Critics frequently note that Donald Trump acts like an overgrown toddler. That’s because his handlers and enablers treat him like one. Here’s an example in the context of Trump’s current public vacillation on whether to round up and deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants:
“He has been listening to a wide range of opinions on that,” said former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been at Trump’s side nearly constantly over the past week. “As you might imagine, there are different opinions on this, even in his campaign. In a very thoughtful way, he’s trying to figure what the right position is.”
“By the way,” Giuliani added, “that’s what everybody criticized him for in the past: that he’s not able to do that. He actually is able to do that.”
And we’re supposed to applaud because Trump made a poopy in the big-boy bowl.
As was demonstrated so vividly during the administration of Incurious George, it’s important for presidents to be able to take in new information and adjust their policies accordingly. But that’s not what’s happening here.
The U.S. government has been debating what to do with our undocumented immigrants for decades. It has been a political flashpoint forever, and the underlying facts haven’t changed. Trump has demagogued the issue for more than a year. It’s absurd to claim he’s just now trying to figure out the right policy, let alone praise him for it.
A similar potty-training moment occurred after Trump expressed vague regrets about using “the wrong words” and causing “personal pain” during a speech. That non-specific non-apology was apparently supposed to address every bigoted and racist comment Trump has ever made, from birth to the present day, including his inexcusable and politically damaging broadsides against Judge Curiel and Captain Khan’s family.
Here’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway in the role of a preschool teacher awarding a sticker for a well-targeted poopy:
“He was talking about anyone who feels offended by anything he said. He took extra time yesterday going over that speech with a pen so that was a decision he made. Those are his words. I hope America heard him because of all the people, David, who have been saying, ‘Hey, let’s get Trump to pivot, let’s get him to be more presidential.’ That is presidential.”
No, it’s not, Ms. Conway. It’s really, really not.
Great googly-moogly, this election can’t be over soon enough. Open thread!
raven
Great headline as I wage the post-op battle!
OzarkHillbilly
2 year olds for Trump!
@raven: How goes it?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Not bad, much more stiff than pained. I’m taking all the milk of magnesium, lax and softeners with no action yet. I don’t feel bad so I assume it’s just a matter of time.
WereBear
@raven: Hope you are doing okay.
I do enjoy the gyrations as our esteemed journalismos pretend Trump is too Presidential timber so there!
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
but, but….. pivot.
dmsilev
From that same Post article,
Do we know for sure whether Trump understands the concept of object permanence? Maybe we’re doing toddlers a disservice by comparing them to Trump.
WereBear
Thanks for the tea up the nose.
PsiFighter37
Passed my regulatory exam on Thursday – so this is the first free weekend I’ve had in a long time. Definitely didn’t feel great when I clicked the ‘grade’ button, largely because here was a good amount of material that was not covered in the provided study materials. Nonetheless, done is done. Next big thing is having 2 brand-new analysts starting on the desk Monday…it’s pretty much my responsibility that they get trained up. Will see how that goes over the coming weeks…
The Ancient Randonneur
Trump postponed his Arizona event. Glad to see he’s putting his Vietnam era experience to good use and avoiding that immigration policy speech like his life depended on it.
BC in Illinois
@dmsilev:
According to a recent survey, 10% of High School Seniors are graduating without basic object permanence skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjokgx0pUQ
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Congrats!
raven
@PsiFighter37: I wish I would pass mine!
Baud
What’s the end game of the pivot? Even if he gives an immigration policy speech that “softens” his immigration position, does anyone think he’ll stick to it through the election? If it lasts two weeks, it’ll be impressive.
schrodinger's cat
Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda goes far beyond what happens to the 11 million undocumented or in his words illegal immigrants.
dmsilev
@The Ancient Randonneur: Something weird is going on (it’s Trump; there’s always something weird going on). His website lists precisely one scheduled Trump event over the next week or so, in Everett, Washington of all places on Tuesday. Pence has half a dozen or so scheduled events, which would seem a bit more normal.
Schlemazel
@PsiFighter37:
Good luck!
@raven:
good luck to you too – this too shall pass
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nobody thinks he will stick to it for 24 hrs. His ‘base’ won’t let him.
geg6
@raven:
Glad to see you recovering fairly nicely. And I say fairly because those bowels need to move, dude!
Baud
@dmsilev: Maybe he really is sick.
Gelfling 545
Trump expressed vague regrets about using “the wrong words”
dmsilev
@Baud: That’s plausible. It would certainly explain why they were pushing that stupid “Hillary Clinton is on death’s door” line; projection, always.
raven
@geg6: I understand, I also know I am well within the safe zone.
MattF
Going over the speech with a pen! He can read and write! Good boy!
geg6
@Baud:
Sure would explain all this bizarre business about Hilz’s supposed illnesses.
Baud
@dmsilev: I’m waiting for the “Hillary has ED” smear.
geg6
@raven:
I know but sooner is better!
MattF
@Baud: That’s what I’ve been thinking.
schrodinger's cat
This is the wishlist of his fans
1.Deport the undocumented
2. Get rid of birthright citizenship ( remember his rant about anchor babies)
3.Overturn the immigration and naturalization act of 1965.
4. Ban Muslims and any other undesirables as determined by Trump from entering the country on temporary visas (visitor, student, work visas etc)
5. Intern naturalized citizens and their children for being insufficiently American (you know like Judge Curiel)
raven
@geg6: I’m doing everything that is prescribed.
Schlemazel
@dmsilev:
Odder still is that Trump was still tweeting that he was going to be in Phoenix even though the event had been canceled. This is like the 4th event he has canceled in the last week or so. Something is seriously wrong here, either he really is ill or he has decided it just isn’t worth his time.
Meanwhile, he does events in places like Mississippi and Washington, places he will get no advantage from holding events in but not holding events in states he might make a difference in. This is a man who likes to pretend he hires smart people & gets out of their way. He is a disaster
The Ancient Randonneur
@dmsilev: My guess is that not sleeping in his own bed more than once or twice a week is taking its toll on him. Add in the real work and you have a toxic mix for guy who is essentially lazy and incapable of the requisite workload.
raven
. Forcing is one thing that is NOT prescribed so I am avoiding that.
Frankensteinbeck
@dmsilev:
His handlers know he’s incapable of pivoting. They’re maintaining the illusion by cutting back his public appearances almost to zero, so he doesn’t have the chance to go spontaneous and fuck up the carefully crafted dog whistle to moderates they finally got him to say. Seriously, that’s what I think is happening.
Peale
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t know about interning the citizens. It’s just that those people won’t be considered qualified to be judges. You know. Unlike white people, who can show the necessary objectivity necessary to judge other people, minorities are too obsessed with racial biased to be fair.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: That makes a lot of sense. But they can’t keep it up forever.
ETA: Your theory also dovetails with how they’re using Conway — not as a campaign manager (as Josh Marshall noted) but as a surrogate. She’s supposed to explain Trump’s shift. Rachel Maddow demonstrated the futility of that last week…
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Ethnic cleansing, basically.
schrodinger's cat
@Peale: That’s the final solution if you will.
Amir Khalid
The situation is pretty obvious, isn’t it? There’s a leadership vacuum at Trump HQ. No one’s in charge. People inside and outside the campaign are trying to tweak the message and its presentation because the candidate himself never bothered to do it. He never did his candidate’s policy homework. He never put together a proper campaign org. He got away with that in the primaries against unprecedentedly weak competition. But it’s starting to dawn on him that he’s completely unprepared to fight Hillary.
He can re-prioritise his campaign appearances without cancelling any already scheduled events. He needs to do it and he should certainly want to. But Kellyanne Conway has gone on the record stating that she has to baby him to get him to do things. Which can’t be easy if she has to fight Stephen Bannon for Donald’s attention. This Trump campaign is a very instructive train wreck in the making. The political historians of the future will be able to learn much from the necropsy report.
dmsilev
@Frankensteinbeck: Except that they’re barely running any ads. Take away the rallies and what’s left? A Twitter feed and an online hat store?
Schlemazel
@raven:
Be grateful!
Apparently my dads mother thought it was unhealthy to not have a BM every day. If her kids did not have one she would give them an enema.
Why, yes, my dad was a little screwed up. Why do you ask?
Peale
@Baud: he’ll soften. The press will declare him presidential caliber. The howlers on the right will get his attention. He’ll back pedal. Hillary will then note how he can’t be counted on to stand up to the alt-right and make that “sensible” republican vs. crazy republican speech again.
Felonius Monk
@raven:
I take it that the “troops” haven’t moved yet. Magnesium Citrate in moderate doses could be your best buddy. Be well.
Frankensteinbeck
@dmsilev:
It’s a better strategy than before. Compare the screaming clusterfuck two weeks when Trump was publicly visible with the merely bad week they’ve kept him hidden.
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: yeah. He was more popular when people weren’t paying attention too much. The less they see him, the more popular he might stay.
catclub
@OzarkHillbilly: Even if he were doing something that would slowly improve his numbers, he would not stick to it.
MattF
@Schlemazel: That was a common belief.
My dad was a physician, and one of his friends was a (exceptionally good) surgeon. The surgeon called my dad one morning, panicked. He’d missed his daily bm!
PaulWartenberg2016
SOB Trump just tweeted about the tragedy of Dwayne Wade’s cousin getting shot on the streets of Chicago. He triumphantly hails that it means “Blacks will be voting for TRUMP”.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/769526017887080449?lang=en
KICK THAT SOB. KICK HIM AND KEEP KICKING HIM. USING OTHER PEOPLES DEATHS LIKE THAT TO SCORE CHEAP POLITICAL POINTS AND FOR WHAT. LIKE TRUMP IS GOING TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE JUST BY WINNING OR SOMETHING? SON OF A BITCH KICK HIM FOREVER.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t understand the breathless anticipation of a “pivot.” Why is that being treated positively instead of as deception?
raven
@Felonius Monk: Yea, I’m holding out on that one for a bit.
catclub
I am now surpised that Steve Bannon news is not covering the media.
There was a LOT of bad news about him. IN any normal campaign he would be gone. trump’s is not normal.
Gin & Tonic
Wonderful afternoon to sit here in Lviv sipping a cappuccino and watching the girls walk by. Like the song says, those Ukraine girls really knock me out.
Peale
@MattF: thank Dr. Kellogg. One loose stool a day (and only 1) was the sign of perfect health. More than one, bad. Less was as disaster in the making.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I wonder what Trump offered Paul LePage to draw everyone’s attention away from him for a day. Because whatever it was, he deserves a bonus for doing an exceptional job.
MattF
@Iowa Old Lady: Pirouetting among different piles of bullshit doesn’t count as deception.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I think we need a new entry in the BJ lexicon (although I can’t find the lexicon on the redesigned site so maybe this term already exists – or we’ve given up on lexicons). Contriversiy: when the media or Republicans contrive to make everyday political behaviors, that every politician engages in, controversial when a Cliinton/Democrat does it.
The most frustrating thing about the way the press covers the Clintons is that you could point out that if you look at every Republican house and senate member’s meeting calendar you will find a bunch of meetings they’ve granted to donors. The press will then say, yeah, sure, but that doesn’t make it right for YOU to do it. Not that it actually really happened in the case of the Clinton Foundation but everyone else gets a pass while the Clintons are held to a much higher ethical standard. I’m sure Obama has met repeatedly with major donors. Maybe that’s not great behavior but it’s not controversial.
Ben Cisco
@raven: Don’t worry, all things pass in time.
Percysowner
And Trump continues to be Trump. What a truly awful human being he is.
Bobbo
@MattF:
Going over the speech with a pen! He can read and write! Good boy!
She had to specify it was a pen because otherwise we’d have to assume it was a crayon.
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: What are you up to in Ukraine? Besides girl-watching and coffee-sipping.
Schlemazel
@Peale:
and eating over processed grain for breakfast was just his least bad cure for the problem
PaulWartenberg2016
@Percysowner:
Raging about it right now.
I swear I lost my mind when Jeb Bush tried this sh-t back in 1994, using the death of a girl who went to my school as a way to score cheap political points over the death penalty. Hated the SOB ever since. And here’s Trump, using other people’s tragedies in the same way, and he 1000 times worse by directly crowing about it. Bastard. KICK HIM. KICK HIM FOREVER.
amk
@Iowa Old Lady: That’s a conventional concession the media reserves only for gop.
NotMax
@raven
Realizing that Mr. Cole has already set the photographic precedent here, still implore you – please, no pix!.
;)
MattF
@Percysowner: Donnie’s minders keep hiding his iPhone, he keeps finding it.
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: That makes for a pretty full schedule, but when I need a break from it I drink beer.
I was here for some meetings and to mark Independence Day. Now I have a free weekend, so just hanging out. Don’t tell BiP.
Villago Delenda Est
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: “Clinton Rules”.
It really is a shame that David Broder isn’t here to join in the suffering of the rest of the GOP establishment as their party rips itself to shreds.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: Lucky bastid! What I wouldn’t give to shit only once a day. And to go a whole day without? Sweet glorious jeebus, my hemorrhoids wouldn’t know what to do!!!
OzarkHillbilly
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I think we do: Clinton Rules.
NotMax
@Ben Cisco
Cue George Harrison.
Betty Cracker
@Percysowner: What a ghoulish sack of shit. It’s like when he took to Twitter to crow about his own prescience about terrorism when the bodies were still being removed from the Pulse nightclub. That blew up in his face. I hope this tweet does too.
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: Don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell BiP anything except where to get off. I have to say, I’m finding his absence around the joint positively delightful. Hope you are having a great trip!
debbie
It’s amusing in a sad way to hear Trump’s supporters twist themselves into pretzels defending his policies. This morning on NPR, they interviewed Pastor Mark Burns, a longtime SC supporter who generated some attention this week when he pointed to the “evil deeds” of Hillary Clinton. In this interview, the pastor pointed to her support of abortion as proof of that evil. The interviewer pointed out that Trump also supported abortion, and he asked how the pastor could still support him. Burns replied that it wasn’t realistic to expect a candidate who would hold all of the same views as his. The interviewer pointed out the inconsistency in the pastor’s stance, but the pastor didn’t budge. He instead veered off to the many facts supporting Hillary’s illness to be found on the Internet.
Miss Bianca
@Ben Cisco: I C what you did there. ; )
Schlemazel
Vanity Fair is reporting that there is an internal fight going on at Fox and they will not be able to keep both Megan Kelly and Bill O, one will have to go.
New on Trump TV this spring! The O’Reilly Faction
debbie
@Schlemazel:
Five bucks says they go with the blond chick.
one_particular_harbour, fka Botsplainer
@Villago Delenda Est:
I take comfort that I can listen to Limbaugh on 11/9/16 and guffaw. I don’t know how I’ll be able to listen to everybody I will want to hear that morning – Fred Barnes, Hannity, Bill O, Oliver North, Halperin, Andrea Greenspan, MoDo…
It’ll be too much schadenfreude, and I could wind up overdosing.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
In other news, 20% of genetics papers examined have errors in supplementary materials due to Excel reformatting fields.
Beware!
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Nothing sad about it at all from where I sit. Long overdue is more like it.
Mike in NC
@Gin & Tonic: I thought the girls in Prague were amazing, but then moved on to Budapest, and from there to Saint Petersburg. Really need to go back and retrace my steps.
SiubhanDuinne
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
No, the lexicon is still around. Check “Quick Links” up top, to the right of the BJ banner. The QL also includes the contact list, and a number of category bundles (in case you want to read about recipes, or insurance, or pets).
MattF
@Schlemazel: Megan Kelly– ambitious, hard working, and smart, could move to any other news show and do well– O’Reilly, OTOH, would be lost outside Fox.
Lizzy L
@raven: I had a similar issue because I’ve been taking narcotic pain meds for the dog bites. Milk of Magnesia worked for me. I think the oatmeal in the morning helped as well. Sounds like you’re doing everything you should.
Keith P.
In other news, Donald Trump is, of course, trolling Dwyane Wade’s cousin’s death for black votes. Cuh-lassy.
Schlemazel
@debbie:
If they are smart. Thats why I assume Trump TV will have plenty of BO
Found this cartoon this AM, it hits the nail in a single panel
http://a.disquscdn.com/get?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2014%2F11%2F20%2F3-horsey.jpg&key=OX5MZdW-z1kjmYYc49GZXg&w=600&h=292
Betty Cracker
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I have to use Excel for one specific function, and I hates it so!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: 50 bucks says you’re right.
Soylent Green
@schrodinger’s cat:
But wait there’s more.
1. Unleash the cops on uppity black people. Their free ride is over.
2. Make it okay again to discriminate against gays, women, whoever.
3. Get rid of taxes and regulations.
4. Allow open carry everywhere.
Aimai
@dmsilev: very, very, good!
SiubhanDuinne
@Percysowner:
@Betty Cracker:
I confess I had never heard of Dwyane Wade before this story broke (don’t follow NBA, don’t know names of players) but I assume he is well-known and respected, maybe even beloved, among many Chicagoans, basketball fans, and African Americans. Simply cannot fathom in what universe Trump could even fleetingly think this tweet would be persuasive and well-received. The only good thing about it is that it offers HRC yet another visual for the next ad.
Brachiator
No, that’s just who he is, by birth and inclination. A man like Trump does not have handlers. He has employees.
Schlemazel
Sadly the Guardian only does half the job in this story. They note that Bresch sold $5MM worth of Mylan stock just before the bad news hit and even mention that would not be illegal if it fit her written 105 document but it does not bother to see if it did or didn’t. I realize it is just a pipe dream but it is fun to think of her doing a stretch for insider trading.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mike in NC: I was walking down a sidewalk with my wife in Palma when I had a Oh My Gawd Will You Look At That moment rudely interrupted by a WHAMMMMMM!!!! back to reality No Parking sign post. At least my wife had a good laugh at my expense.
Brachiator
@Schlemazel:
Wonder if there is a similar internal fight in the GOP.
Good times.
Betsy
@raven: here’s to your progress and (mostly) lack of pain. Remind me when was your surgery?
debbie
@Schlemazel:
Love it. The difference is that Caesar wouldn’t have thought them capable of stabbing him. Obama can smell it a mile away.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soylent Green: 4. Allow open carry everywhere for straight white Christian men.
FTFY. You’ll get my bill in the mail.
schrodinger's cat
@Soylent Green: Yes that too. I was just helping lay out his immigration agenda.
dmsilev
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Oh, for fuck’s sake. Friends don’t let friends analyze data in Excel. Or generate plots either. Use R or Matlab or Igor or any other package not designed by a bunch of malevolent howler monkeys with MBAs.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Baud: “The Pivot” is just lazy political reporting. Political reporters are (Broad Generalization Alert!) locked into conventional wisdom. Just spout pablum based on the conventional interpretation of what has always happened in the past, so it has to happen again in the future. “The taller candidate always wins, therefore Hillary is doomed!” It’s easy, it doesn’t require any work, and it fills columns and TV time.
Donnie is Twittering today about how Hillary is proud of her KKK mentor. She’s wounded him and he can’t get out of his Black Knight defense mode.
Donnie can’t “pivot” though he’ll try, and the lazy political press will keep trying to show that he’s somehow electable.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
Trump has a serious illness that limits his ability to travel. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.
Librarian
I finally realized who Trump ‘s doctor reminds me of : Peter Sellers ‘ characters in What’s New Pussycat and the Wrong Box (Dr Pratt).
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
I think you’re giving him too much credit, vis-a-vis being able to figure things out that may be different from what his (ample) gut tells him.
Johnnybuck
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree with this. I think this is precisely why it was important for Clinton to give the speech she gave, when she gave it, I believe his poll numbers will improve if he just shuts the hell up and let the media whack on the foundation and the damned e-mails for a while. He won’t win of course, but but it might avoid the kind of wave that his braying constantly would guarantee.
It won’t work because he can’t shut up, but I think that’s the plan. Bully for Clinton for anticipating it.
dmsilev
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Senator Byrd, I assume? He’s certainly the go-to example when conservatives try the “Democrats have racists TOO!” approach. Except of course he recanted those views decades and decades ago, worked for a long time to essentially atone, and this was lauded by groups like the NAACP. Somehow, the conservatives fail to appreciate the recanting and atonement parts and feel that they should be able to skip straight to the lauding.
SFAW
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Oh, now it’s “an Excel goof”? I guess that plays better with the Harvies than saying “Rogoff and Reinhart did some shoddy/shitty work.”
As me old Pap never said: A poor workman blames his tools.
Shalimar
@MattF: The unnamed Fox source in the article made the opposite point. Didn’t comment on O’Reilly’s earning potential elsewhere, but said Kelly was asking for $20 million a year (more than O’Reilly makes now) and knew she couldn’t get that anywhere except FoxNews.
I tend to agree with you, Kelly pretty clearly has more market value elsewhere at this point than O’Reilly does. Kelly at least has the chops to anchor a regular newscast on a major network. O’Reilly and Hannity don’t. You only hire them for a partisan hack show.
SFAW
@raven:
Glad you’re OK, best wishes for a continued (and speedy/speedier) recovery.
Maybe you should spend some time on Georgia’s Gulf Coast, the sea air will help.
Brachiator
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Trump is electable if enough people vote for him. Ain’t got nothing to do with the press.
Clinton’s great speech is having an effect, although I haven’t seen much in social media of people saying that they have changed their mind about Trump.
Anoniminous
@Brachiator:
It is irresponsible of the press not to investigate reports Trump cannot fly because of his illness.
MattF
TrumpWorld knows Bannon is a problem.
Brachiator
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I don’t think you can accurately describe Trump as lazy, but you may be right when you suggest that he didn’t know how tough a political campaign can be. He had no experience with this, other than what he watched on tv.
Anoniminous
@SFAW:
That the “Excel goof” supported Reinhart and Rogoff’s contention and the actual data they had complied flatly contradicted their contention is only a coincidence.
hovercraft
On AM JOY today Alfonso Aguillar debuted a new defense over the hiring and continuing employment of Steve Bannon. Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger who believed in eugenics, and it is still being practiced today. Has Hillary been asked about the mostly black and Latino babies being murdered every day. Why the double standard?
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
I think it’s starting to dawn on someone in his campaign, even if not Trump himself. People at Trump HQ are fighting for his attention. There are die Trumpenkinder. We know there’s a let-Trump-be-Trump faction. There’s probably another faction that wants to run a proper, more conventional campaign. The strange changes in the public-appearances schedule likely reflect these internal struggles.
Ken
@Bobbo:
A gold sharpie, surely.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Brachiator: Hillary doesn’t have to change people’s minds about Trump. She just has to have a good turnout.
Democrats win when they show up to vote.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: even MY dad is starting to come around, at least to the extent of understanding that “Clinton Rules ” are a real thing – that she (and we) aren’t just making it up
Chris
@dmsilev: Had a brief conversation/confrontation on FB with a conservative regarding what happened to the parties post 64 CRA passage. The gist of it is….in this guys mind…The democrats were all racists (KKK people….Robert Byrd! See!) before 64 and still are. The republicans voted in big numbers for the CRA and were not racist and STILL are not. Got it? Its amazing to hold that view…they were on the right side of history then and are now as well.
Ken
@SFAW: Yes – the only way they could have made that “goof” would be to first sort the spreadsheet by that metric, so all the rows that contradicted their conclusion were at the bottom. Which raises the question, why did they do that sort? The spreadsheet would plot the scatterplot and trendline exactly the same with the unsorted rows.
It’s similar to Volkswagen’s statement, when it was found that their cars were cheating on emissions tests: “A design error”. No, it must have been very careful, and very difficult, design to have the car only turn on emission controls when it detected it was in the emissions test environment.
Lizzy L
@hovercraft:Because African-American and Hispanic women who make choices about their own pregnancies and their own bodies are deluded and must be protected from themselves. Aargh! *insert obligatory pro-choice rant here*
JR in WV
@raven:
OMG!! Congratulations on a well-said turn of phrase without any juvenile OR dirty words!
Betsy
@Iowa Old Lady: Yeah. It used to be called flipflopping.
I believe it’s because the media want to be able to make it more of an even match. A horserace where they can equivocate and say “both sides do it” and so on. He has to pivot! Otherwise everyone will just have to deal with him as the complete idiot he obviously is! Oh noes
JR in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
You know who else had a “Final Solution” don’t you? It wasn’t non-violent at all, just controlled violence. With ovens.
JR in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Shouldn’t be allowed in peer-reviewed journals, engineering work, drug evaluations, accounting statements, tax returns, or anything else what matters to anyone. Because it isn’t what it appears to be.
It’s a facsimile of a real piece of software, with way too much going on in the “background” invisibly to the users, difficult or impossible to control, hard to discern. Not Good!
A well designed tool would have the user specifically define every cell before data could be entered, either individually or by row/column, and would have a layer that showed all the background assumptions, data types, and equations. A layer that couldn’t be altered except by altering the data sheet it referred to.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Trump has employees who are paid to handle him. Kellyanne Conway described how that works in this interview:
Offering choices like you would to a child. That’s called “handling.”
Brachiator
@Betsy:
The press has consistently been reporting Clinton’s lead in the polls, and that she is favored in odds of winning. I’m not seeing much evidence of the media trying to make it an even match.
And as another poster noted, it’s a horserace even if one of the horses is clearly superior. Would you prefer headlines that said Hillary is obviously winning so you might as well stay home?
This is lazy conventional wisdom reporting. But however you describe it, Trump has to attract new voters, not just appeal to his base.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: If the shoe fits…
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Trump’s ego resists handling. This is old news.
Think of Trump as a medieval prince, and political consultants as courtiers. The courtiers who end up beheaded are always the ones who think that they can easily manipulate the prince and treat him like a child, or who overstep their position and imagine that they are the ones in control.
Conway has been on the job for what, two weeks, and is already struggling to rein Trump in.
Mnemosyne
Just a quick note that having the emotional maturity of a toddler can be one of the hallmarks of full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Now I’ll read the rest of the thread.
trnc
@dmsilev:
But only valuable until the next guy gets in the room with him. Which is to say, not at all unless he walks outside the door, puts a No Entry sign on it and guards it with a bazooka.
trnc
@Betty Cracker: Maybe she’s actually still working for Cruz.
Brachiator
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: From the article you linked.
For some reason, some folk, including some otherwise savvy Balloon Juice posters, always want an election to be between our side (the good) and their side (the bad), with absolutely no overlap. Get out the vote for our team, and hope that a lot of the other team stays home.
But it is OK to try to persuade other people to vote for your side. And it wins elections.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
You go ahead. I’ll continue to think of him as an overgrown toddler whose wretched keepers have to try (often in vain) to manipulate him into imitating a grownup so as not to blow up his campaign every other day.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Wow. This guy just flat out ignores history.
The GOP became the last refuge of racist scoundrels.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Toddlers don’t have the power to hire their babysitters.
And Trump’s handlers tend to have the same wretched beliefs as their patron. They are not trying to get him to imitate a grown-up, they are just trying to get him to focus on the task of trying to gather up more angry nutcases in order to win the election. And then they would happily unleash him upon the country.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Brachiator: I think you’re reading too much into my post.
Hillary will win if she gets Democrats to turn out. There are more Democrats than Republicans in the US. In elections with high Democratic turnout, Democrats win.
Democrats lose when turnout is low (e.g. recent midterms).
I’m all for broadening the coalition, running up the score, electing Blue Dogs, electing Lefty McLeftist, and all the rest. Big majorities in the legislature expand the possibilities. And that would allow us to make progress faster on lots of problems that have been insufficiently addressed for far too long.
But Hillary winning doesn’t depend upon her winning some social media war “of people saying that they have changed their mind about Trump” as you put it. It depends on her turning out Democratic (and Democratic-leaning) voters. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I think we largely agree. It may be a matter of emphasis.
She will be helped in swing states if she can also win over more Republicans. She will be helped everywhere if she wins more white women who voted Republican in prior elections.
midterm election turnout is always low. This is not a recent problem.