Thursday, February 25, 2016

America Doesn’t Have Enough ‘Morons’ to Elect Trump, Baseball Stats Guru Says

The man who revolutionized baseball with statistical analysis says there just aren't enough morons in the country to elect Donald Trump.
Bill James, in a blog post, says the numbers won’t work for Trump in a two-person race. James is the inventor of what’s called sabermetrics, or the use of advanced data to analyze baseball. “When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the ‘lead’ under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons,” he said.

14 comments:

  1. You don't need 51% of the WHOLE population. Since not everybody votes, the required number of morons is much, much lower than half the population.

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    1. I thought the same thing, but I didn't want to contradict some statistics expert without thinking it through more; I have my mental capital devoted to other, more important things today.

      Last time I looked into voting %'s though, I seem to recall that the actual number of qualified American voters in terms of % of the total population of the US citizens that actually elect/voted for a President has been around 12% or so in terms of the total American population for the last couple of cycles.

      It wouldn't be the first time someone underestimated the number of morons in the voting electorate either.

      :)

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    2. Trump and Hillary will split the moron vote. It should be very close.

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  2. Since all voters are morons, Trump should win by a land slide, at least according to Lefty James' logic.

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  3. And this from a Lefty who will vote for Clinton or "the Bern"? I mean, good gracious, we're 19 Trillion in debt and the lefty candidates are running around telling the voters they are going to provide free "everything". Can't get more moronic than that. At least in the Trump camp its the voters who are morons. In the lefty camp its the actual candidates. God help us all.

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  4. Did James seriously forget how Obama got elected?

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  5. This analysis assumes that Romney, Cruz, Hillary and Bernie voters are not morons. Hmmmm.

    Thanks to Facebook, I have some built-in focus groups. One consists of a bunch of Michigan Republicans. The other consists of retired lady government school teachers. Most are over age 50 or 60. No one in either group can process the idea of Obama as a mass-murdering war-monger. Both groups flatline and say nothing in the face of direct evidence of such crimes.

    The Republicans have an emotional attachment to Obama as Kumbaya peacenik Mooslim lover who is the worst president ever because he cannot grasp the dangers of and does nothing about radical Islam. The Democrats have an emotional attachment to Obama as Kumbaya peacenik Mooslim lover which to them is a very good thing. Neither group can process the actual reality. It's the most bizarre thing I think I have ever seen in politics.

    Further, ever notice that the public will never watch a movie that is historically accurate? We are the historically accurate movie the public won't watch. Trump is the Hollywood version they will watch.

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    1. Bob,
      Facebook focus groups? My, you ARE the clever boots.
      Great synopsis of the Obama perception weirdness. You've articulated a nagging feeling I've had. Yeah, it is weird. A country in denial.
      The good news is: Adam Smith said: "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation", i.e. it'll be a while til Armageddon, so I'm hoarding and keeping my head down.

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    2. Your description of Obama perceptions sounds pretty normal IMO. Most people seemingly form a view and then stop accepting data which would force that view to be altered. Trying to convince someone their 8th grade history teacher didn't tell them the full story might as well be trying to turn lead into gold.

      It's that way on every subject. Even scientists will just make stuff up to reject data that shows a long taught idea is just plain wrong. Even if they can't fault the data they'll come up with a reason not to accept it.

      And I agree with the historically accurate movie analogy. People don't want the real history. They want something that meshes with their feelings.

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  6. Seems to me that James calling Trump fans 'morons' is his point - not the stats. It's also the point of all the talking heads. It's a shaming game. Anyone who likes or might consider voting for Trump is an idiot. They'll repeat that over and over, because they know it will shame some people from voting for Trump. That's the desired effect.
    People want to vote for a winner and someone who's respectable. The talking heads can't say that Trump isn't a winner, so they go to plan B - Trump is slime and you must be stupid if you can't see that.
    They will surely achieve their aim with some not-small percentage of their audience, but every little bit counts.

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  7. Two words: electoral college

    The POTUS is elected by the States in union, not by the general population.

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  8. All our Presidents are voted in by morons. Clearly James hasn't been paying attention.

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