Contempt For Ordinary Voters Undermines Opposition To Trump

Vambram said:

It truly does appear to me that liberals live in opposite land based upon the posts in this forum as well as basing my opinion on what liberals in mainstream media and Democratic Party leadership says.

Click to expand...

I'm still waiting to see where you get your data from that disputes what I posted.

Matt5 said:

How many stores have closed down due to shoplifting? In California, theft under $1,000 is no longer a felony. Nobody bothers these people. And then the stores just close.

Click to expand...

Theft under $1000 is still a crime (a misdemeanor). A felony is a fairly stiff crime for $900 of theft. I have followed the Jan 6th crimes from the beginning, and many have been charged with theft or destruction of government property, which under *Federal* law is only a felony above $1000. (Under $1000 no more than 1 year in prison.)

Vambram said:

It's called watching and listening to the people inside the big cities. I trust the words of people more than I trust data from a government which has failed to be factually accurate too many times.

Click to expand...

The links you were given were to Pew. Guess who they ask to get their figures on people's opinions. Yeah, it's Joe and Jill Citizen. So I dunno, maybe you did the same and selected a cross section of people in a big city and rang them up and asked them. Maybe you went door to door. Or maybe what you actually did was read a few opinion pieces from people with an agenda who tell you lies to try and convince you that they are right.

My guess is that you want to believe them because it fits in with what you'd prefer to believe. And trust me, that's the easiest way to get fooled. People telling you exactly what you want to hear.

So why not spend a little time and investigate for yourself. Look for something that backs up your view. Look for something solid that we can discuss. 'Cos quite frankly, it ain't called 'watching and listening' (which in itself if you actually did it, is only relying an anecdotal evidence). What it really is is forming opinions that themselves are based on opinions that themselves are based on lies.

Vambram said:

Opposition To Trump Is Rooted In Contempt For Ordinary Voters

In Trump, his supporters hear a spirited defense of the hard-working despised and a fearless denouncing of the fashionable despisers.

thefederalist.com

The author then gives a few paragraphs with that historical background. Allow me to go deeper into the article for some of it's conclusions.

Click to expand...

What, the same side that wants to make voting “secure” so that poor folk will be disincentivized to vote, thinks that anti-Trump people have a dim view of the American electorate?
Somewhere out past Russell’s Teapot an irony meter just asploded!

Bradskii said:

I'm still waiting to see where you get your data from that disputes what I posted.

Click to expand...

You must live in that opposite land where anecdotes don’t mean much.

iluvatar5150 said:

You must live in that opposite land where anecdotes don’t mean much.

Click to expand...

I had a few minutes so I picked a large city - I think Chicago counts as such, and checked some years from 2016 to 2022 (last year the official police results were available). From here: Annual Reports | Chicago Police Department and from here for 2023: Report: Chicago violent crime spikes 11%, arrests in just 11%

The numbers will be for 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023

Murder: 769 576 772 699 624
Robbery: 11,959 9,679 7,853 8,973 9,750
Burglary: 14,273 11,731 8,752 7,592 7,441
Theft: 61,450 65,132 41,268 54,677 57,189

All the figures for '23 are lower than for '16. And there's a general downward trend in everything - except for an increase last year in robberies. One thing that screws the general trends are the figures for 2020 when covid was at its peak. As you'd expect, thefts and robberies went down and more people were at home and murders went up. There was a subsequent readjustment in the numbers the following year. Discount those as an anomaly and the trend is undoubtedly down.

Hans Blaster said:

That's not how facts or statistics work. "Feelings" are not facts.

Click to expand...

That's how we judge these days isn't it? Feelings?

We "feel" bad for someone who just needs a loaf of bread to prevent starvation so we make shoplifting up to 1,000 worth of merchandise the equivalent to a jaywalking ticket (hyperbole as I do think it's to slightly more serious, but only slightly)

So when people walking around New York for instance, notice open air markets full of stolen goods on many streets, and even the milk they buy at the corner store (hyperbole again) has to remain under lock and key at the store to keep it out of the hands of thieves, then crime is out of control there regardless of what the statistics or the law says, because the issue of crime has affected everything about day to day life.

you can tell someone that stealing a few items isn't a crime worth bothering with, but when things get out of hand they begin to affect people more and more in their daily life.

Things like this affect the poor areas first, and it trickles up and affects everyone at some point.

Telling people there's no crime is great, but most people need to FEEL the experience of not living in a crime infested town, and many people are no longer having the low crime experience.

Both the numbers and the experience used to match (it used to be the numbers always matched the reality of day to day life) but they don't really match anymore. So people use their own two eyes. They trust them.

To be honest, I'm rather amazed more people aren't making trips into areas like New York and loading up on stolen goods to resell elsewhere. I mean, it's like they are giving away everything..

We do actually live in a fairly decent society at large, but bad actors are always the problem for the rest of us, especially in fairly decent societies because you end up being more trusting of people in general. The bad actors will always take full advantage of that.

Vambram said:

It truly does appear to me that liberals live in opposite land based upon the posts in this forum as well as basing my opinion on what liberals in mainstream media and Democratic Party leadership says.

Click to expand...

Seems pretty early in the thread for the post which dismisses all of the factual information posted and instead retreats to blindly restating the original false far-right talking points. Guess the spin was even weaker than average, which is saying a whole lot.

Vambram said:

Watch and see how they vote in November.

Click to expand...

You're really pinning your hopes on urban areas flipping to vote for GOP candidates?

Sounds like a plan for me. The GOP should certainly spend a whole lot of what little money their candidate has left after paying for his legal issues on trying to flip urban voters to their side. That's certainly the path to victory this time around.

Hazelelponi said:

That's how we judge these days isn't it? Feelings?

Click to expand...

Only if one needs to ignore numerous posts in this thread with hard data showing the far-right fairy tale in the OP is based on factually incorrect information.

KCfromNC said:

Only if one needs to ignore numerous posts in this thread with hard data showing the far-right fairy tale in the OP is based on factually incorrect information.

Click to expand...

When laws change the numbers might change, but the on ground reality still says high crime to people who know what crime is.

You can't erase that with pretty sounds.

Your literally asking people to believe the opposite of their experience. That's a hard task.

KCfromNC said:

Only if one needs to ignore numerous posts in this thread with hard data showing the far-right fairy tale in the OP is based on factually incorrect information.

Click to expand...

Let me try and explain what I'm saying a different way.

If you've only ever met a handful of western Muslims your going to automatically think hey, these are some awesome people right, you'll automatically jump to be quite trusting of Muslims in general.

Then, you see how Muslims run their own countries and treat their own people there's a slight disconnect.

Most people I would think will explore the disconnect so they get a better understanding, if they are interested in finding out right?

Well people are experiencing the disconnect between daily life and numbers the government is putting out now regarding crime.

I'm sure there's different theories floating, but I believe most are explaining the disconnect with crime as being changes to the way reporting and policing are being handled in these major cities, turning crime into a potentially under reported event, instead of a situation that is getting better.

But regardless of the numbers, the thieves are getting far more brazen about it... There's no denying that. And that is absolutely due to how policing and reporting are being handled.

Hazelelponi said:

Let me try and explain what I'm saying a different way.

If you've only ever met a handful of western Muslims your going to automatically think hey, these are some awesome people right, you'll automatically jump to be quite trusting of Muslims in general.

Then, you see how Muslims run their own countries and treat their own people there's a slight disconnect.

Most people I would think will explore the disconnect so they get a better understanding, if they are interested in finding out right?

Well people are experiencing the disconnect between daily life and numbers the government is putting out now regarding crime.

I'm sure there's different theories floating, but I believe most are explaining the disconnect with crime as being changes to the way reporting and policing are being handled in these major cities, turning crime into a potentially under reported event, instead of a situation that is getting better.

Click to expand...

This is kind of funny.

You live in the middle of nowhere and, according to your own telling, don't visit cities very often. Your entire perception of what happens in these large cities only comes to you from right-wing propaganda outlets, yet you presume to tell us what's going on in the places where we live and where you barely set foot.

Hazelelponi said:

I'm sure there's different theories floating, but I believe most are explaining the disconnect with crime as being changes to the way reporting and policing are being handled in these major cities, turning crime into a potentially under reported event, instead of a situation that is getting better.

Click to expand...

Look at at the figures from the Chicago police. They list exactly the same crimes year in and year out. No changes to how they are determined. So if you've got a 'theory' that says otherwise then present it. And look at the Pew figures. They actually do ask people what they think. And it's directly the opposite of what you claim. If you have something that says different, other than anecdotal, then present it.

There's nothing that supports your view except ill informed opinion and lies from far right media. Threads like this are replete with it.

Vambram said:

It's called watching and listening to the people inside the big cities. I trust the words of people more than I trust data from a government which has failed to be factually accurate too many times.

Click to expand...

Therein lies the problem with your approach. You don’t actually know if what they’re telling you is true. You just trust them to not be lying about their experiences but if most people you asked told you they feel safe in big cities, I doubt you’d be here relating to us how safe the big cities are. Those people would just become lying, big city leftists who want to push a pro crime agenda.

This is why we rely on statistics instead of gut feelings and subjective opinions.

Hazelelponi said:

That's how we judge these days isn't it? Feelings?

Click to expand...

still not a good idea.

Hazelelponi said:

We "feel" bad for someone who just needs a loaf of bread to prevent starvation so we make shoplifting up to 1,000 worth of merchandise the equivalent to a jaywalking ticket (hyperbole as I do think it's to slightly more serious, but only slightly)

Click to expand...

Hyperbole doesn't do you credit. Making the value threshold for a *FELONY* at $1000 doesn't make theft of $900 not a crime, it just makes it a misdemeanor. The potential penalties vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and I don't know much about them. It is just that the penalty and consequences for theft of $100, $1000, $10000, and $1000000 are different.

Hazelelponi said:

So when people walking around New York for instance, notice open air markets full of stolen goods on many streets, and even the milk they buy at the corner store (hyperbole again) has to remain under lock and key at the store to keep it out of the hands of thieves, then crime is out of control there regardless of what the statistics or the law says, because the issue of crime has affected everything about day to day life.

Click to expand...

I have no idea. I've never been to New York. I have seen open air markets for goods in other cities, but I was under the impression that the goods were a combination of cheep knockoffs and counterfeits. I've not heard claims of stolen goods until very recently in threads like this one. I have no way to verify those claims.

Hazelelponi said:

you can tell someone that stealing a few items isn't a crime worth bothering with, but when things get out of hand they begin to affect people more and more in their daily life.

Things like this affect the poor areas first, and it trickles up and affects everyone at some point.

Telling people there's no crime is great, but most people need to FEEL the experience of not living in a crime infested town, and many people are no longer having the low crime experience.

Click to expand...

Who said there was no crime?

Hazelelponi said:

Both the numbers and the experience used to match (it used to be the numbers always matched the reality of day to day life) but they don't really match anymore. So people use their own two eyes. They trust them.

Click to expand...

Crime statistics are based on reported crimes. If victims are not reporting the thefts, then how should authorities know about them. Feelings won't do.

Hazelelponi said:

To be honest, I'm rather amazed more people aren't making trips into areas like New York and loading up on stolen goods to resell elsewhere. I mean, it's like they are giving away everything..

Click to expand...

What?

Hazelelponi said:

We do actually live in a fairly decent society at large, but bad actors are always the problem for the rest of us, especially in fairly decent societies because you end up being more trusting of people in general. The bad actors will always take full advantage of that.

Click to expand...

Not sure what the point was here.

Vambram said:

It truly does appear to me that liberals live in opposite land based upon the posts in this forum as well as basing my opinion on what liberals in mainstream media and Democratic Party leadership says.

Click to expand...

<Looks at conservatives who bought into the Obama birth certificate and Pizzagate>

Uh huh.

Hans Blaster said:

I have no idea. I've never been to New York. I have seen open air markets for goods in other cities, but I was under the impression that the goods were a combination of cheep knockoffs and counterfeits. I've not heard claims of stolen goods until very recently in threads like this one. I have no way to verify those claims.

Click to expand...

Selling stolen stuff is common everywhere. Anybody who's ever searched Facebook Marketplace for tools can see loads of listings that are obviously shady.

Vambram said:

It's called watching and listening to the people inside the big cities. I trust the words of people more than I trust data from a government which has failed to be factually accurate too many times.

Click to expand...

Do you listen to the stories all the people are telling you about how much crime is NOT happenning to them? No. That' doesn't happen.

If you are not how can you argue you are getting really getting good data then?