Isn't this the same problem of many people who feel otherwise not participating in polls? The conservative subreddit shows a very different story. I'm sure the asktrumpsupporters sub does also.
I think modern polling is deeply flawed, but taking the sentiments of a particular subreddit as more representative of an entire political party than the polling is probably taking it too far.
The polling is frequently wrong. I believe the subreddits (not just one) are mostly real people giving their views. They are not just random subs, they are the subs for those particular ideologies. They also match the opinions media pundits put out, and match various supporters appearing in other media, like the Jubilee Surrounded videos. On the balance of evidence available, it seems most people in that party is more for than against what has been going on.
We've gotten to a dark place where someone doesn't just slip into an echo chamber by accident but actively chooses to believe that selectively sampled data sources are actually superior to sources that attempt randomization.
There is no sane reason to think the subreddits nor Jubilee videos are actually representative, and certainly no reason to believe they are representative in contradiction to virtually every poll conducted in the past 12 months.
"Prior polls are wrong" is a lazy man's way out. Polls actually have been way less wrong than people commonly meme about, and again there's no sane reason to say "sources that attempt randomization were wrong so therefore sources that actively bias their samples are probably better."
It's not a dark place to try and be objective and take data from multiple sources, and shame on you for trying to paint doing so as something negative.
> There is no sane reason to think the subreddits nor Jubilee videos are actually representative, and certainly no reason to believe they are representative in contradiction to virtually every poll conducted in the past 12 months.
It's not just those sources, it's basically every single source yo ucan fine with people giving an opinion. Every talk show (Fox/News Nation/ONE, etc), all the right aligned papers e.g. NY Post, WSJ, all the podcasters, all the influencers, and yes, whenever supporters are given a chance to speak, they overwhelming are pleased and support what is going on.
At some point, ignoring all that and favoring purely a few polls is wilful ignorance, and I have to question the motive of anyone doing so. At a guess, I'd guess it's someone that voted conservative but doesn't want to be lumped in with 'the bad ones'.
No, I'm just not ignoring the majority of data points that disagree with the reality a particular reality I hope to wish into existence with the power of belief.
Both of those are heavily astroturfed / propagandized. Historically they often did reflect the views of supporters, because the subreddits mirror the talking points presented across all other conservative media - and most conservatives adopt their beliefs from those media sources. Thus, even though the voices you read on the subreddits are mostly "bots", they typically mirror the sentiment you'll hear from the actual people.
However, this is not guaranteed to always be the case - and regardless, the voices on r/conservative and r/asktrumpsupporters are not necessarily actual real people's voices, even if they usually say similar things as real people.
Yes, I recognize this has echoes of the "no true scotsman" fallacy, but it's just an accurate description of the system.
> Both of those are heavily astroturfed / propagandized.
I'm pretty skeptical of that, honestly. I think if we apply Occam, it's just that there are enough people that do feel like that. Look at some of the Jubilee 'Surrounded' videos to see that such people are not in short supply.
There's not much financial motive in building up or buying accounts just for them to say they agree with what's going on - it doesn't help anyone in power right now. Anecdotal, but the users I check the profile history off seem legitimate posting across several different subs also.
> I'm pretty skeptical of that, honestly. I think if we apply Occam, it's just that there are enough people that do feel like that.
After following that sub fairly closely in the days after big scandals on the GOP side since Jan 6th, I can personally vouch for r/conservative being incredibly controlled and propagandized.
Not only do the mods delete many even slightly critical comments by their own flaired conservative users pretty quickly, almost any thread about a scandal or gaffe that's not filled with one-sided commentary is also deleted after a few days. The last big example I remember was the tariff stuff over the last year - there were always at least three or more posts about any new announcement, and the ones with the most negative comments were gone after a few days.
I can't show you archived data since those tools stopped working due to AI scraping, but I implore you to at least follow a few negative threads and to take regular snapshots. I've never seen any other internet community that's modded so strictly without admitting to it.
And yet, you can still go to any thread, find dissenting and sometimes negative opinions by users with accounts that are several years old.
I'm not claiming it's super reliable or super representative, but I do think it is representative as one point, and despite all the issues around the sub, that representation matches most other sources. Except a few polls, which I don't think count for much these days.
> It's as far away from representative as it can be.
Nah. If that were the case, it wouldn't match conservative opinions from so many other sources.
Let me ask you something. You said you're 'from the GOP side above'. Can you rule out confirmation bias here, that you don't want to be affiliated with support of what is going on, so you're focusing on evidence that you think shows that your 'side' doesn't support it?
You can try an experiment for yourself. If you have a Reddit account, comment something on one of these subreddits that doesn't toe the party line. Wait less than 24 hours until your comment is removed and you are banned.
What do you think that proves, though? Yes, they don't let anti-conservative people comment in the sub, that doesn't mean the people that are posting are bots or paid.
It's the same as all the Tesla subreddits, they ban and delete anything negative so casual readers don't get anything but a very biased and curated viewpoint.
Even worse, the subreddit they are using as their example of common "conservative thought" is a subreddit where only verified Conservative users can post, and any dissenting opinion is met with bans and post deletion. You have to go to their Discord and provide enough proof your are conservative (MAGA) before they will let you post.
It's not indicative of how people feel in general. It's a very specific, coaxed and managed image.
I am not lying when I say the front page of the Conservative subreddit is run by less than 10 accounts. You can go there now and see that most of the submissions on the front page of the subreddit is split between the same 3-4 users at any given time.
It's representative of the opinions conservatives share. There are many more commenters than submissions, and other conservative subs like asktrumpsupporters show the same sentiments.
A lot of conservatives in this discussion suddenly seem embarrassed by the side they chose and really want to distance themselves from it.
The conservative subreddit isn't fake as such, it's just incredibly tightly curated and so not in any way representative. Number of deleted comments is a better barometer than tone of remaining comments, if still not a great one, because you're simply not going to see any significant number straying too far from the party line.
I mean, there's plenty of disagreement to the point many call anyone who dissents "fellow conservative", which has become kind of a joke. The official line is they remove any non-conservative posts, which doesn't seem relevant when assessing to what extent conservative posters support what is going in with ICE currently.
You can certainly prioritize evidence as you like, but I explained why when balancing all available evidence, it seems supporters are fine with what is happening. They say as much unambiguously in multiple places across multiple venues. I'll take that over a poll anyday.
Surely there are enough supporters to populate the message boards on which supporters congregate with messages of support. No doubt about that.
If you think that gives you a read on the overall attitude, then unfortunately there's nothing I can say to help you.
It is literally mathematically nonsensical to look at the numerator, put no effort into knowing the denominator, and then claim to have a sense for the ratio between them. It's shocking to see someone explicitly claim they can do this lmao.
I don't need help from you, thanks for the offer though, however misguided.
Like I said, you're free to ignore all the datapoints that disagree with you and focus on the one that doesn't, if that makes you feel better.
I don't think there's much for us to discuss, and instead of going back and forth ad nauseum I'd just really appreciate it if you stopped replying to me altogether.
So you have more data points? I am in fact interesting in them, I don't care too much who's in the right in this very discussion as this is all way too serious to be about who it being right.
But from what I have read with 'data' you mean your general impression from subreddits? Or do you have more robust data?
I can imagine a few affects that lead to the subreddit(s) evolve independent of the average opinion of R voters. It happens all the time with subreddits.
But then again, maybe you got more information about it?
I mean all data points taken as a whole bar the polls. I listed some of them earlier, ever talk show, opinion column, podcast, influencers (bar Joe Rogan), people calling in to radio shows. Anywhere you can find people giving an opinion, not just paid professionals but random people calling or writing in, it's in support. Literally 'the word on the street'. I don't think that's worth nothing, and I think that can be more representative than polls, as 2016 showed.
Furthermore, there's a lot of people who I think voted R who are now embarrassed and trying to defend the party and paint the people who support what is going on as a minority view, when it isn't.
I don't think their observations would even require such an evolution.
If public support among conservatives were at 15% or 85%, you'd see nearly identical output from the information sources they mention.
Jubilee videos would be full of the most goofball extremist people they could find, r/conservative would have enough people in the 15% to deter or actively suppress those who weren't (especially if the few moderators happened to be), the Fox News comment section would be packed to the gills with people in support, and Newsmax would be calling anyone not in the 15% a commie/RINO.
It's a totally absurd way to try to understand reality. The fact they suggest sampling from r/asktrumpsupporters (or r/peoplewhosupportClaimX) to understand how many conservatives support X is indicative of a fairly profound cognitive failure.
Note: This is not to suggest support among conservatives is actually in the 15% range. It's not. It's probably closer to 80% and with independents (and obviously Dems) overwhelmingly negative on the approach.
From before the Pretti murder, which flipped several conservatives I know personally, 23% of Republicans are saying ICE has gone too far: