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May 23, 2004 Economic Perceptions: (Or: In the long run, half of us are dead) This poll result is interesting.... For you and your family, does it feel like the economy is getting better or worse?Note the disparity between the Democrats and the Republicans perception of the economy. Economic conditions are certainly not dependent upon Party affiliation. The unemployment rate is 5.6% - statistically average - so it's hard to believe personal unemployment could account for the personal economic dissatisfaction of 72% of Democrats. So, what is it? Frankly, I can think of two things that would lead to such a wide disparity between Party perceptions of the economy: rhetoric and selection bias. Democrats will tend to listen to Democrats to get an impression of the economy. At this point, Democrats are complaining about it, because (of course) they have to do so to win the election. Thus, they ignore just about every major economic statistic - and even the OECD is pointing out that the US "economy has already been growing well above potential - in favor of carefully selected, often misleading or incorrect, Scare Stats (See Kerry: "the gap between White and Latino homeownership has increased by seven percent") To illustrate, I offer anecdotal evidence. I spoke to a very liberal friend recently. While discussing the economy, he suggested we were suffering "record high levels of unemployment". Huh?!?! I was shocked, to say the least. So, I pulled up the BLS stats, and showed him that the current levels were perfectly average over the past 15 years, and very very low compared to previous post-recessionary periods. He had no idea. And he had no idea because of his news selection bias. I suspect the results would be much the same for a similar survey done in 1996, with Republicans Very Concerned about the state of the economy, which they hear is doing Very Badly. |
I have a slightly different interpretation/analysis of the poll:
I think it indicates that the vast majority of left-leaning Democrats live in an alternate reality of their own making. They are deluded. They have a diathesis for delusion because leftists are largely under the spell of post-modernism and therefore they doctrinally reject objectivity, rationalism. truth, facts, and history.
Most of the Left's arguments are largely based on errors of logic and bad reasoning: They argue from feelings; they employ analogies which conflate disparate things; they hypostatize heuristic devices and give them ontological verity - (like the concept of "class.") This is one reason why Marxist economic theory fails as economic predictor - and why there have been NO communist revolutions of the type that Marx and Engels predicted. And this is why Game Theory works as a predictor of economic activity. People - individual persons - are the only true agents.
ALSO: The Left hates Bush, and therefore The Left will never accept anything he does as good no matter what it is: The largest increase in domestic welfare spending in fifty years; a liberal immigration proposal; a classically liberal war that the FDR of the Four Freedoms speech would have lauded; and a black Sec. of State and a black FEMALE National Security Advisor. (To mention just a few things that had Clinton done them - they would've supported.)
This is NOT mere partisanship; this goes beyond partisanship; this reveals what is essentially a disconnect from reality AND a disconnect from a half-century of commitment to human rights.
What is more, this hypocritical attitude comes in the middle of war-time when the USA is threatened on our own shores for the first time! Shame on them!
I am a centrist, neo-libertarian, 4th generation, DLC-type Democrat who will PROUDLY vote for Bush. Even though Bush is far from perfect.
YES: Bush is far from perfect - but which president was perfect? None. But most accomplished many good things; especially Nixon - (WHOM THE IRRATIONAL LEFT HAS DEMONIZED THE MOST (THOUGH REAGAN AND "W" MAY COME IN TIED FOR SECOND) ended the draft, virtually ended the Vietnam War; opened up China; started the EPA and passed the Clean Air Clean Water Act; STARTED "détente"; tried Wage and Price Controls (a bad idea - but he tried!); proposed a national minimum income; and in the partisan arena, he re-aligned to two parties: taking the South for the GOP - (and all this in just 4 years!) accomplishing more than Clinton in 8 years - (and perhaps even more than Ford Carter and G.H. Bush COMBINMED!). Perhaps -- PARTISAN POLITICS ASIDE -- Nixon was one of our best presidents!?
Perhaps... BUT YOU WIL NEVER GET A LEFT-WING/LIBERAL DEMOCRAT TO EVEN CONSIDER IT! Why? They are closed-minded and victims of their own cognitive dissonance; they are unable to admit that their life-long commitment to leftist ideas and leftist policies was - in the light of the demise of the USSR altogether and of "Red China" as communist state - proves that Hayek was right and Marx (and all of his acolytes) TOTALLY WRONG.
And this is why the FOXNEWS poll result which OXBLOG related are so very skewed, and why the Leftists' feelings about the economy runs so very counter to ALL THE FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE, NON-PARTISAN DATA.
Because Leftists deny reality, and when confronted by facts which negate their long-held fictions, they become angry due to cognitive dissonance, and this anger further blinds them to the truth - it makes them even more irrational. To the point that they do not even know when the economy - which they participate in everyday - is doing better.
Posted by: dan at May 23, 2004 08:24 PM
Ind- - - - - 27% - - - 47 - - - - 23 - - - - - 3
You explain the Dems and the Reps, but what accounts for the stupidity of the Indy voters? Media bias I would presume?
Posted by: shark at May 23, 2004 09:18 PM
As today's PEW media survey revealed today, the MSM is leftwing; this does have an effect on what they report and how they reprt it, and this probably effects people who IDENTIFY themselves as not party affiliated.
The MSM has NEVER reported that today's unemployment numbers ARE EXCACTLY what they were when Clinton ran for re-election, and about what they have averaged since WW2. The MSM reports on the numbers AS IF things were worse thsan they are - and this HAS TO HAVE AN EFFECT on people.
Independents - unlike people on the right-wing, or people in the GOP - may depend more on MSM.
People on the right and in the GOP have known for many many years that the MSM is left-wing, and as a result have developed their own media and think-tanks to investigate, analyze, deseminate and report the TRUTH.
And left-winger and independents DO NOT USE THESE RESOURCES AS MUCH AS THEY SHOULD!
I am a centrist DLC type - and most of my friends are left-of-center Dems - who NEVER READ ANYTHING EXCEPT THE LEFT-OF-CENTER MSM.
As a result, they simply are less well-informned, are misinformed. But they prefer being preached lies by their comrades, than th truth by members of the GOP.
I always chide them: "HOW CAN YIOU DECIDE WHO HAS WON A DEBATE IF YOU ALWAYS ONLY PAY ATTETION TO ONE SIDE!?!?!?!?!?!"
Yet they still refuse even to watch FOXNES.
This is arrogant, narrow-minded, and can only lead them to bad decisions.
But their cognitive dissonance doiesn;t allow them to listen to the RIGHT-SIDE of any debate; they "tune out" - to use the left-wing phrase from the 60's.
A MAJOR need of each party is to reach the UNDECIDEDS and the INDEPENDENTS. The left-wing can do this more easily because the MSM is left-wing.
The right-wing needs to be more creative: using radio, and the blogosphere.
Or by getting more of the MSM to at least regularly run more right-of-center OP-Eds, and talking heads.
Posted by: dan at May 23, 2004 09:55 PM
ALSO:::::::: the INDPENDENTS are really not so far off the mark as the DEMS:::::
if you add the feels the "same" to the feels "better" of the INDS it comes to 50%.
whereas the same two columns in the DEMS is HALF of that = 25%.
a difference of degree which I believe PROVES that the left-wing is delusional.
Posted by: dan at May 23, 2004 09:59 PM
Good job being informed, Jon. Unemployment was much higher in the early 80s, I believe.
Posted by: Mark at May 24, 2004 01:14 AM
Thanks for that insightful comment! It makes interesting reading, especially when I need a payday loans.
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