I wimped on a bet that Trump wouldn’t cross 55% in the Rasmussen poll by 12/31/19. He’s at 51% right now and I chickened out when he was at 52% (on the day they announced House Impeachment proceedings.)
So… the reason I joined a prediction market is to detect bullshit. How’s the whole thing look in the long term? The press tells us that Trump is a disgusting irredeemably deplorable shithead. It also tells us that Obama was descended from heaven to grace our populace.
Is the press reporting what’s true out there or are they reporting out of their own heads (a.k.a. bullshit)? Lucky for me, I have data. I can find Obama’s Rasmussen rating from 2008-2016. To remove seasonal variation I looked only at December 6 values and only for “total approval”. It’s all here. (In 2015 the 6th fell on a weekend so I used December 7th.)
Obama’s poll numbers:
- 2008 67%*
- 2009 47%
- 2010 47%
- 2011 45%
- 2012 54%
- 2013 42%
- 2014 46%
- 2015 45%
- 2016 55%
I can get the same data for Trump. It’s all here.
- 2017 42%
- 2018 49%
- 2019 51%
What’s the average rating for December 6th?
- Obama, whom the press covered as the greatest human on earth: Average = 49.7%
- Trump, whom the press reports as less popular than Ebola: Average = 47.3%
If you turned on any news outlet in any market for any period of time, would you derive the fact that Trump’s long term average is only 2.5% less than Obama? Would you derive that Trump’s rating today beats Obama’s same year rating for 6 of 9 years?
Fake news is a thing y’all.
A.C.
* Note: did you notice that Obama’s presidential rating was 67% on December 6, 2008… a day when he wasn’t actually president? Don’t ask me how that works out. I didn’t reject it out of hand because I didn’t want any kool-aid drinkers bitching that I “hand picked” the numbers. If you compare only those years when the individual was actually in office Obama’s average drops to 47.6%.
- Obama’s “total approval rating” while in office: Average 47.6%
- Trump’s “total approval rating” while in office: Average 47.3%
That right there folks tells you the press is reporting things that the American people aren’t. The two diametrically opposed presidents yield essentially statistically identical results.
