posted this.
Well said and right on the money, Susan.
the phenomenon of preferring authoritarian rule, because freedom is scary, is hardly a new thing. Wilhelm Reich wrote eloquently about this in a BUNCH of books. and if the Reichian Orgonomy stuff struck readers as being a bridge or two too far, there's always Erich Fromm. these guys were Jewish thinkers writing in the immediate wake of WWII, so they had plenty of skin in the game, as did the members of the Frankfurt School, who get trashed today by people who have no idea what they were actually about.
Reich is indeed a bit much, but I am cool with the Frankfurt School., at least those I've read. I actually knew Leo Lowenthal. I worked for the library at the Stanford Behavior Science Center when he was a Fellow there. Fetched many a book from the Stanford Library for him; he was big on Interlibrary Loan.
It has been a long time since we've seen so many people actually YEARNING to be under Big Father's protective thumb, as opposed to accommodating a fait accompli. They have truly no idea what will happen when the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party starts getting hungry.
isn't the point of all those guys that they NEVER do.
and the historical memory is so short; we see m to have given it up so EASILY.
"though it is unclear how much of his ratings are from in depth knowledge of Kennedy vs. his popular family name,” Mark Penn, co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, said. UNCLEAR??!!! I am 100% certain that it's all in his name! "Kennedy"?! Uh, yeah. And I'm 99% sure that his "fans" haven't a clue as to what he "stands for". Yup, getting toward time to leave the US of A.