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Trump's alternate reality as goes approbation for his wall

Xelor

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In a Christmas Day press conference, Trump said many federal workers have told him to hold out for wall funding, though the President didn't provide names or positions of those workers.
"But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. These federal workers want the wall. The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats, because they don't mind open borders, but open borders mean massive amounts of crime."
(Source)​
I have no idea of who those federal workers are, and Trump, as usual, provided no credible/verifiable reference point, but if I had to wager money, I'd bet that all of them are people whom he appointed to the WH staff and/or other department/agency.

Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that regardless of what those alleged federal workers have told Trump, most people don't support building a wall on the US-Mexico border.
  • Jan 2017 - Pew Research

    hztksx7
    zbketha

  • June 2018 - Gallup
    • 57% oppose expanding the construction of walls along the nation's Southern border
    • 41% favor expanding construction of walls along U.S.-Mexico border
  • Nov 2018 -- Morning Consult
    • 55% of registered voters, including 34% of Republicans, say increased wall funding isn’t worth a shutdown.
    • 47% plurality also said passing a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s job isn’t worth shutting down the government.
  • Dec 2018 -- FiveThirtyEight (reporting on other organizations' data collection) -- The public's approbation for the wall hasn't changed much
    • PBS/Marist (Dec 2018)
      • 57% of Americans think Trump should “compromise on the border wall to prevent gridlock”
      • 36% think he shouldn’t compromise even if that means a government shutdown.
      • 30% of respondents who identify as Trump supporters said he should compromise on the wall
    • CBS (March 2018)
      • 60% oppose building a US-Mexico border wall
    • CBS (Nov 2018)
      • 28% of those who favored the wall didn't believe that it warrants a partial government shutdown

Subsequent to the above polls, Trump has remarked, "Remember the Caravans? Well, they didn't get through."
  • Wonder of wonders! How many thousand people didn't illegally enter the US even though Trump's wall hasn't been built?
If Trump wants to "sell" his wall, well, that is what it is. He needs to do so by referring to what can be verified rather than making unsubstantiated claims that contradict all available information. Unless/until he can and does do so, he really ought to just keep mum on the matter.


The elementary rules of logic: that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
-- Christopher Hitchens​
 
Trump does not utilize facts, nor does Trump care about facts.

Trumps tweets are meant for his hard-core base, not America writ-large.
 
Trump does not utilize facts, nor does Trump care about facts.

Trumps tweets are meant for his hard-core base, not America writ-large.

Trump doesn't have the capacity and is incapable of dealing with complex issues or different opinions even from supporters. I used to think he dumbed down his messages for the cult, but it's obvious by now that these Tweets are the best be can do.

I'm counting the days when Nancy takes the reins...
 
In a Christmas Day press conference, Trump said many federal workers have told him to hold out for wall funding, though the President didn't provide names or positions of those workers.
"But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. These federal workers want the wall. The only one that doesn't want the wall are the Democrats, because they don't mind open borders, but open borders mean massive amounts of crime."
(Source)​
I have no idea of who those federal workers are, and Trump, as usual, provided no credible/verifiable reference point, but if I had to wager money, I'd bet that all of them are people whom he appointed to the WH staff and/or other department/agency.

Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that regardless of what those alleged federal workers have told Trump, most people don't support building a wall on the US-Mexico border.
  • Jan 2017 - Pew Research

    hztksx7
    zbketha

  • June 2018 - Gallup
    • 57% oppose expanding the construction of walls along the nation's Southern border
    • 41% favor expanding construction of walls along U.S.-Mexico border
  • Nov 2018 -- Morning Consult
    • 55% of registered voters, including 34% of Republicans, say increased wall funding isn’t worth a shutdown.
    • 47% plurality also said passing a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s job isn’t worth shutting down the government.
  • Dec 2018 -- FiveThirtyEight (reporting on other organizations' data collection) -- The public's approbation for the wall hasn't changed much
    • PBS/Marist (Dec 2018)
      • 57% of Americans think Trump should “compromise on the border wall to prevent gridlock”
      • 36% think he shouldn’t compromise even if that means a government shutdown.
      • 30% of respondents who identify as Trump supporters said he should compromise on the wall
    • CBS (March 2018)
      • 60% oppose building a US-Mexico border wall
    • CBS (Nov 2018)
      • 28% of those who favored the wall didn't believe that it warrants a partial government shutdown

Subsequent to the above polls, Trump has remarked, "Remember the Caravans? Well, they didn't get through."
  • Wonder of wonders! How many thousand people didn't illegally enter the US even though Trump's wall hasn't been built?
If Trump wants to "sell" his wall, well, that is what it is. He needs to do so by referring to what can be verified rather than making unsubstantiated claims that contradict all available information. Unless/until he can and does do so, he really ought to just keep mum on the matter.


The elementary rules of logic: that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
-- Christopher Hitchens​

Are these the same pollsters that said Trump had less then a 30% chance of winning the presidency?
 
I think the one thing that's interesting is the crowd sourcing effort right now; that should really identify the folks who feels so strongly about it they're willing to put their money where there mouths are.

:)
 
Are these the same pollsters that said Trump had less then a 30% chance of winning the presidency?

You'll need to research the answer to that for yourself.

If/when you do so, I suggest you also bother to understand the difference between a forecast, which is what you've asked about, and a tallying/estimate of extant circumstances, which is called measurement. They are very different things that use related techniques.
 
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You'll need to research the answer to that for yourself.

If/when you do so, I suggest you also bother to understand the difference between a forecast and a tallying/estimate of extant circumstances.

As well as gain a fundamental understanding of what polls do and how statistics work.
 
I think the one thing that's interesting is the crowd sourcing effort right now; that should really identify the folks who feels so strongly about it they're willing to put their money where there mouths are.

:)

Well, given that the GoFundMe (and, IIRC, another similar undertaking) exists and there're no impediments to one's donating to that fundraising effort, one may infer that the quantity of unique individuals who've donated to any one of the fundraising efforts is the quantity of "folks who [feel] so strongly about it they're willing to put their money where [their] mouths are." That the noted inference can be made, however, creates an even bigger problem for Trump and other US-Mexico border wall supporters: That quantity of individuals doesn't correspond to so much as one percent of the quantity of people who voted for Trump, to say nothing of one percent of the adult population of the US. (See Note 1 at the preceding link.)

What about the rest of the wall supporters, those who haven't contributed to the fundraising efforts? Well, one can safely infer that, as with the above noted donors, they approve of spending some share of your and their federal income tax remittances to get the wall built, but they aren't willing to contribute any separate sum of their own to that end.
 
Well, given that the GoFundMe (and, IIRC, another similar undertaking) exists and there're no impediments to one's donating to that fundraising effort, one may infer that the quantity of unique individuals who've donated to any one of the fundraising efforts is the quantity of "folks who [feel] so strongly about it they're willing to put their money where [their] mouths are." That the noted inference can be made, however, creates an even bigger problem for Trump and other US-Mexico border wall supporters: That quantity of individuals doesn't correspond to so much as one percent of the quantity of people who voted for Trump, to say nothing of one percent of the adult population of the US. (See Note 1 at the preceding link.)

What about the rest of the wall supporters, those who haven't contributed to the fundraising efforts? Well, one can safely infer that, as with the above noted donors, they approve of spending some share of your and their federal income tax remittances to get the wall built, but they aren't willing to contribute any separate sum of their own to that end.

Well said. I don't see a path forward for a private funding of a wall across the Southern Border. These funding efforts are not the US government and just raising the money does not give them the right to determine what will or will not be at the Southern Border. They would do just as well to give the money to charity.....better actually. At the rate they are going they might reach their first $1B in 2-3 Years. Doubt they will maintain even this rate once it dawns on them that private citizen can't drive a government project just by providing private funding for it.
 
Well said. I don't see a path forward for a private funding of a wall across the Southern Border. These funding efforts are not the US government and just raising the money does not give them the right to determine what will or will not be at the Southern Border. They would do just as well to give the money to charity.....better actually. At the rate they are going they might reach their first $1B in 2-3 Years. Doubt they will maintain even this rate once it dawns on them that private citizen can't drive a government project just by providing private funding for it.

Red:
Don't get ahead of yourself. Were donors to indeed raise enough to fund the wall and a sufficient-enough share of its maintenance, that money could most certainly be donated to the US government subject to a restriction that it be used to build a wall. Such a restricted-use donation, if accepted, would hardly be the first one the gov't has accepted. Yes, Congress would have to pass some sort of act to make it happen, but it's neither assured nor dubitable that Congress would or wouldn't do so.

As for how long it'd take to raise the requisite sum from private sources, well, I have no way to estimate that. How long does it take a bevy of wall-supporting billionaires and some sized scourge of less well heeled Trump/wall supporters to do donate some $30B? I have no idea.
 
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