It would be interesting to hear from the men too, since I worry about that cohort more than the women.

I teach at a private university in Maryland, and a student came to my office hours to discuss a writing assignment in our journalism class having to do with ethics and how journalists need to verify every piece of information we use because of the deluge of BS being spewed by politicians — the GOP, in particular. I used the recent social media bullshit regarding Venezuelans in Aurora, Colorado; Musk's lie that VP Harris was going to eliminate X if she's elected; and the garbage about Haitians eating pets in Ohio as examples of how quickly lies can spread, and how busy journalists have to be to stay ahead of the BS.

Here's a reasonable representation of the conversation. FWIW, the young man is a 22-year-old African-American from Prince George's County, Maryland.

Student: "What do you think of the election? I'm for Trump. What do you think of him?"

Me: "It's not what I think; it's what I know. I know he's a criminal, convicted of 34 crimes and accused of another 56. I know that he's a failed businessman. I know that he's a serial liar. I know that he tried to stay in power after losing an election. And I know that he tried to prevent the U.S. Congress from doing its job by siccing a mob on it."

Student: "Oh, OK. About that writing assignment ..."

We're not supposed to be outwardly political or to try to influence our students in any way, but I'm hoping that recitation of facts has some positive impact.

How does he feel about automatically being considered guilty like them?

with re: Hispanic men (at least older) since before 2020, it would seem we need to hear especially from young Hispanic men.

The women, I believe to be pretty readily "gettable."

If you're running research and you want to know what a certain demographic thinks - in this case, Latinas, you don't invite middle-aged white guys to the mix.

Most of what we see in political focus groups are the people who might be swing voters. Former trump voters who are leaning against him in 2024 or might vote for Harris this time around. Educated women in swing districts. Uneducated white men who aren't politically active. And on and on.

Aside from the "diner crowd in flyover East Jebbib" horseshit the MSM show to us all the time, this is what happens in the real world.

Given past polls. The women may be tentative, but gettable. The men? Not sure.

“Joe attends social events with the Proud Boys fraternity and works as a group organizer for Turning Point USA. His favorite author is Rush Limbaugh and he spends many hours volunteering for the Heritage Foundation. He is undecided.”

nt.

Last edited Tue Sep 10, 2024, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)

You have to duck under the confederate participation trophy to get into the place, but lo and behold the patrons are all on the fence about this election thing.

I won't watch them anymore. Too often it feels like the MSM is creating stories. Once and awhile, I'd like to hear some actual real news.

I've got the MSNBC on as I type this. And the leading questions are pretty unhelpful. I''m hoping it means he's trying to elicit on air the answers he got from a more open-ended conversation before they came on air...

And that's assuming they didn't have the screening issues with selecting their supposedly "undecided voters" that others (wasn't it CNN) had.

as to how and why they pick people for these focus groups. Are they trying to find the truth or are they trying to create memorable video clips?

nt

I spent a year working up there on pipelines in the Marcellus Shale. Mostly around Pittsburgh and the adjacent parts of Ohio and WV, but I also spent a few months up around Williamsport.

in western PA, but spent my working years in Phila and college years in central PA, retired to my home town.

They also found some Trump loyalists in rural western PA, amazingly, but they didn't spend nearly as much time in Pittsburgh or Philly.

Been there. As they say, Port Matilda in your rearview mirror...

faithless, backstabber, pervert, misogynist, racist, chaos, flip-flopper, traitor, thief, loser, and one more I can't recall right now.

Peckerhead! That's it! Peckerhead! I finally remembered!

Theirs are much too nice and don't take into account his crimes, misdeeds, lies and general scum suckiness.

Faithless is the one that struck me the most even though all are true. Not only faithless in his personal life but faithless to our country’s values and how willing he is to throw all of these away to curry favor with the most deviant of the worlds leaders..

Every election is as important as this election at every place and at every level as long as there are republicans in office.

Gotta turnout.