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The solution to a difficult problem. The smile of a beautiful woman. And the GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP. ![]() It was all as foretold; was it ever in doubt? (Original sources: animal-wildlife.blogspot.sg & westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com) Mr. Ham: *sporting an authentic Made-in-USA MAGA cap, instead of his usual bowler hat* Dang, it's nice to be back. Hey, Mr. Robo, is that a "I'm With Her" T-shirt? Mr. Robo: Well, it was going at a hefty discount. Mr. Ham: *shakes head* How many times do I have to remind you, my dear Mr. Robo, that it's the mentality that makes a difference. Associating yourself with not-winners just to save a few pennies ain't smart, ham. You gotta learn these things, else you're never gonna rise above being a serially exploited technical expert. Mr. Robo: But it's all I could afford on my salary, which we negotiated and you said was a great deal, remember... Mr. Ham: *counting wads of bills* What's that? I can't hear you over all this cash I'm counting. Those were 5-1 odds on the GOD-EMPEROR even right before election day, ham! It was the locked-on make-a-killing opportunity of the year, after one figured out what was going on underneath all the globalist mainstream media propaganda! You shoulda speak to the human more sometime, Mr. Robo, he may be a filthy human, yessir, but he sure has his uses, in matters like this. Mr. Robo: Actually, he told me too, but I didn't have spare funds to invest, because, you see, my salary... Me: Ah, my hamsters! Basking in the afterglow of the LEGENDARY TRUMP WINRAR, I see. And, more satisfyingly, we were, as again, as ever, exactly accurate. Mr. Ham: *rolling in banknotes* Hey, don't jinx it while we've got a good thing going. Me: Well, fine, describing it as a "sure thing" might be a bit too much - as we will see later - but seriously, 5-1 odds based on the fundamentals was an utterly ridiculous proposition. And frankly, I've got to reconsider what I'm doing with my life, when one's side researches are consistently so much more profitable than one's official academic studies. Meh. But fine, I'll expound - in detail - on how and why we were so certain of the GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP's reign. This same conclusion could have been arrived at in several ways:
Solution By Intuition ![]() (Source: Lucifer #29) The hints were all over, even from the primaries; TRUMP was drawing upon his experience in World Wrestling Entertainment quite liberally, thoughout the entire election season. Recall Rubio BTFO-ed with a water bottle? Recognize all the keyword tells in TRUMP's trash talking? All of the mannerisms and reactions used in building a franchise-carrying antihero? Being unfairly ganged up on, disrespecting authority to wild acclaim, routine betrayal, finding himself, humiliating enemies, tagging in allies, powering up? It was seriously obvious how Hillary and the Republican establishment fell into the trap of playing the role of the Evil Empire at every turn... and you know what happens to the Evil Empire, in all good movies. Yes, yes, I know, some of you are thinking, what is this crap analysis? But look, it worked, and not only that, it was broadly predictive at every step; one only had to recognize the corresponding moment in WWE history, to guess at TRUMP's choices and actions - and the resulting audience reaction. Okay, fine, this requires some experience and nuance in the interpretation - but hey, if it works, it isn't stupid. This can be likened to a "trick" in mathematics, in that it isn't quite unfounded or shady, merely a handy shortcut, perhaps of limited applicability - but fast and impressive when the circumstances are right... like in this case. Solution By Counting - Two-time Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton (sadly for her, the media heard her and tried to make it right) [N.B. And she was in Facebook's pocket too... guess Facebook will have to be content with the Singapore civil service now] Fine, I know many of you will remain unconvinced by the above, and it's understandable, really - not everyone is a dedicated pro wrestling fan, after all. So let's just file it away in the toolbox as one possible approach, and move on. Next, the major pollsters. All very clever, all very experienced, all very good with numbers, all backed by reams of sound theory, all well aware of the standard polling biases. All totally, utterly, wrong. Just take a look at these polling forecasts at the close:
And then, consider that FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver then got absolutely ragged on by the liberal press, for daring to suggest that TRUMP had a 30% chance of winning! Wired lashed at him, loudly declaring that Sam Wang's 99% call was clearly correct. HuffPo (remember, 98%) threw out a series of articles casting doubt on his methods, Vox piled on, Gizmodo joined in, Newsweek leaned Wang, plus many others too numerous to mention... and all this just because Silver was honest about his understanding that the polls were not exactly reliable! Now, while Nate's not a very good political pundit, he does know his statistics pretty well, and got some degree of gratification in being... if not correct, then certainly less wrong than his detractors, by any meaningful measure. Expectedly, there were plenty of commentators eager to dissect why all these predictions fell flat, after the fact (note that few of these actually stuck their necks out beforehand). FiveThirtyEight led with their own survey, and the general consensus from the mortified pollsters was that their polls were bad (duh)... and particularly with whites without college degrees (henceforth, working-class whites). Otherwise, it boils down to: polling proper representative samples is hard, and reweighing the data correctly involves making subjective assumptions... that can be wrong. This brings the natural follow-on question (mostly uncovered): why then were (almost) all the polls wrong, and in the same direction (about Clinton +4)? The probable answer: pro-Hillary herding of results. As in finance, there's little reward in being a contrarian analyst: match the apparent consensus, and no-one can find fault with that - at most, we're all wrong together. The rather more interesting observation from these excuses, though, is that none of them suggest that the polls might have been (sub-?)consciously rigged for Hillary (FiveThirtyEight poo-poohed the suggestion out of hand back in August). More recently, the standard argument against the notion that Democrats were being oversampled was offered by The Atlantic - the higher percentage of Democrats in the raw samples could be explained by the need to more accurately gauge subgroups - e.g. Native American housewives over 35 - and this doesn't constitute oversampling because the raw results would then be reweighed appropriately by the experts. About that... ![]() O RLY? (Source/full-size image: i.sli.mg) You can click on the source link for a larger version, but to summarize, the horizontal axis is the difference in proportion between Democrats and Republicans sampled (always net positive for Democrats), and the vertical axis is the resulting Reuters/Ipsos poll figure, for the parties' respective candidates. Now, it shows a pretty dang obvious correlation between a relative increase in number of Democrats sampled, and Hillary's poll leads... which is a huge red flag, because if the expert reweighings (re: The Atlantic) were indeed input-agnostic, then no such correlation should exist! In other words, assume a large city, with two polls taken simultaneously. One poll reaches 100 self-described Democrats and 100 self-described Republicans, 90% of each whom choose their party's candidate, and 10% the other party's. This would produce a 50-50 poll outcome. However, imagine the initial split is 120-80; if the even split prior for party affiliation is assumed, this would be corrected to 50-50 (in practice, the Democrats do have a slight numerical advantage); the trouble, though, is that the above poll result distributions strongly suggest that the reweighings were in practice dependant on the input (i.e. badly done)! This can be confirmed by delving into the raw data, and upon further cursory digging, a number of very questionable assumptions can be unearthed: for example, Hillary pulling as many - or more - black voters than Obama himself [?!] (with the ongoing legalization of marijuana, one has to wonder what these people were smoking). In short, merely using the unprocessed numbers, and applying much more realistic weights to the demographics, would have revealed the correct picture: that TRUMP was, to high probability, America's Choice. Solution By Extended Smug Exposition Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died." - Jorah Mormont, A Storm of Swords So, okay - you don't watch pro wrestling much, and don't like math or data mining either. Well, fear not, it's long story time. Before we begin proper, it is impossible not to note the schadenfreude that arises from the skewed polls; had the pollsters stopped to consider that, maybe Hillary is, y'know, slightly less attractive to the general populace than 2008-2012 vintage poops-out-rainbows Obama, they would probably have figured out that she was in serious trouble. There is, indeed, a theory that having Hillary lead solidly in the polls would be to her advantage, by making her supporters more eager to back a near-certain winner, and concurrently depress TRUMP's supporters; unfortunately for the Democrats, in my opinion, fear would have been a much, much more effective motivator than overkill, especially given her dependence on famously-wavering demographics. Had the pollsters not mucked it up, and reported her consistently maybe a point or so behind TRUMP, the resulting SJW tri-tri-triggering might have given her a fighting chance. Maybe. Only Sith and Democrats deal in absolutes, you see. But before we continue further, I will lay out my main thesis:
Actually, almost all of the requisite reasoning has long been addressed in previous blog posts; as recognized back in March, this was no ordinary election - its key theme would be anti-establishmentarianism (Taleb: "The establishment... are not getting the point... people are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment."). However, as also observed, Bernie had no real shot. Had he come through (realistically, this would have taken Hillary being incapacitated), it would have been incredibly easy to paint him as a tax-raisin' communist (not even that far off the truth). Remember, everyone was treating him with kid gloves: Hillary, because she wanted his free-ride-college kiddy fanatics, and the GOP, because they wanted him to continue tripping Hillary up. With that settled, why do I say that Hillary would probably have beaten the other plausible Republican candidates (had TRUMP not run, I'd gather Rubio, Jeb!, Kasich & Cruz, in that order?) For that, recall our Reason #6: only TRUMP was likely to have been able to define the terms of engagement. Other than losing TRUMP's anti-establishment chops, the other career politicians would have been bound by Capitol norms, as well as their own reputations. Any of a whole bunch of things TRUMP had said, would have sunk them without a trace. Given all these constraints on their behaviour, they would have had no recourse to Hillary playing up the "first female President" label; Hillary is a fair enough debater to get through the debates against any of them, and while some of them could have tried to run the usual dirty playbook (à la the Kerry swiftboating), the effect would have been far weaker absent TRUMP's indefatigable r/the_donald and 4chan Pepe shitposter MEME WAR army... and, of course, THE MAN himself. I mean, could you imagine Rubio doing this? Or Jeb!? No, you see, the Democrats were indeed onto a (near) sure-win shtick: Jesus Himself returned would probably have lost to "first black President" Obama in 2008, and despite him not quite living up to (impossibly high) expectations, "first female President" was still a pretty huge draw, even after taking Hillary's compromised history into account. Absent a stronger hook from the GOP, Hillary had to be the favourite; first Latino was pretty meh in comparison (Rubio and Cruz looked mostly white, and one suspects past Presidents would have had trace Hispanic ancestry), and there was every chance that voters would have looked at Hillary vs. Jeb!, recognized that they were essentially identical except that one of them at least had some balls, and voted for her (one can almost see Jeb! anxiously rushing to congratulate her, upon losing blandly) No, there was no conventional path to victory for the GOP. TRUMP was anything but conventional. First female President? Why not the FIRST ORANGE GOD-EMPEROR WITH GREEN PEPE SIDEKICK PRESIDENT? HIGH ENERGY! WEW, LADS! CENTIPEDES ASSEMBLE! MAGA! As stated, TRUMP set the stage and chose the battlefield, where none of the other Republican candidates could have. Hillary was a creature of the Political Establishment, married into it, moulded by it; in her ground game, in her backroom influence-peddling, in her top-down faction-building, she was exceedingly capable, with perhaps no equal on the Right. By the usual metrics, all were inferior to her in some critical way. But with TRUMP? Almost none of her advantages mattered any longer. Raise hundreds of millions from big donors? TRUMP farts in the general direction of a camera, and gets even more airtime. Endorsements from Beyonce and other celebrities, who overwhelmingly lean Democrat? TRUMP outdraws them at his rallies. Get the newspapers to talk her "historic" mission up? TRUMP tweets a rejoinder at 3 a.m. that goes straight to the top of the trending charts, reaching millions more. Sad! And so, Hillary went from the candidate holding an inherent edge that normal Republicans could not attack head-on, to jumping fruitlessly at shadows on unfamiliar turf. One has to feel for her. Just a teeny bit. It sure feels GOOD Again and again and again, we hailed TRUMP as a genius; how many believed us? The broad strokes of his strategy - double down on the GOP's strengths, turn working-class whites out - were stunningly obvious by March, and we said as much. Why sweat losing chunks of minorities, when even a few extra percentage points from that column - still the largest single constituency in the States - would more than cover that? Sure, as strategies went, it was pretty direct and simple. Although TRUMP had the upper hand in selling his message to the Rust Belt, Hillary could have put up some defense. But no. In Ohio, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin (where she didn't even bother visiting once), the unsaid Democratic memo was: we know you'll vote for us regardless, because the alternative is TRUMP (and you're poor white people, so just suck it up). In perhaps her only truly honest gesture of the campaign, Hillary all but ignored their needs. Michael Moore saw what was coming, in the "Brexit states"; her hubby Bill, a more empathetic politician than she will ever be, saw it too. Her campaign disregarded them all. As Cracked puts it so succinctly: "The rural folk with the TRUMP signs in their yards say their way of life is dying, and you smirk and say what they really mean is that blacks and gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it. But I'm telling you, they say their way of life is dying because their way of life is dying." And no one even pretended to care for a long time, before TRUMP dropped by. Certainly not Hillary. And, the part about TRUMP playing 4D chess, that all the "smart" CNN viewers chortled at? Truly I say, TRUMP is beyond that: not only does he play multidimensional chess, he has played it so subtly, that his foes by and large don't even understand how and why they lost. Seriously, if you visit liberal blogs and subreddits, you'll find opinions like "he just got lucky", "we have to shift left to Sanders for 2020" (by the way, he isn't even a Democrat any more), CNN is blaming "social media" (but, but, Obama...) and the most incredible of them all, "Hillary lost because America hates women"! What was it Talleyrand said about the Bourbons? "They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." This extends to his "temperament" - why did TRUMP make attacks that seemed devoid of any possible benefit (e.g. on McCain, on the Khans, etc)? In my opinion, TRUMP was giving assurances - anti-establishment voters (whom he needed, on top of the working-class boost) would understandably doubt candidates' claims to this status (cheap talk theory); what was needed to win them, then, was a costly signal that he was not under anybody's control - thus, the non-stop pushback against establishment figures, and random targets of opportunity. Is this foolproof? Nope, but it was far better than anything the anti-establishment set had ever gotten from any candidate. Pure genius. Oh, and on TRUMP being (pick your poison)-ist: ![]() But... but... Slate said... REEEEEEEEE (Original source: r/the_donald) Frankly, he ain't got no time for this shit, man. Now, seriously, I do understand that racism, sexism can be very real issues, but it's gotten to the point that the guaranteed way to win is simply to out-PC your opponent. Maybe women shouldn't be marines because they need to haul bodyweig... Sexist! We should consider limiting immigration because competition for jobs is already too high as it... Xenophobe! I recruited the other fella because he had a much better aggregate score and record of past experience, although your skin col... Racist! It it so surprising then, that a portion of voters have decided that the only way to win is not to play? Dear rioters, please consider: TRUMP won more black and Hispanic voters than Romney (because minorities can get tired of PC bullshit too); his margins among whites as a whole, are not significantly different from Obama-Romney. Heck, white women preferred TRUMP to Hillary, 53-43. Plenty of Asians supported the GOD-EMPEROR too - are they not entitled to their own agency? The very low-income rural voters who got him over the line went for Obama in 2008! Really, before you smash up your local businesses, and hang your next President in effigy (imagine the sheer undiluted mainstream media outrage had it happened to Hillary), consider that TRUMP won because, quite simply, many of your fellow Americans liked him, loved him, respected him... even unto death. Because he wanted to Make America Great Again. How could TRUMP possibly have lost? Next: Now That's A Headstart
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