If Johnson had run again as PM he would quite likely have won again. As Mayor of London, on a third time he'd have lost handsomely which is why he left.
Rachel Johnson has never been a Lib Dem candidate.
Change UK candidate.
Whatever happened to them ?
The centrist Dad party.
Change UK have suffered from the shift to a cashless a society.
ROFL it was BORIS JOHNSON who started putting those posters up when he was Mayor! He was woke before it was cool!
FFS is telling the public to carry water now what we call "woke" and "nannying"? These words have lost all meaning.
I know we don't agree on many things but on this I do agree. People do forget to stay hydrated even when they don't forget to eat. Hunger is a far more immediate and identifiable sensation than thirst and yet going all day witoput eating will probably do most of us very little harm. Going all day without drinking is far more serious and far more common.
There are many 'nanny state' things out there. This is not one of them.
Agrseed - very easy. Especially in a hot, overcrowded train in the sumo wrestler's crotch that is London in summer. If the thing stops it's easy to overheat.
Rochdale, great minds! People will be thinking we're sat together cribbing.
lol
I have a wife and a daughter. If I was a GOPper would I really be demanding that their rights be removed? Nobody wants an abortion until they need one, but should I be demanding that my daughter once grown up be told that she must carry a baby to term even if she was raped? Or support banning her from being allowed to travel just in case she's been sexually active and may be travelling to get birth control or more?
The Handmaid's Tale was supposed to be apocryphal yet here we are with GOP politicians (men of course) thinking it is a great plan. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Trump is literally a crook. Yet the people who demand crooks be shot are demanding that the crook be allowed to commit any crime he wants. Giuliani cracked down hard on monsters, making use of their RICO statutes. And then went on to become a mobster and get charged under the same RICO statutes. WTAF happened?
A friend refused to watch the TV adaptation of 'The Handmaid's Tale', having read the book. She enjoyed the book, but thought the TV series would be taken as a manual, rather than a warning.
Many in the GOP seem to be aligning with the dystopia.
If Johnson had run again as PM he would quite likely have won again. As Mayor of London, on a third time he'd have lost handsomely which is why he left.
Depends when he went for a GE, doesn't it? He was elected as PM in 2019. The next likely election would have been later this year; are you really saying if the Conservatives had kept him, he would have won?
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Rochdale, great minds! People will be thinking we're sat together cribbing.
lol
I have a wife and a daughter. If I was a GOPper would I really be demanding that their rights be removed? Nobody wants an abortion until they need one, but should I be demanding that my daughter once grown up be told that she must carry a baby to term even if she was raped? Or support banning her from being allowed to travel just in case she's been sexually active and may be travelling to get birth control or more?
The Handmaid's Tale was supposed to be apocryphal yet here we are with GOP politicians (men of course) thinking it is a great plan. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Trump is literally a crook. Yet the people who demand crooks be shot are demanding that the crook be allowed to commit any crime he wants. Giuliani cracked down hard on monsters, making use of their RICO statutes. And then went on to become a mobster and get charged under the same RICO statutes. WTAF happened?
If you were a GOP-er yes, you would be demanding this, and they'd probably be agreeing with you.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Any factoids to back that up?
Note that the chart is measuring large cities over 250k with trams, metro or light rail.
So what are your grounds for saying the chart is "definitely not correct"? At least before changing goal posts!
Andy’s comment was referring to the general provision of public transport. Not the limited subset used here.
Of course.
Hence "changing goal posts" as what I'm referencing, is Andy saying quoted numbers were wrong, when they're actually (I'm speculating) not.
IF he'd said, "Numbers as stated may well be correct, in narrow context cited, but in terms of overall public transit in UK compared with US, they are misleading" would concur with that.
If Johnson had run again as PM he would quite likely have won again. As Mayor of London, on a third time he'd have lost handsomely which is why he left.
Depends when he went for a GE, doesn't it? He was elected as PM in 2019. The next likely election would have been later this year; are you really saying if the Conservatives had kept him, he would have won?
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Exactly: anyone who thinks the US has better public transport than the UK is a total idiot.
And anyone who thinks that public transport provision in the Netherlands is on par with the US, is also an idiot.
The Netherlands number is also wrong. There are exactly four cities in the Netherlands with populations over 250k:
- Amsterdam, which has a metro. - Rotterdam, which has a metro - The Hague, which has trams - Utrecht, which has light rail
Isn't most of this just a reflection on Lab lead. Take Ukraine as an example. Labour have a 2% lead. On what basis do voters decide that? I'm not a Tory, but I can't recall a single missed step by the Tories on this and Labour haven't come out with anything different so why are Labour ahead (albeit very close). On the basis of what you know is working, I give that to the Tories.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
That would be the Mitt Romney who received a higher share of the vote in 2012 (47.2%) than Trump did in 2016 (46.1%) or Trump in 2020 (46.8%).
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
The country is split in two and he is the supreme cheerleader for one side. Not much more to it than that really.
But the 'other side' has no remotely similar phenomenon.
The other side lives in a world of reason, not faith.
To expand a little, there are no easy answers if you approach modern politics from a position of reason, and it is therefore really tough to either unite your tribe with enthusiasm or maintain popularity when in office. If you approach politics with faith and us vs them, then it is far more likely you can find a uniting cheerleader.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
What’s wrong with jazz? Admittedly some of it is unlistenable but you’d have to have feet buried in concrete not to be moved by Billie Holiday
Sarah Palin on the Trump arrest: "Do you want us to be in Civil War? Because that's what's going to happen. We're not going to keep putting up with this... We need to rise up and take our country back."
People believe things which are convenient to them.
Really, that's all you need to know. Humans aren't designed to rationally assess truth. Instead, when presented with a set of answers, they will ask themselves (subconsciously), which one of these being true is best for me? And then they will seek out reasons why that answer is correct.
This was the genius of social media. It presented people with the "truth" they wanted to hear. And the more that "truth" was reinforced, the harder it is to get people to accept alternatives.
Trump plugged into that*. He told a group of people "it's not your fault. it's the fault of [x]'. Which are the sweetest words in the English language. To be absolved of all resposibility, and to know that anything that negatively befell you was the result of the liberal elite / systematic racism / Mexican immigrants / etc.
Well, it's one hell of a rush.
Unless we can find a way to deprogram people. (And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
* As did Black Lives Matter, and a host of other people and organizations
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
You really can't say that about Ronald Reagan. And I say that as one who never voted for him, or liked him when he was an active politico, first as Governor of California, then as President.
Nor about Gerald Ford. Or, in his own wacky way, George W. Bush the Younger, at least compared to Poppy.
Interesting (to me anyway) that the two most connected candidates running for the 2024 Republican nomination, are both from same state and general GOP milieu: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.
Which for some reason reminds me of . . . wait for it . . . Rishi Sunak.
Who for some other reason reminds yours truly of . . . Mitt Romney . . .
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
What’s wrong with jazz? Admittedly some of it is unlistenable but you’d have to have feet buried in concrete not to be moved by Billie Holiday
Conservatives a century back tried to ban it as immoral.
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
The country is split in two and he is the supreme cheerleader for one side. Not much more to it than that really.
But the 'other side' has no remotely similar phenomenon.
I agree with this. It's not simply that Trump is the supreme cheerleader for one side. The politics has been split in two for a long time, it's been bitter and divisive, but when was the last time the losing candidate for one got to have another go at the top job (I'm not including primary candidates having another crack), when was the last time GOP leaders were attacked and villified for not showing loyalty to someone who isn't even the candidate yet? But the party has acted like he was the presumptive nominee every since he lost his election. And of course they don't even think he did lose, they refer to him sometimes as 'The President', which is beyond the usual american politeness of referring to former leaders by their old title.
I get the impulse to see it as nothing more than being the leader of one of two polarised sides, but even when they've been polarised before this level of very personal loyalty does not seem to have been shown. Even those running against him mostly won't dare criticise him by name. When people don't trust their priests, their families, their friends, over a political leader, that is deeply weird.
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
The country is split in two and he is the supreme cheerleader for one side. Not much more to it than that really.
But the 'other side' has no remotely similar phenomenon.
The other side lives in a world of reason, not faith.
To expand a little, there are no easy answers if you approach modern politics from a position of reason, and it is therefore really tough to either unite your tribe with enthusiasm or maintain popularity when in office. If you approach politics with faith and us vs them, then it is far more likely you can find a uniting cheerleader.
Sarah Palin on the Trump arrest: "Do you want us to be in Civil War? Because that's what's going to happen. We're not going to keep putting up with this... We need to rise up and take our country back."
If Johnson had run again as PM he would quite likely have won again. As Mayor of London, on a third time he'd have lost handsomely which is why he left.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
He also doesn't even seem to care about many of the issues that usually exercise the base like abortion, and he's certainly no man of faith despite evangelicals adoring him.
He delivered for evangelicals when it came to judges, but he's not in touch with them, and he's no man of the people. I would partly buy the idea they like a brash, uncompromising bully of a leader, doing whatever it takes, but in touch he ain't.
Isn't most of this just a reflection on Lab lead. Take Ukraine as an example. Labour have a 2% lead. On what basis do voters decide that? I'm not a Tory, but I can't recall a single missed step by the Tories on this and Labour haven't come out with anything different so why are Labour ahead (albeit very close). On the basis of what you know is working, I give that to the Tories.
Ukrainian war heroism was associated more with the Churchillian Johnson who made support for Ukraine his USP. I don't believe Sunak or Starmer have done much other than rubber stamp the work of the great man. If the west get a win in Ukraine maybe Sunak can claim the victory for himself.
Sarah Palin on the Trump arrest: "Do you want us to be in Civil War? Because that's what's going to happen. We're not going to keep putting up with this... We need to rise up and take our country back."
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Any factoids to back that up?
Note that the chart is measuring large cities over 250k with trams, metro or light rail.
So what are your grounds for saying the chart is "definitely not correct"? At least before changing goal posts!
Andy’s comment was referring to the general provision of public transport. Not the limited subset used here.
No, he said the data was wrong.
The data is wrong, because its headlined "public transport" but excludes the most common forms of public transport from the data. Even on the small printed metro etc definition, the data is still wrong (as RCS has pointed out).
This is an interesting parallel to the "infantilisation" discussion on the TfL, that's really trivial; far, far more concerning is the infantilisation many people have undergone regarding the handling of data.
Too many people today just run data through a computer and don't understand the principle of "bullshit in, bullshit out" or check if the output matches the "sniff test".
At school I was always brought up to never use a calculator unless it was necessary, and even if it was necessary to do mental arithmetic to estimate what the result was the calculated result should be close to that. If your calculated result is very different to your mental estimate, then you've probably made a mistake, in either your estimate or data entry on the calculator.
If you do data analysis and your data comes up with something that's patently absurd, like saying you get hotter weather in the Northern Hemisphere in January than July, or more public transport in America than the UK, then that should be a warning to go out and check your methodology for mistakes - not just go out with dodgy data and show the world your results.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Only if you count buses. They aren't infrastructure.
Of course they are!
Bus stops are every bit as much infrastructure as Train stops. Buses are every bit as much infrastructure as Trains. Roads are every bit as much infrastructure as Tracks.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
He also doesn't even seem to care about many of the issues that usually exercise the base like abortion, and he's certainly no man of faith despite evangelicals adoring him.
He delivered for evangelicals when it came to judges, but he's not in touch with them, and he's no man of the people. I would partly buy the idea they like a brash, uncompromising bully of a leader, doing whatever it takes, but in touch he ain't.
Don't get me started on so-called American "christian" evangelicals. They are backing "grab them by the pussy" who could "shoot someone and not lose any votes" who wants to shag his own daughter and has has a succession of shall we say shady and occasionally damp encounters with interesting ladies.
He is about as far away from someone like Mike Pence as its possible to get. Pence is a genuine lunatic, who does seem to want to chain womenfolk to the bed. But the hypochristians don't want him. They want the lying fornicator.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
Trump achieved that feat, first by being a B-list late 20th-century celebrity, then parlaying that into a very early 21st-century TV phenomenon.
Do note that Americans do have predisposition for and fondness toward rich guys with popular roots, or at least popular appeal.
Most notable examples with reference to #45 being #26 & #32 aka Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.
FDR especially cogent in this context. Born with a silver spoon in his honeyed mouth, became a tribune and hero for the wretched of the earth across America. AND garnered the disdain of most of the elites.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Only if you count buses. They aren't infrastructure.
Of course they are!
Bus stops are every bit as much infrastructure as Train stops. Buses are every bit as much infrastructure as Trains. Roads are every bit as much infrastructure as Tracks.
(And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
We are an echo chamber, albeit an unusual one. People get banned (and yes I know they come back but not all) and those that post here are richer, older, more likely to live abroad and more politically engaged than a representative group. The discussions represent the interests of such a group and may or may not (how would I know?) represent the electorate.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
I am seeing in microcosm in my current client polarisation in miniature.
One part of the business wants to carve out a new wing (for legitimate reasons) and thinks the other part don't get it and aren't fit for purpose. That other half thinks they're disrespectful, arrogant, don't know what they are talking about and are missing fundamental truths. Both are all ultimately in the same organisation. I am the consultant in the middle trying to deliver positive change.
The solution is to listen to both sides and bring them together, and work out the path through (which will be nuanced, a bit of both and hard work) but you can easily see on a macro level, with the toxic influence of social media, how this plays out at a societal level in politics.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Our bar charts are always accurate. I grant you wildly misleading sometimes, but always accurate.
Really not! I have a number of LibDem barhcarts where the length of the bars is entirely disproportionate to the figures. It's not that they are selective, or give a misleading impression by clever presentation of the facts. They are not accurate in any meaningful sense of the term. If I show you a bar chat where X is 3 times the length of Y, based on figures where X was 3 and Y was 2, what accurate information does it convey?
I do think the LDs feel they're being cheeky chappies with this sort of thing, and that an indulgent chuckle is the right response (to the point that I feel a bit mean in saying this), but I know two people who absolutely refuse to vote for them even though they actually agree with them on policy - "I don't vote for liars" as one says, and she was a LibDem member till recently until she resigned for that reason.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
He also doesn't even seem to care about many of the issues that usually exercise the base like abortion, and he's certainly no man of faith despite evangelicals adoring him.
He delivered for evangelicals when it came to judges, but he's not in touch with them, and he's no man of the people. I would partly buy the idea they like a brash, uncompromising bully of a leader, doing whatever it takes, but in touch he ain't.
Don't get me started on so-called American "christian" evangelicals. They are backing "grab them by the pussy" who could "shoot someone and not lose any votes" who wants to shag his own daughter and has has a succession of shall we say shady and occasionally damp encounters with interesting ladies.
He is about as far away from someone like Mike Pence as its possible to get. Pence is a genuine lunatic, who does seem to want to chain womenfolk to the bed. But the hypochristians don't want him. They want the lying fornicator.
It's King David who slays giants such as Roe v Wade, versus devout but hapless functionary who couldn't even chase trans out of toilets back in Indiana.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Only if you count buses. They aren't infrastructure.
Of course they are!
Bus stops are every bit as much infrastructure as Train stops. Buses are every bit as much infrastructure as Trains. Roads are every bit as much infrastructure as Tracks.
See how the chart is labelled.
Indeed, which as I said is bullshit.
Bullshit in, bullshit out.
Buses are public transport infrastructure, as are heavy rail, to exclude them from an analysis of public transport infrastructure is just to give false information.
That's like analysing where there are Premier League football teams, but excluding Liverpool and Everton and saying as a result that there's no Premier League teams on Merseyside.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
Our bar charts are always accurate. I grant you wildly misleading sometimes, but always accurate.
Really not! I have a number of LibDem barhcarts where the length of the bars is entirely disproportionate to the figures. It's not that they are selective, or give a misleading impression by clever presentation of the facts. They are not accurate in any meaningful sense of the term. If I show you a bar chat where X is 3 times the length of Y, based on figures where X was 3 and Y was 2, what accurate information does it convey?
I do think the LDs feel they're being cheeky chappies with this sort of thing, and that an indulgent chuckle is the right response (to the point that I feel a bit mean in saying this), but I know two people who absolutely refuse to vote for them even though they actually agree with them on policy - "I don't vote for liars" as one says, and she was a LibDem member till recently until she resigned for that reason.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
That’s a lot stronger than just telling Germany they’ve messed up their foreign policy (which was, tbf, completely accurate).
It is also a wake up call to Europe. It should have the military funds and muscle to police its own continent and contain Russia and not always rely on US support, given the US has in the past elected isolationist Presidents even before Trump.
Germany in particular needs to spend more on defence
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
W?
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
He also doesn't even seem to care about many of the issues that usually exercise the base like abortion, and he's certainly no man of faith despite evangelicals adoring him.
He delivered for evangelicals when it came to judges, but he's not in touch with them, and he's no man of the people. I would partly buy the idea they like a brash, uncompromising bully of a leader, doing whatever it takes, but in touch he ain't.
Don't get me started on so-called American "christian" evangelicals. They are backing "grab them by the pussy" who could "shoot someone and not lose any votes" who wants to shag his own daughter and has has a succession of shall we say shady and occasionally damp encounters with interesting ladies.
He is about as far away from someone like Mike Pence as its possible to get. Pence is a genuine lunatic, who does seem to want to chain womenfolk to the bed. But the hypochristians don't want him. They want the lying fornicator.
I would not be so sure, remember in evangelical Iowa it was Cruz who won the caucuses in 2016 not Trump
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
That’s a lot stronger than just telling Germany they’ve messed up their foreign policy (which was, tbf, completely accurate).
It is also a wake up call to Europe. It should have the military funds and muscle to police its own continent and contain Russia and not always rely on US support, given the US has in the past elected isolationist Presidents even before Trump.
Germany in particular needs to spend more on defence
You’ll not find any disagreement from me on this one.
Why is Trump so popular? We have seen this building for a few decades, a weaponised culture war where the Dem elite and GOP elite battle for supremacy in keeping a population largely dumb and angry to win their votes.
Both sides portray the other side as evil. Bill Clinton was almost the anti-Christ for the right, W Bush the same for the left. Trump is just this weapons-grade stupidity turned up to 11. I know that Don't Look Up wound some people up, but it was a good pastiche for today's politics.
Trump is a mobster, and a particularly inept one. But all the people who are anti-crime are pro-Trump. They want him to mob them because it makes the other side angry and that must mean he is good.
There seem to be tens of millions of people intent on removing their own rights. Of turning women - themselves, their wives, their daughters - into chattel. I don't get it.
It's more of a negative reason, why Trump is so popular. All previous Republican leaders/candidates were totally out of touch with ordinary GOP voters, like Mitt Romney for instance.
You really can't say that about Ronald Reagan. And I say that as one who never voted for him, or liked him when he was an active politico, first as Governor of California, then as President.
Nor about Gerald Ford. Or, in his own wacky way, George W. Bush the Younger, at least compared to Poppy.
Interesting (to me anyway) that the two most connected candidates running for the 2024 Republican nomination, are both from same state and general GOP milieu: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.
Which for some reason reminds me of . . . wait for it . . . Rishi Sunak.
Who for some other reason reminds yours truly of . . . Mitt Romney . . .
Gerald Ford was establishment and a moderate, W Bush was born into and raised in the establishment.
Even Trump was born into money. Indeed the only Republican candidates who appealed to the populist right and weren't born into the elite were Reagan and Goldwater. Trump talks the populist talk but he wouldn't invite most of his own voters to cocktails at Trump Tower let alone have them stay over at Mar a Lago
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Excluding buses is bizarre, as buses are probably the most widely used form of public transport.
One reason for Trump's rise: Our increasingly partisan and leftist "mainstream" media. Which, in a natural, but unfortunate, reaction, resulted in far too many taking the view that any criticism of a Republican was false.
Three examples:
1. George W. Bush was widely criticized for his failure on Katrina. What did the voters of Mississippi and Louisiana think? In Missisippi they re-elected the Republican governor. In Louisiana, they elected a Republican from the Bush administration, Bobby Jindal, governor.
2. Early in his first campaign for president Barack Obama admitted that, if we elected him and followed his policies in Iraq, genocide might result. He chose as a top advisor Susan Rice, then best known for saying that officials had to avoid calling the Rwandan genocide a genocide -- to protect Bill Clinton's political viability.
Genocide resulted, and even included open slavery of women and girls. Do any of our "mainstream" journalists believe Obama deserves some criticism for enabling that genocide? And that slavery? I haven't seen any saying so.
3. Our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, avoids subjects that might please Republicans and Christians. They have refused, in recent years, to even mention Abraham Lincoln's birthday. This Easter, they ignored Chriistianity's most important holiday -- except for a weather forecast buried deep inside the newspaper. If they have even mentioned the possibility that firms such as Apple and Google discriminate in hiring against people with traditional Western beliefs about families, I've missed it. (If they do, they would be violating some of our civil rights laws.)
After several delightful days, with good air quality, cloudy morning and sunny afternoons in the 70s F, Seattle air quality now deteriorating, currently mostly "moderate" but heading toward "unhealthy for sensitive groups". Which is what air is now rated to our north in Vancouver BC.
Reason is smoke from ongoing forest fires in the Cascades and just east of the mountains, for example in the Okanogan aka Okanagan up in BC.
Similar situation in and around Bend, Oregon which has been getting heavy smoke for at least a week with little relief.
Right now overcast and cool, but also bit humid, in Seattle, with temps forecast to climb into mid-80s today, and high 80s this weekend. Followed next week by cooling trend . . . and clearer skies.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
I've just checked TfL figures. Buses are the most used for journeys in London, about 5x the journeys of national and overground rail combined, 100x trams, and even about 50% more than the underground. So excluding buses from a view of public transport is ridiculous.
(And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
We are an echo chamber, albeit an unusual one. People get banned (and yes I know they come back but not all) and those that post here are richer, older, more likely to live abroad and more politically engaged than a representative group. The discussions represent the interests of such a group and may or may not (how would I know?) represent the electorate.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
Plato too, who estimated Trump's chance as 33 per cent when longer odds were available.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
That’s a lot stronger than just telling Germany they’ve messed up their foreign policy (which was, tbf, completely accurate).
It is also a wake up call to Europe. It should have the military funds and muscle to police its own continent and contain Russia and not always rely on US support, given the US has in the past elected isolationist Presidents even before Trump.
Germany in particular needs to spend more on defence
You’ll not find any disagreement from me on this one.
This is one way in which Ukraine has improved public discourse, few people now suggest cutting the defence budget. The naivety about this amongst large parts of the left always used to get on my nerves.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
I've just checked TfL figures. Buses are the most used for journeys in London, about 5x the journeys of national and overground rail combined, 100x trams, and even about 50% more than the underground. So excluding buses from a view of public transport is ridiculous.
Ok but London has all of those modes. As we see from the stats, Britain relies much more heavily on bus and heavy rail than competitors.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Excluding buses is bizarre, as buses are probably the most widely used form of public transport.
That may be the case, but recall too that buses have been subject to ultimately destructive deregulation outside London until quite recently.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
I've just checked TfL figures. Buses are the most used for journeys in London, about 5x the journeys of national and overground rail combined, 100x trams, and even about 50% more than the underground. So excluding buses from a view of public transport is ridiculous.
Ok but London has all of those modes. As we see from the stats, Britain relies much more heavily on bus and heavy rail than competitors.
Well yes, because older denser cities are less suitable for light rail than some sprawling new city in say the US or Australia, and the UK built railways long before most other nations. So it's not really surprising that the modes of transport we use are different.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
I've just checked TfL figures. Buses are the most used for journeys in London, about 5x the journeys of national and overground rail combined, 100x trams, and even about 50% more than the underground. So excluding buses from a view of public transport is ridiculous.
Ok but London has all of those modes. As we see from the stats, Britain relies much more heavily on bus and heavy rail than competitors.
Well yes, because older denser cities are less suitable for light rail than some sprawling new city in say the US or Australia, and the UK built railways long before most other nations. So it's not really surprising that the modes of transport we use are different.
That doesn’t really explain the comparison with European peers, though, does it.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
I just saw there is another train strike tomorrow. It is 19p per mile to travel by train, on an off peak ticket with a railcard. (plus £5 for the bus to get to the nearest train station, plus an extra 1.5 hours time, due to the limited service on strike day). However it is 5p per mile to travel by plane later in the day, which sometimes falls to as little as 2.5p per mile.
I just hope the toxicity of it doesn't spill over to other countries, like the UK. Unfortunately there's some evidence that it will. We saw that with George Floyd, where protests extended to the British police, who had absolutely nothing to do with the type of issues that lead to the George Floyd situtaion.
(And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
We are an echo chamber, albeit an unusual one. People get banned (and yes I know they come back but not all) and those that post here are richer, older, more likely to live abroad and more politically engaged than a representative group. The discussions represent the interests of such a group and may or may not (how would I know?) represent the electorate.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
Plato too, who estimated Trump's chance as 33 per cent when longer odds were available.
Plato has unfortunately died. I did her obituary although there is not much public information.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The main method of public transport in the UK is the bus, and bus services in the UK are enormously better than in the United States.
Definitely. Nevertheless, the figures presented are surprising, aren’t they? And don’t they tell a story about Britain’s failure to invest in its engines of wealth (ie, cities)?
(And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
We are an echo chamber, albeit an unusual one. People get banned (and yes I know they come back but not all) and those that post here are richer, older, more likely to live abroad and more politically engaged than a representative group. The discussions represent the interests of such a group and may or may not (how would I know?) represent the electorate.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
Plato too, who estimated Trump's chance as 33 per cent when longer odds were available.
Plato has unfortunately died. I did her obituary although there is not much public information.
She wasn't really a public figure as such AFAIK, other than posting on PB.
That doesn’t really explain the comparison with European peers, though, does it.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
We had loads of "real" railways long before other places got trams or light rail, and although I'm not an expert, unlike some on here, I suspect that we might have already built railway lines in many of the places we might have later built light rail.
Of course UK public transport looks particularly rubbish if you ignore our most used modes, and the one we spend the most money on. Likewise UK telecoms would look rubbish if you exclude our mobile networks and the absolutely massive fibre build-out that is taking place.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
I've just checked TfL figures. Buses are the most used for journeys in London, about 5x the journeys of national and overground rail combined, 100x trams, and even about 50% more than the underground. So excluding buses from a view of public transport is ridiculous.
Exactly, buses are the #1 form of public transport.
Excluding them from the data means you have meaningless data.
Its like analysing how many people have voted for 'right wing parties' in different countries across Europe, but excluding the Tories from the UK's data.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The point of the chart is to excite reader's confirmation bias that the UK is shit, and everywhere else is better - including the US - so they've drawn the parameters to reach the conclusion they want, and you've wholly been taken in by it.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That information is definitely not correct. UK towns and cities have better public transport than American ones, overall.
Any factoids to back that up?
Note that the chart is measuring large cities over 250k with trams, metro or light rail.
So what are your grounds for saying the chart is "definitely not correct"? At least before changing goal posts!
Andy’s comment was referring to the general provision of public transport. Not the limited subset used here.
No, he said the data was wrong.
The data is wrong.
There are 28 cities/towns larger than 250,000 in the UK Of these 10 are currently served by trams, metro or light rail. A further two are opening this year and a further 3 cities/towns with populations below 250,000 already have these systems. That's 36% rising to 42% - not including the towns below 250,000.
Or the Trump states could just secede from the US and declare a new confederacy, given the significant overlap between the states that voted for Trump in 2020 and the old Confederate States of America
(And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
We are an echo chamber, albeit an unusual one. People get banned (and yes I know they come back but not all) and those that post here are richer, older, more likely to live abroad and more politically engaged than a representative group. The discussions represent the interests of such a group and may or may not (how would I know?) represent the electorate.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
Plato too, who estimated Trump's chance as 33 per cent when longer odds were available.
Plato has unfortunately died. I did her obituary although there is not much public information.
She wasn't really a public figure as such AFAIK, other than posting on PB.
Fair point, although people have obituaries. If she did/does have one, I don't know where it is.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The point of the chart is to excite reader's confirmation bias that the UK is shit, and everywhere else is better - including the US - so they've drawn the parameters to reach the conclusion they want, and you've wholly been taken in by it.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
It's sort of true that Birmingham both has and doesn't have trams. We have trams, but only very few. Sometimes they are there; sometimes they aren't.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The point of the chart is to excite reader's confirmation bias that the UK is shit, and everywhere else is better - including the US - so they've drawn the parameters to reach the conclusion they want, and you've wholly been taken in by it.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
Even excluding buses (which is totally illegitimate), there are 68 train stations in Merseyrail - but apparently Liverpool has "no public transport".
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Exactly: anyone who thinks the US has better public transport than the UK is a total idiot.
And anyone who thinks that public transport provision in the Netherlands is on par with the US, is also an idiot.
The Netherlands number is also wrong. There are exactly four cities in the Netherlands with populations over 250k:
- Amsterdam, which has a metro. - Rotterdam, which has a metro - The Hague, which has trams - Utrecht, which has light rail
The Norway number is just weird. There are only two urban centres with population over 250,000 -Oslo and Bergen so the only percentages they could quote are 0%,50% or 100%. How they get 65% is a mystery.
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The point of the chart is to excite reader's confirmation bias that the UK is shit, and everywhere else is better - including the US - so they've drawn the parameters to reach the conclusion they want, and you've wholly been taken in by it.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
Even excluding buses (which is totally illegitimate), there are 68 train stations in Merseyrail - but apparently Liverpool has "no public transport".
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
This is such bollocks.
I suspect those in a rush to dismiss the figures should ask themselves how many of the UK’s cities have a metro, light rail, or tram?
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
The point of the chart is to excite reader's confirmation bias that the UK is shit, and everywhere else is better - including the US - so they've drawn the parameters to reach the conclusion they want, and you've wholly been taken in by it.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
I haven’t seen anyone take it down with reference to the data they’ve presented. Richard Tyndall comes closest but he seems to miscount the FUAs as defined by the OECD.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
The stopped clock effect with Trump on NATO was entertaining.
We had posters on here suggesting that it was a bad idea for Germany to re-arm, because of er.. previous German foreign policy excursions
When people pointed out that the German Army had more tanks than the U.K. in the 80s, this was taken as a pro-Trump statement!
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Exactly: anyone who thinks the US has better public transport than the UK is a total idiot.
And anyone who thinks that public transport provision in the Netherlands is on par with the US, is also an idiot.
The Netherlands number is also wrong. There are exactly four cities in the Netherlands with populations over 250k:
- Amsterdam, which has a metro. - Rotterdam, which has a metro - The Hague, which has trams - Utrecht, which has light rail
The Norway number is just weird. There are only two urban centres with population over 250,000 -Oslo and Bergen so the only percentages they could quote are 0%,50% or 100%. How they get 65% is a mystery.
Apparently they have four, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim. Tho that still doesn’t explain 65%.
Comments
Many in the GOP seem to be aligning with the dystopia.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
(Turns out he has his own thoughts on the matter at hand: https://theauthoritarians.org/why-do-so-many-people-still-support-donald-trump/ )
Hence "changing goal posts" as what I'm referencing, is Andy saying quoted numbers were wrong, when they're actually (I'm speculating) not.
IF he'd said, "Numbers as stated may well be correct, in narrow context cited, but in terms of overall public transit in UK compared with US, they are misleading" would concur with that.
For PBers Pedantry IS Punditry!
And anyone who thinks that public transport provision in the Netherlands is on par with the US, is also an idiot.
The Netherlands number is also wrong. There are exactly four cities in the Netherlands with populations over 250k:
- Amsterdam, which has a metro.
- Rotterdam, which has a metro
- The Hague, which has trams
- Utrecht, which has light rail
And you have to laugh about how a man who lives either in a gold-plated skyscraper or a choice of exclusive golf resorts is seen as a man of the people.
People believe things which are convenient to them.
Really, that's all you need to know. Humans aren't designed to rationally assess truth. Instead, when presented with a set of answers, they will ask themselves (subconsciously), which one of these being true is best for me? And then they will seek out reasons why that answer is correct.
This was the genius of social media. It presented people with the "truth" they wanted to hear. And the more that "truth" was reinforced, the harder it is to get people to accept alternatives.
Trump plugged into that*. He told a group of people "it's not your fault. it's the fault of [x]'. Which are the sweetest words in the English language. To be absolved of all resposibility, and to know that anything that negatively befell you was the result of the liberal elite / systematic racism / Mexican immigrants / etc.
Well, it's one hell of a rush.
Unless we can find a way to deprogram people. (And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
* As did Black Lives Matter, and a host of other people and organizations
Nor about Gerald Ford. Or, in his own wacky way, George W. Bush the Younger, at least compared to Poppy.
Interesting (to me anyway) that the two most connected candidates running for the 2024 Republican nomination, are both from same state and general GOP milieu: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.
Which for some reason reminds me of . . . wait for it . . . Rishi Sunak.
Who for some other reason reminds yours truly of . . . Mitt Romney . . .
I get the impulse to see it as nothing more than being the leader of one of two polarised sides, but even when they've been polarised before this level of very personal loyalty does not seem to have been shown. Even those running against him mostly won't dare criticise him by name. When people don't trust their priests, their families, their friends, over a political leader, that is deeply weird.
Does she really think that if Congress had certified the fake electors, it would not have led to civil war?
They aren't infrastructure.
He delivered for evangelicals when it came to judges, but he's not in touch with them, and he's no man of the people. I would partly buy the idea they like a brash, uncompromising bully of a leader, doing whatever it takes, but in touch he ain't.
This is an interesting parallel to the "infantilisation" discussion on the TfL, that's really trivial; far, far more concerning is the infantilisation many people have undergone regarding the handling of data.
Too many people today just run data through a computer and don't understand the principle of "bullshit in, bullshit out" or check if the output matches the "sniff test".
At school I was always brought up to never use a calculator unless it was necessary, and even if it was necessary to do mental arithmetic to estimate what the result was the calculated result should be close to that. If your calculated result is very different to your mental estimate, then you've probably made a mistake, in either your estimate or data entry on the calculator.
If you do data analysis and your data comes up with something that's patently absurd, like saying you get hotter weather in the Northern Hemisphere in January than July, or more public transport in America than the UK, then that should be a warning to go out and check your methodology for mistakes - not just go out with dodgy data and show the world your results.
Bus stops are every bit as much infrastructure as Train stops.
Buses are every bit as much infrastructure as Trains.
Roads are every bit as much infrastructure as Tracks.
He is about as far away from someone like Mike Pence as its possible to get. Pence is a genuine lunatic, who does seem to want to chain womenfolk to the bed. But the hypochristians don't want him. They want the lying fornicator.
Do note that Americans do have predisposition for and fondness toward rich guys with popular roots, or at least popular appeal.
Most notable examples with reference to #45 being #26 & #32 aka Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.
FDR especially cogent in this context. Born with a silver spoon in his honeyed mouth, became a tribune and hero for the wretched of the earth across America. AND garnered the disdain of most of the elites.
I want to run an election game next year but (as this thread demonstrates) very few people here have both a favorable view of Trump and his appeal, and are capable of discussing it in a sober manner. In 2020 it was @MrEd who made quite a good contribution *and* spotted that Trump would overperform, which he did. But @MrEd has gone and I don't know who can replace him.
One part of the business wants to carve out a new wing (for legitimate reasons) and thinks the other part don't get it and aren't fit for purpose. That other half thinks they're disrespectful, arrogant, don't know what they are talking about and are missing fundamental truths. Both are all ultimately in the same organisation. I am the consultant in the middle trying to deliver positive change.
The solution is to listen to both sides and bring them together, and work out the path through (which will be nuanced, a bit of both and hard work) but you can easily see on a macro level, with the toxic influence of social media, how this plays out at a societal level in politics.
I do think the LDs feel they're being cheeky chappies with this sort of thing, and that an indulgent chuckle is the right response (to the point that I feel a bit mean in saying this), but I know two people who absolutely refuse to vote for them even though they actually agree with them on policy - "I don't vote for liars" as one says, and she was a LibDem member till recently until she resigned for that reason.
Bullshit in, bullshit out.
Buses are public transport infrastructure, as are heavy rail, to exclude them from an analysis of public transport infrastructure is just to give false information.
That's like analysing where there are Premier League football teams, but excluding Liverpool and Everton and saying as a result that there's no Premier League teams on Merseyside.
That’s a lot stronger than just telling Germany they’ve messed up their foreign policy (which was, tbf, completely accurate).
I predict trend lines may replace bar charts.
Germany in particular needs to spend more on defence
Even Trump was born into money. Indeed the only Republican candidates who appealed to the populist right and weren't born into the elite were Reagan and Goldwater. Trump talks the populist talk but he wouldn't invite most of his own voters to cocktails at Trump Tower let alone have them stay over at Mar a Lago
Three examples:
1. George W. Bush was widely criticized for his failure on Katrina. What did the voters of Mississippi and Louisiana think? In Missisippi they re-elected the Republican governor. In Louisiana, they elected a Republican from the Bush administration, Bobby Jindal, governor.
2. Early in his first campaign for president Barack Obama admitted that, if we elected him and followed his policies in Iraq, genocide might result. He chose as a top advisor Susan Rice, then best known for saying that officials had to avoid calling the Rwandan genocide a genocide -- to protect Bill Clinton's political viability.
Genocide resulted, and even included open slavery of women and girls. Do any of our "mainstream" journalists believe Obama deserves some criticism for enabling that genocide? And that slavery? I haven't seen any saying so.
3. Our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, avoids subjects that might please Republicans and Christians. They have refused, in recent years, to even mention Abraham Lincoln's birthday. This Easter, they ignored Chriistianity's most important holiday -- except for a weather forecast buried deep inside the newspaper. If they have even mentioned the possibility that firms such as Apple and Google discriminate in hiring against people with traditional Western beliefs about families, I've missed it. (If they do, they would be violating some of our civil rights laws.)
After several delightful days, with good air quality, cloudy morning and sunny afternoons in the 70s F, Seattle air quality now deteriorating, currently mostly "moderate" but heading toward "unhealthy for sensitive groups". Which is what air is now rated to our north in Vancouver BC.
Reason is smoke from ongoing forest fires in the Cascades and just east of the mountains, for example in the Okanogan aka Okanagan up in BC.
Similar situation in and around Bend, Oregon which has been getting heavy smoke for at least a week with little relief.
Right now overcast and cool, but also bit humid, in Seattle, with temps forecast to climb into mid-80s today, and high 80s this weekend. Followed next week by cooling trend . . . and clearer skies.
21st century western Civil War is trolling and throwing insults at the people you disagree with online.
I’d guess that the UK has c. 20 cities over 250k population.
Bullshit in, bullshit out.
As we see from the stats, Britain relies much more heavily on bus and heavy rail than competitors.
'The latter don't expect to benefit in any way from Trump, if he gets elected, but they hope he'll hurt the people they despise. '
That's exactly what drives my Trumpite informants.
God I miss the 90s.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
It is 19p per mile to travel by train, on an off peak ticket with a railcard. (plus £5 for the bus to get to the nearest train station, plus an extra 1.5 hours time, due to the limited service on strike day).
However it is 5p per mile to travel by plane later in the day, which sometimes falls to as little as 2.5p per mile.
Nevertheless, the figures presented are surprising, aren’t they?
And don’t they tell a story about Britain’s failure to invest in its engines of wealth (ie, cities)?
Of course UK public transport looks particularly rubbish if you ignore our most used modes, and the one we spend the most money on. Likewise UK telecoms would look rubbish if you exclude our mobile networks and the absolutely massive fibre build-out that is taking place.
Excluding them from the data means you have meaningless data.
Its like analysing how many people have voted for 'right wing parties' in different countries across Europe, but excluding the Tories from the UK's data.
Nottingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh and (some of) London and Birmingham have trams. Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds do not but they have pretty good suburban rail/metros and bus networks, making the comparison an entirely synthetic one.
There are 28 cities/towns larger than 250,000 in the UK Of these 10 are currently served by trams, metro or light rail. A further two are opening this year and a further 3 cities/towns with populations below 250,000 already have these systems. That's 36% rising to 42% - not including the towns below 250,000.
Bullshit in, bullshit out.
We had posters on here suggesting that it was a bad idea for Germany to re-arm, because of er.. previous German foreign policy excursions
When people pointed out that the German Army had more tanks than the U.K. in the 80s, this was taken as a pro-Trump statement!