Trump’s approval rating hits 50% - politics forum miffed (1 Viewer)

identikit said:

Stumbled upon this today.

538's grades on polls:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

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The Commish said:

When GWB out performs you in the approval game don't you have to kind of reevaluate who you are?  I mean Carter has outperformed him for the most part (until the end of his term where all hell broke loose)    

He took office in Jan, and for all intents and purposes, people had him figured out by February  

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bananafish said:

Any polling organization worth its salt is going to go to great lengths to obtain an actual random sample. It's notoriously difficult to do, but it has the greatest effect on the accuracy of the results and thus the trustworthiness and reputation of the pollster and their ability to get paid for their services. The top firms spend a ton of time and money researching the math and methodology behind their polls as any innovation that improves accuracy provides a competitive advantage to those that employ it.

Who's going to pay for inaccurate polls? It doesn't make any sense. Unless the people paying for it don't really want the truth but a distortion of it.

Why would Rasmussen insist on sticking with the same flawed sampling methods that have proven to be unreliable in the past? Polling by its very nature is an inexact science, but why intentionally make it more inexact? Anybody who's taken Statistics 101 (which would presumably include the people at Rasmussen) would tell you that relying on landlines in a nation of cell phones would give you skewed, non-representative results. So what's the deal?

The sad truth is that Trump's Republican party doesn't have the faintest interest in the truth, or at least telling it. Just a few weeks ago Trump fired his own pollsters because he didn't like their answers! You'd think any rational politician would want to know the actual numbers so they could, you know, delve into them and strategize on how to improve. But we're living in Trump's upside-down fantasyland of "alternative facts". And that's why Rasmussen exists. To provide an alternative to the truth.

To any nonpartisan observer the Republican brand is simply lies and distortion. If that sounds hyperbolic, please show me ONE TIME where Trump has objectively told the truth on something mildly significant. It doesn't happen. And now it's spread to the rest of the party and the right-wing media. Anyone bold enough to tell the truth is shown the door, just like his pollsters.

For some reason, Trump fans don't care, don't know, or don't care to know just how untrustworthy he is, like their gullibility is something to be proud of. It's so weird. 

For years Trump called the MSM's reporting on his ties to Russia "fake news", yet, almost without exception, they were all proven correct by the Mueller report. Did it bother any of you guys that were ####ting all over the NYT and Washington Post that they were right all along? How do you rationalize this to yourselves?

If there's one thing you can count on Donald J. Trump for, it's telling it like it isn't. I guess some folks are so keen on hearing what they want to hear that this has become something to admire, but it spells the death knell for democracy. If it's just a game of who can out-propogandize the other then we all lose.

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Jayrod said:

The strangest thing is how consistent his ratings have been.  Very little variation throughout his tenure, especially compared to past Presidents.

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