Sunday, March 11, 2018

Two Numbers

Today I am thinking about two numbers that the President has used since yesterday.

Yesterday Donald Trump gave a talk where he said:
Women! Women, we love you. We love you.

Hey, didn’t we surprise them with women during the election? Remember? ‘Women won’t like Donald Trump.’ I said, ‘Have I really had that kind of a problem? I don‘t think so.’ But: ‘Women won’t like Donald Trump. It will be a rough night for Donald Trump because the women won’t come out.’ We got 52 percent. Right? Fifty-two.

And I’m running against a woman! You know it’s not that easy.

Trump celebrates winning 52 percent of women in 2016 — which is only how he did among whites

And then this morning, on Twitter, the President said this:

[Rasmussen and others have my approval ratings at around 50%, which is higher than Obama, and yet the political pundits love saying my approval ratings are “somewhat low.” They know they are lying when they say it. Turn off the show - FAKE NEWS!]

In the first case, as The Washington Post points out, Trump actually got 41 percent of the vote from women. He got 52% from white women, and maybe he really does think that's all that counts. But overall he only got 41% of the women's vote.

So ... this is the President of the United States speaking. He has people to do numbers for him -- the federal government has eleven statistical agencies. He is wrong.

Q: is he lying?

You could say that maybe he doesn't know better. Maybe as he spoke it seemed to him that he got something like fifty-two percent of the women's vote, and so he said it. So then, if that was the case, does this count as a lie?

A: Yes.

Listen, imagine you and I are sitting on the front porch sipping sweet tea and watching the world go by, and we are discussing politics and one of us says, "Y'know, women voted for Trump too -- I heard that fifty-two percent of them voted for him." I wouldn't call that a lie. It's true that one of us could go inside and Google the number, but it doesn't matter. We aren't experts or authorities and if we're wrong there is no consequence.

But ... not to be redundant, this is the President of the United States speaking. He has people to do numbers for him -- the federal government has eleven statistical agencies. He is the leader of one of the greatest countries on the planet. Every word he utters is news. He determines policy and guides our country through the turbulent waters of domestic and international turmoil. If he didn't know, he should have kept his mouth shut.

Now the other thing, Rasmussen. I am looking at the Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll. Imagine that -- a company has a whole team that does nothing but measure the President's ratings. Here is what they say today:
Friday, March 09, 2018

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.

The president’s overall job approval ratings have been trending down at week’s end.

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Note that Rasmussen is considered unreliably biased in Trump's favor and almost always rates him as more favorable than the other polls.

This isn't about the numbers -- of course most people don't like him, that has not changed since before the election.

It is about his statement: "Rasmussen and others have my approval ratings at around 50%, which is higher than Obama." Looking at Rasmussen's Obama Approval Index - Month to Month, it seems that Obama only fell as low as 44 percent approval twice in eight years of his administration -- in August and October 2011 he was rated at 44 percent.

So again, Trump is wrong. His approval rating is not fifty percent, it is not "near fifty percent," it is not "higher than Obama" at any point in his presidency.

Q: is he lying?

A: Yes he is lying. He has obviously seen the poll. He is sitting there with his phone, he sees the poll figures, and he decides to tweet a brag. He is not talking off the top of his head. He has time to look it up if he's not sure.

This is the President of the United States speaking. He has people to do numbers for him -- the federal government has eleven statistical agencies. Sitting there on the toilet, he could have held his phone up to some high-paid Secretary of Some Department and said, "Hey, is this right?" And they would say, "Let me check that, chief," and come back and say, "No, it's not right."

There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude.

These are two lies about easily-checked numbers within a twenty-four hour period.

Let me tell you, Trump's followers are not going to know. They are not going to read the fake-news Washington Post and Fox isn't going to tell them, or Breitbart. Trump's followers are only going to see more evidence that the world is against him, and against them, and the news is all fake.

This is a kind of fire drill, if you ask me. He is seeing how far he can push it. Can he tell obvious, easily caught lies on the national stage without any blowback at all?

The answer is yes, of course he can lie with impunity. He lied all through the campaign and he lies now. He is doing it for sport. He is doing because he can. He is doing it because he and his policies have no grounding in objective reality and he wants to make sure the rest of us feel the humiliation of losing to him. There is nothing we can do about it. Welcome to America.