At this point, I'm not sure what can be said or shown to Trump supporters, any remaining Trump supporters, to change their minds. Besides hard core fascists I guess, they've already had to ignore...
At this point, I'm not sure what can be said or shown to Trump supporters, any remaining Trump supporters, to change their minds. Besides hard core fascists I guess, they've already had to ignore so many ways that his presidency is directly antagonistic to their interests that I doubt one more is going to turn them off.
As an aside though, I'm not at all a fan of that line of argument in favor of immigration. It's not okay to exploit immigrants for cheap labor in harsh conditions just because they weren't born here. If farmers can't find workers at the current rate of pay, they should pay more and strawberries should cost more.
It's adorable how the discussion immediately focuses on immigration policy, whether immigration is good or bad, whether citizens will do farm labor, people voting against their own interests, the...
If this administration really wanted to curb illegal immigration ...
It's adorable how the discussion immediately focuses on immigration policy, whether immigration is good or bad, whether citizens will do farm labor, people voting against their own interests, the rank hypocrisy, etc.
I think all of these policy arguments are utterly irrelevant and completely miss the point.
The point is that an authoritarian regime identified a vulnerable and peaceful minority to take the blame for the nation's problems.
The regime uses sophisticated propaganda techniques to fuel public hatred against this group, which strengthens the regime's grip on power.
And now the regime is mobilizing a massive system of police, paramilitary forces and private corporations to arrest and concentrate this group into internment camps.
Folks, we've seen this pattern of behavior before, and the result is darkness and evil every fucking time.
Does anyone believe that after they've built this apparatus of paramilitaries and camps, that it's just temporary? Will they ever finish arresting people and tear the whole thing down? Or will they just keep identifying new enemies to arrest?
This shit takes on a life of its own. The camps, the police, the propaganda, the fear and public outrage all reinforce each other to keep it going and to keep the regime in power. It's symbiotic.
Maybe, eventually, someone stronger puts a stop to it in a war.
None of this has anything to do with immigration policy.
Is it a matter of pride? People could never admit to being duped by Trump, and certainly couldn't admit that they continued to support him fuckup after fuckup. Maybe the best thing we can do would...
Is it a matter of pride? People could never admit to being duped by Trump, and certainly couldn't admit that they continued to support him fuckup after fuckup. Maybe the best thing we can do would be to construct an avenue to allow their mental gymnastics to bring them out of that pit. Somehow they need to be fed a sequence of information that lets them safely step forward until finally they're both convinced they did no wrong and that Trump needs to go.
If such a thing isn't possible, then we should start teaching humility to children at school nationwide.
At least with the trump supporters I know, it's more of a matter of willful ignorance. They don't look too deeply into any scandals or information around trump. That combined with a moderate...
At least with the trump supporters I know, it's more of a matter of willful ignorance. They don't look too deeply into any scandals or information around trump. That combined with a moderate amount of distrust in mainstream news, confirmation bias, and cherry picking information, their belief that trump is a great president remains unchallenged.
From what I've seen it's mainly laziness and lack of curiosity. Those issues are seen as distant and abstract. The people I know will focus on other things such as entertainment and normal...
From what I've seen it's mainly laziness and lack of curiosity. Those issues are seen as distant and abstract. The people I know will focus on other things such as entertainment and normal everyday life. It would better be characterized by indifference. I don't understand why they are like that, or how to get them to engage with information that might oppose their views without becoming defensive which makes that information completely ineffective. In short the trump supporters I know made their decision to support trump on a very small set of information and the matter is settled. I don't know of anything that would make them reconsider their decision.
That's not how economics works. If you raise the price of strawberries, people will just buy less strawberries. And the farmers won't just throw up their hands and deal with the costs. They will...
If farmers can't find workers at the current rate of pay, they should pay more and strawberries should cost more.
That's not how economics works. If you raise the price of strawberries, people will just buy less strawberries. And the farmers won't just throw up their hands and deal with the costs. They will outsource instead and ship the strawberries in, which will still be cheaper. And you can't just implement tariffs on those imports like Trump tried with China.
also worth noting, people have actually tried to pay more when undocumented labor gets cracked down upon, and it still does not work to attract people the vast majority of the time. most people...
also worth noting, people have actually tried to pay more when undocumented labor gets cracked down upon, and it still does not work to attract people the vast majority of the time. most people would genuinely rather take a $7.25/hr job flipping burgers than work a $20/hr job picking fruit in the sun.
It's not so much laziness as it is nature. Everything in nature will follow the path of least resistance. Cubicle farming and Mcjobs may be tedious and soul-crushing, but they're not as actively...
It's not so much laziness as it is nature. Everything in nature will follow the path of least resistance. Cubicle farming and Mcjobs may be tedious and soul-crushing, but they're not as actively dangerous as a lot of manual labor is.
On the other hand, manual labor in America is less dangerous than dealing with cartels at home, so they come here to do it.
So? Sucks for the farmers I guess, but that's a risk you run when your business model relies on breaking the law to exploit people who have no legal recourse. Why not? I would argue that imposing...
That's not how economics works. If you raise the price of strawberries, people will just buy less strawberries.
So? Sucks for the farmers I guess, but that's a risk you run when your business model relies on breaking the law to exploit people who have no legal recourse.
And the farmers won't just throw up their hands and deal with the costs. They will outsource instead and ship the strawberries in, which will still be cheaper. And you can't just implement tariffs on those imports like Trump tried with China.
Why not? I would argue that imposing tariffs on goods imported from countries with lower standards of labor is how you prevent a global race to the bottom.
I've interviewed a greenhouse owner who hired illegals about 10 years ago. He paid them minimum wage and they all had fake identities. He said he tried to hire "whites" time and time again but...
I've interviewed a greenhouse owner who hired illegals about 10 years ago. He paid them minimum wage and they all had fake identities. He said he tried to hire "whites" time and time again but they'd invariably be drug addicts, work for a couple days, and then never show up again. The most interesting take-away I had from the experience is that the migrants truly want to be migrants - they had no desire to be US citizens. All of this business of patrolling the border is causing folks to move permanently to the US whereas before they'd just travel back and forth.
The business, like many small businesses, wouldn't exist if they paid $10-$15/hour. It's simply not tenable and the owner explained as much to me. I was there - no one was getting rich. Folks on...
The business, like many small businesses, wouldn't exist if they paid $10-$15/hour. It's simply not tenable and the owner explained as much to me. I was there - no one was getting rich.
Folks on the left don't like to hear that raising minimum wages will hurt some businesses but its undeniable. Folks on the Right don't want to hear that the the cost of produce, etc would skyrocket if farmers hired American workers because they'd be forced to pay so much. Why pick apples for $12/hour when I can make that working at McDonalds/driving for uber?
I agree about an easy process to get VISAs and work permits - that gives us cheap legal labor and everyone is happy. However, neither the Right nor Left have been working in good faith on immigration and migrant labor. If either side wanted to, they could crack down on employers hiring illegal immigrants, which they rarely do.
At the end of the day, it's all just an excuse to pay extremely low wages for very hard work and avoid taxation.
All of the workers received W2's and paid taxes. In fact they may have paid more than a U.S. worker because you know they didn't claim any refunds with their fake identities. And they almost never claimed SNAP benefits, etc because they don't want to be found out and deported.
They all sent money back home. They all risked their lives crossing the border.
I feel really helpless with this stuff (which I suppose is the point). People suggest calling representatives, but after the last election all three of mine are solid Republicans who have ignored...
I feel really helpless with this stuff (which I suppose is the point). People suggest calling representatives, but after the last election all three of mine are solid Republicans who have ignored every wave of outraged phone calls. They don't give a shit, because clearly they can keep getting elected in this state.
I could donate a little to RAICES I guess. And I went to a small protest last year. But the major direct action we seem to need isn't happening (and might not be possible for me anyway with my health). What else is there to do...?
Thanks! I've voted in every election since I became a citizen, and I actually work in a sector that involves supporting progressive candidates, GOTV efforts, and recruiting people to run for local...
Thanks! I've voted in every election since I became a citizen, and I actually work in a sector that involves supporting progressive candidates, GOTV efforts, and recruiting people to run for local office. (Trying to be a little vague because I don't want folks to be able to connect this account to my real name that easily.) Things like organizing and going to meetings are beyond my energy capabilities, but I could probably do more in my day-to-day interactions (even if those are mostly online).
I think part of my helplessness comes from what you describe in your edit. A lot of the strategies to undo these Republican efforts require playing a longer game, and while I can see evidence of it happening with Dems, that sort of eventual, incremental change doesn't help the people being separated from their families now.
EDIT: just in case, my "thanks" wasn't at all sarcastic! Not sure how it sounds in text, haha.
I don't want to downplay the impact of this on real people....but this is also clearly Trump in panic mode about polls* showing he's likely to lose in 2020. He's doing what he always does in that...
I don't want to downplay the impact of this on real people....but this is also clearly Trump in panic mode about polls* showing he's likely to lose in 2020. He's doing what he always does in that situation, throwing red meat to his base. And the one thing that riles up his base, 100% of the time, is "we're gonna step up our ethnic cleansing prosecuting criminal illegal aliens".
* Head-to-head polls at this point in the election cycle are notoriously inaccurate. The most recent 538 politics podcast had some Nate Silver Shade about this. No one should draw any sort of "Trump is doomed" conclusion from them, even if Trump himself appears to be.
Polls predicted Hillary would win, right up to election day. Polls may not be effective if people are still embarrassed to admit they are likely to vote for Trump. I kind of feel like this might...
Polls predicted Hillary would win, right up to election day.
Polls may not be effective if people are still embarrassed to admit they are likely to vote for Trump.
I kind of feel like this might be a distraction for some bad news Trump expects next week. Rates not going down, invasion of Iran....
i wish people would stop trotting this trope out, honestly. aside from the fact that presidential polling basically cannot be predictive (only suggestive) of who wins the presidency due to the...
Exemplary
Polls predicted Hillary would win, right up to election day. Polls may not be effective if people are still embarrassed to admit they are likely to vote for Trump.
i wish people would stop trotting this trope out, honestly. aside from the fact that presidential polling basically cannot be predictive (only suggestive) of who wins the presidency due to the electoral college, what happened on election day, 2016 is far more complicated than polling and reducing it purely to what the polls said is incredibly reductive because it was a confluence of events and fuckups on the parts of multiple people that is almost certainly not going to happen in 2020.
as far as actual polling goes, hillary was only polling nationally at around 3 percent ahead of trump on aggregate, well within the margin of error for losing the election. the people who got it wrong on that front were not the pollsters, who actually nailed it, but the punditry, who treated her candidacy and the polling as indicative of a slam dunk against donald when it really was not for a variety of underlying reasons and spectacular misfortunes.
Another myth is that Trump’s victory represented some sort of catastrophic failure for the polls. Trump outperformed his national polls by only 1 to 2 percentage points in losing the popular vote to Clinton, making them slightly closer to the mark than they were in 2012. Meanwhile, he beat his polls by only 2 to 3 percentage points in the average swing state.3 Certainly, there were individual pollsters that had some explaining to do, especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump beat his polls by a larger amount. But the result was not some sort of massive outlier; on the contrary, the polls were pretty much as accurate as they’d been, on average, since 1968.
[...]To be clear, if the polls themselves have gotten too much blame, then misinterpretation and misreporting of the polls is a major part of the story. Throughout the campaign, the polls had hallmarks of high uncertainty, indicating a volatile election with large numbers of undecided voters. And at several key moments they’d also shown a close race. In the week leading up to Election Day, Clinton was only barely ahead in the states she’d need to secure 270 electoral votes. Traditional journalists, as I’ll argue in this series of articles, mostly interpreted the polls as indicating extreme confidence in Clinton’s chances, however.
Probably the most important problem with 2016 coverage was confirmation bias — coupled with what you might call good old-fashioned liberal media bias. Journalists just didn’t believe that someone like Trump could become president, running a populist and at times also nationalist, racist and misogynistic campaign in a country that had twice elected Obama and whose demographics supposedly favored Democrats. So they cherry-picked their way through the data to support their belief, ignoring evidence — such as Clinton’s poor standing in the Midwest — that didn’t fit the narrative.
silver also notes that the election also was very arguably never clinton's to lose in the first place as the media presented it; clinton just happened to get lucky with donald as a truly awful candidate which shifted media priorities away from some of the underlying factors that made her theoretical presidency an uphill battle: "It Wasn’t Clinton’s Election To Lose"
But Clinton faced more headwinds in 2016, trying to win a third consecutive term for her party amid a mediocre economy. Against a “generic” Republican such as John Kasich or Marco Rubio, she might have been in a toss-up race or even a slight underdog, in fact. [...]
Instead, 2016 was generally treated as Clinton’s race to lose when that conclusion didn’t necessarily follow from the empirical research on presidential campaigns. A better perspective was that Clinton was leading in the polls despite somewhat challenging conditions for Democrats, no doubt in part because of Trump’s flaws as a candidate. However, that made her vulnerable if the candidate-quality gap closed — whether because of her own problems as a candidate or because Trump’s performance improved — in which case partisanship would kick in and she’d be headed for a barnburner of a finish.
Incidentally, Clinton slightly outperformed the “fundamentals” according to most of the political science models, which usually forecast the popular vote rather than the Electoral College. For instance, the economic index included in FiveThirtyEight’s “polls-plus” model implied that Trump would win the popular vote by about 1 percentage point. Instead, Clinton won it by roughly 2 percentage points.
moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that it is entirely likely that of any singular event, the comey nothingburger at the end is what cost clinton the election the most (although silver argues against this conclusion), and that had it not happened we'd not even be having a conversation about polls and punditry and predictions: "The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election"
Clinton woke up on the morning of Oct. 28 as the likely — by no means certain — next president. [...] Clinton led by approximately 6 percentage points in national polls and by 6 to 7 points in polls of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Her leads in Florida and North Carolina were narrow, and she was only tied with Trump in Ohio and Iowa.1 But it was a pretty good overall position.
[...]
Clinton’s standing in the polls fell sharply [after the Comey letter]. She’d led Trump by 5.9 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s popular vote projection at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 28. A week later — after polls had time to fully reflect the letter — her lead had declined to 2.9 percentage points. [...] In the average swing state, Clinton’s lead declined from 4.5 percentage points at the start of Oct. 28 to just 1.7 percentage points on Nov. 4. If the polls were off even slightly, Trump could be headed to the White House.
[...]you could postulate that the Comey letter had only about a 1-point impact. Perhaps Clinton’s lead would have been whittled down to around 4.5 points anyway by Election Day because of mean-reversion. And she led in the final polls by about 3.5 points. [...] Nonetheless, Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point, and those states were enough to cost her the election. She lost Florida by just slightly more than 1 point. If the Comey letter had a net impact of only a point or so, we’d have been in recount territory in several of these states — but Clinton would probably have come out ahead.
trump was also simply better at targeting states and pumping money into them than clinton was overall (despite clinton's ground game not really being an issue), which played a part in his victory against the popular vote.
that's not to say that people shouldn't engage with polls somewhat skeptically or be cautious in the runup to 2020, but your takeaway is the wrong takeaway from 2016. the polls for the most part got it right; the people projecting models and writing articles about them for the most part did not; but the polls in general are only one part of the story of why the 2016 election shook out the way it did seemingly in the face of all contrary assumptions, and it's just not likely we'll see the same thing happen even in part in 2020.
As further evidence for your thesis, I'm reminded of the Huffington Post article Nate Silver Is Unskewing Polls — All Of Them — In Trump’s Direction, penned by Ryan Grim a few days before the...
I should have just said that polls are useless this far out from the election. We will definitely see more russian influence, another comey nothingburger, who is to say they wont influence the...
Polls may not be effective if people are still embarrassed to admit they are likely to vote for Trump.
I should have just said that polls are useless this far out from the election.
it's just not likely we'll see the same thing happen even in part in 2020.
We will definitely see more russian influence, another comey nothingburger, who is to say they wont influence the election during the last week with last minute fear mongering? Again, polls are useless this far out from the election.
Trump in panic mode about polls* showing he's likely to lose in 2020
If Trump is in panic mode about polls this far out, it will be a long year.
that would be more accurate, yes. although honestly, i do have to say that donald is... irregular? in some senses. his opinion polling has almost literally not moved in the positive or the...
I should have just said that polls are useless this far out from the election.
that would be more accurate, yes. although honestly, i do have to say that donald is... irregular? in some senses. his opinion polling has almost literally not moved in the positive or the negative throughout his presidency even when you'd expect it to significantly, and his presidential numbers almost invariably correspond to those opinion polling numbers which makes me think that there is some value in the underlying numbers here despite the actual predictive value of the polling this far out being worthless. if he's topping out at mid 40s at the best even in states that demographically benefit him when his campaign is cruising on a great economy and he isn't committing faux-pas every other day, it is quite hard to see where he'd make up the margins he needs to win over the next year and a half, especially considering he only narrowly cleared the bar in 2016 to begin with.
We will definitely see more russian influence, another comey nothingburger, who is to say they wont influence the election during the last week with last minute fear mongering?
well, who's to say that any of those things will happen, either? we just don't know at this point, and i don't see reason to really speculate on it at this stage or factor it into what will actually happen in 2020.
At this point, I'm not sure what can be said or shown to Trump supporters, any remaining Trump supporters, to change their minds. Besides hard core fascists I guess, they've already had to ignore so many ways that his presidency is directly antagonistic to their interests that I doubt one more is going to turn them off.
As an aside though, I'm not at all a fan of that line of argument in favor of immigration. It's not okay to exploit immigrants for cheap labor in harsh conditions just because they weren't born here. If farmers can't find workers at the current rate of pay, they should pay more and strawberries should cost more.
It's adorable how the discussion immediately focuses on immigration policy, whether immigration is good or bad, whether citizens will do farm labor, people voting against their own interests, the rank hypocrisy, etc.
I think all of these policy arguments are utterly irrelevant and completely miss the point.
The point is that an authoritarian regime identified a vulnerable and peaceful minority to take the blame for the nation's problems.
The regime uses sophisticated propaganda techniques to fuel public hatred against this group, which strengthens the regime's grip on power.
And now the regime is mobilizing a massive system of police, paramilitary forces and private corporations to arrest and concentrate this group into internment camps.
Folks, we've seen this pattern of behavior before, and the result is darkness and evil every fucking time.
Does anyone believe that after they've built this apparatus of paramilitaries and camps, that it's just temporary? Will they ever finish arresting people and tear the whole thing down? Or will they just keep identifying new enemies to arrest?
This shit takes on a life of its own. The camps, the police, the propaganda, the fear and public outrage all reinforce each other to keep it going and to keep the regime in power. It's symbiotic.
Maybe, eventually, someone stronger puts a stop to it in a war.
None of this has anything to do with immigration policy.
Why is it an either-or and not a both-and? :P
Is it a matter of pride? People could never admit to being duped by Trump, and certainly couldn't admit that they continued to support him fuckup after fuckup. Maybe the best thing we can do would be to construct an avenue to allow their mental gymnastics to bring them out of that pit. Somehow they need to be fed a sequence of information that lets them safely step forward until finally they're both convinced they did no wrong and that Trump needs to go.
If such a thing isn't possible, then we should start teaching humility to children at school nationwide.
At least with the trump supporters I know, it's more of a matter of willful ignorance. They don't look too deeply into any scandals or information around trump. That combined with a moderate amount of distrust in mainstream news, confirmation bias, and cherry picking information, their belief that trump is a great president remains unchallenged.
What would be the cause of that willful ignorance if not fear or self-realization?
From what I've seen it's mainly laziness and lack of curiosity. Those issues are seen as distant and abstract. The people I know will focus on other things such as entertainment and normal everyday life. It would better be characterized by indifference. I don't understand why they are like that, or how to get them to engage with information that might oppose their views without becoming defensive which makes that information completely ineffective. In short the trump supporters I know made their decision to support trump on a very small set of information and the matter is settled. I don't know of anything that would make them reconsider their decision.
That's not how economics works. If you raise the price of strawberries, people will just buy less strawberries. And the farmers won't just throw up their hands and deal with the costs. They will outsource instead and ship the strawberries in, which will still be cheaper. And you can't just implement tariffs on those imports like Trump tried with China.
There's really no way around it.
also worth noting, people have actually tried to pay more when undocumented labor gets cracked down upon, and it still does not work to attract people the vast majority of the time. most people would genuinely rather take a $7.25/hr job flipping burgers than work a $20/hr job picking fruit in the sun.
Yeah, it's definitely become a cultural problem. Our workforce has become incredibly lazy when it comes to manual labor.
It's not so much laziness as it is nature. Everything in nature will follow the path of least resistance. Cubicle farming and Mcjobs may be tedious and soul-crushing, but they're not as actively dangerous as a lot of manual labor is.
On the other hand, manual labor in America is less dangerous than dealing with cartels at home, so they come here to do it.
So? Sucks for the farmers I guess, but that's a risk you run when your business model relies on breaking the law to exploit people who have no legal recourse.
Why not? I would argue that imposing tariffs on goods imported from countries with lower standards of labor is how you prevent a global race to the bottom.
Farmers will just employ robots for their strawberries:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43816207
I've interviewed a greenhouse owner who hired illegals about 10 years ago. He paid them minimum wage and they all had fake identities. He said he tried to hire "whites" time and time again but they'd invariably be drug addicts, work for a couple days, and then never show up again. The most interesting take-away I had from the experience is that the migrants truly want to be migrants - they had no desire to be US citizens. All of this business of patrolling the border is causing folks to move permanently to the US whereas before they'd just travel back and forth.
The business, like many small businesses, wouldn't exist if they paid $10-$15/hour. It's simply not tenable and the owner explained as much to me. I was there - no one was getting rich.
Folks on the left don't like to hear that raising minimum wages will hurt some businesses but its undeniable. Folks on the Right don't want to hear that the the cost of produce, etc would skyrocket if farmers hired American workers because they'd be forced to pay so much. Why pick apples for $12/hour when I can make that working at McDonalds/driving for uber?
I agree about an easy process to get VISAs and work permits - that gives us cheap legal labor and everyone is happy. However, neither the Right nor Left have been working in good faith on immigration and migrant labor. If either side wanted to, they could crack down on employers hiring illegal immigrants, which they rarely do.
All of the workers received W2's and paid taxes. In fact they may have paid more than a U.S. worker because you know they didn't claim any refunds with their fake identities. And they almost never claimed SNAP benefits, etc because they don't want to be found out and deported.
They all sent money back home. They all risked their lives crossing the border.
You can if they are one of the literally millions of incarcerated individuals in America.
I feel really helpless with this stuff (which I suppose is the point). People suggest calling representatives, but after the last election all three of mine are solid Republicans who have ignored every wave of outraged phone calls. They don't give a shit, because clearly they can keep getting elected in this state.
I could donate a little to RAICES I guess. And I went to a small protest last year. But the major direct action we seem to need isn't happening (and might not be possible for me anyway with my health). What else is there to do...?
Thanks! I've voted in every election since I became a citizen, and I actually work in a sector that involves supporting progressive candidates, GOTV efforts, and recruiting people to run for local office. (Trying to be a little vague because I don't want folks to be able to connect this account to my real name that easily.) Things like organizing and going to meetings are beyond my energy capabilities, but I could probably do more in my day-to-day interactions (even if those are mostly online).
I think part of my helplessness comes from what you describe in your edit. A lot of the strategies to undo these Republican efforts require playing a longer game, and while I can see evidence of it happening with Dems, that sort of eventual, incremental change doesn't help the people being separated from their families now.
EDIT: just in case, my "thanks" wasn't at all sarcastic! Not sure how it sounds in text, haha.
I don't want to downplay the impact of this on real people....but this is also clearly Trump in panic mode about polls* showing he's likely to lose in 2020. He's doing what he always does in that situation, throwing red meat to his base. And the one thing that riles up his base, 100% of the time, is "we're gonna step up our
ethnic cleansingprosecuting criminal illegal aliens".* Head-to-head polls at this point in the election cycle are notoriously inaccurate. The most recent 538 politics podcast had some Nate Silver Shade about this. No one should draw any sort of "Trump is doomed" conclusion from them, even if Trump himself appears to be.
Polls predicted Hillary would win, right up to election day.
Polls may not be effective if people are still embarrassed to admit they are likely to vote for Trump.
I kind of feel like this might be a distraction for some bad news Trump expects next week. Rates not going down, invasion of Iran....
i wish people would stop trotting this trope out, honestly. aside from the fact that presidential polling basically cannot be predictive (only suggestive) of who wins the presidency due to the electoral college, what happened on election day, 2016 is far more complicated than polling and reducing it purely to what the polls said is incredibly reductive because it was a confluence of events and fuckups on the parts of multiple people that is almost certainly not going to happen in 2020.
as far as actual polling goes, hillary was only polling nationally at around 3 percent ahead of trump on aggregate, well within the margin of error for losing the election. the people who got it wrong on that front were not the pollsters, who actually nailed it, but the punditry, who treated her candidacy and the polling as indicative of a slam dunk against donald when it really was not for a variety of underlying reasons and spectacular misfortunes.
to quote nate silver: "The Real Story Of 2016"
the media especially fucked up how they covered the polling: "The Media Has A Probability Problem"
silver also notes that the election also was very arguably never clinton's to lose in the first place as the media presented it; clinton just happened to get lucky with donald as a truly awful candidate which shifted media priorities away from some of the underlying factors that made her theoretical presidency an uphill battle: "It Wasn’t Clinton’s Election To Lose"
moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that it is entirely likely that of any singular event, the comey nothingburger at the end is what cost clinton the election the most (although silver argues against this conclusion), and that had it not happened we'd not even be having a conversation about polls and punditry and predictions: "The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election"
trump was also simply better at targeting states and pumping money into them than clinton was overall (despite clinton's ground game not really being an issue), which played a part in his victory against the popular vote.
that's not to say that people shouldn't engage with polls somewhat skeptically or be cautious in the runup to 2020, but your takeaway is the wrong takeaway from 2016. the polls for the most part got it right; the people projecting models and writing articles about them for the most part did not; but the polls in general are only one part of the story of why the 2016 election shook out the way it did seemingly in the face of all contrary assumptions, and it's just not likely we'll see the same thing happen even in part in 2020.
As further evidence for your thesis, I'm reminded of the Huffington Post article Nate Silver Is Unskewing Polls — All Of Them — In Trump’s Direction, penned by Ryan Grim a few days before the election, which actually faulted Nate Silver for putting the race closer than virtually all other models (despite Silver still predicting Clinton to win). Nate Silver was not impressed.
Ironically, Grim's apology to Silver seems to suggest, as you concluded, that punditry is the problem... but then Grim totally misses the mark.
I should have just said that polls are useless this far out from the election.
We will definitely see more russian influence, another comey nothingburger, who is to say they wont influence the election during the last week with last minute fear mongering? Again, polls are useless this far out from the election.
If Trump is in panic mode about polls this far out, it will be a long year.
that would be more accurate, yes. although honestly, i do have to say that donald is... irregular? in some senses. his opinion polling has almost literally not moved in the positive or the negative throughout his presidency even when you'd expect it to significantly, and his presidential numbers almost invariably correspond to those opinion polling numbers which makes me think that there is some value in the underlying numbers here despite the actual predictive value of the polling this far out being worthless. if he's topping out at mid 40s at the best even in states that demographically benefit him when his campaign is cruising on a great economy and he isn't committing faux-pas every other day, it is quite hard to see where he'd make up the margins he needs to win over the next year and a half, especially considering he only narrowly cleared the bar in 2016 to begin with.
well, who's to say that any of those things will happen, either? we just don't know at this point, and i don't see reason to really speculate on it at this stage or factor it into what will actually happen in 2020.
Is he going to start with the employees at his shitty country clubs?