Still troubled

The ability to "micro target" and "influence voters" still troubles me. It's not so much that it happened because it probably did.

The question is about whether it helped sway the entire election.

I keep going back to the polling that was taking place. Near the end of September, the polls looked like this:
Clinton: 49%
Trump: 45%
Other: 3%
Undecided: 3%

Now to be fair, a month or so before, the undecided percentage was higher and looked something like this:
Clinton: 45%
Trump: 37%
Other: 9%
Undecided: 9%

So in essence, they each took some of the undecided and other voters.

But people are funny. Some of the ones who switched might have been single issue folks who could be swayed. But I can't see how it would be enough to swing the election, can you?

I doubt it. Especially since Clinton won the popular vote.

The more I consider it, look into it, and understand it, it seems much more likely that the effort required to affect the vote itself is much less than trying to influence voters and maybe get a result.

Think about the voter suppression efforts. The subtle attempts to change voting locations and times they were open for early voting. The mailers that went out that were intended to confuse voters. The ID requirements. The provisional ballots in some cases.

And then, of course, there is the VERY REAL prospect that votes were altered, or not counted properly.

Electronic voting is vulnerable, as unhackthevote.com and others have shown us.

Or maybe it was even simpler. We know that some election databases were hacked. To what aim? Whatever it is, it can't be good. Perhaps it was to target some voters so they would encounter issues and have to be provisional - and essentially uncounted.

Hopefully we'll know the truth one day. Our democracy depends on it. Let's simply go back to paper ballots and hand counting them until we find a better way.

Build that wall?!

I coach soccer. There is a term for when players stand in a line to prevent a good view of the goal and potentially block the kick. It's called a wall.

So we're playing today and the opposing coach tells his team to build a wall on a free kick. They do. My team cleverly passed the ball to a player near the end of that line and then that player took a shot on the goal and scored.

The opposing coach said something about the wall not moving.

And that's when the metaphor hit me: it's always possible to get around said wall.

Voting against your own self interests

I saw a recent report that el donaldos latest order which removes subsidies for the healthcare market will disproportionately impact people in 20 or so states that he won, and where people really supported him. And to be fair, these are states where people have been historically under insured - and who were helped by Obamacare.

Before Obamacare, there was money given to the state through various programs to fund public hospitals and support the states general health issues. So people could (and did) turn to the public care system when they got sick and didn't have insurance. But all that money was consolidated into the subsidy program, and its not being returned to the public health system.

So in effect, their support of this guy actually worked against their own best interests. And their own health and well being.

It makes no sense, and perhaps at some point, they will realize that they were conned.

So I have to ask "why are you hitting yourself?"

Nonsensical Rifle Addiction

This video by the Dutch is pretty spot on.

A follow up. I know why...

While I can't understand how people are so easily influenced, I do know why the attempt was made: this was an effort to disrupt business as usual in the US. To sow seeds of civil discourse that would surely help to take the US off the world stage.

I don't think they ever imagined it work as well as it did. I think they wanted disinformation to aid the cause, but could only dream that we would be so petty, so stupid. And that it continues now is simply mind boggling.

People are still hung up on the contrived controversies like kneeling. Unbelievable.

Yes, Nelson, haha indeed.

What am I missing?

Vote hacking is one thing. That would actually change the outcome of an election.

But this whole discussion about how the voting public could be swayed by articles on Facebook, items on twitter, etc. That just baffles me.

Look, I get the technology of target ring and making people feel a certain way about a topic.

What I don't understand is the human nature of it. How is that people are so ambivalent about an election? How is it that a single issue - and a candidates position (or perceived position) on that issue - can sway you? How can a negative article about one of the candidates can push you?

Aren't we all adults here? Can't we make decision based on our own beliefs? Why do we need someone else to influence us?

I see the ads for cars and sodas, and I know people who would never, ever pick the competitor. Because they are a lifer for the one they prefer. People do the same with their sports teams.

And yet when it comes to things like an election, they can't decide and get swayed by an ad that targets them for something as simple as "so and so likes this soda better"...hey I like that soda! I need to vote for him/her!

It's amazing to me. I had a friend who used to tell me "people are dicks" and I guess she was proven to be right.

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions (Address by Abraham Lincoln before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, January 27, 1838)

Lincoln had some powerful words. This speech still resonates, perhaps as much today as when he gave it in 1838. 

He was talking about abolition, and specifically about the burning of a black man. So context is important. But nevertheless, his words fit into today where there was an assault on our democracy and congress sits mostly in idle and lets it happen for their own agenda. 

The piece that of the speech I find interesting is this: 

How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. 

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0006.103/--perpetuation-of-our-political-institutions-address?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone.