Thread by @RachelBitecofer

1. So the youtube/economist poll is an online survey, which means its technically not a random prob sample (like the other onlines). These onlines (morning consult is another) make up for that downside by being FAR cheaper to run & thus being able to provide large n- which is

2. critical, bc in surveys w n less than really 800 (and that is pushing it) no one should be talking about cross tab data unless its a result in which a particular result is like a 15pt spread. Anything 7 pts is pushing it, bc the margins of error on crosstabs are about double

3. the overall survey n (this is a dirty little secret of polling) which is why I kinda cringe through the whole time TV analysts or threads are running through cross tabs and NOT telling you this and running through them AT ALL off of a survey with a 500 or 600 n size. Shouldn't

4. ever happen. Anyhoo, so the large n onlines are great, bc they come out every couple of weeks, are jammed full of a zillion Qs, and have low crosstab margin of errors. They're sad bc I never have access to their raw data files. Sigh. But I use youtube/economist to track the

5. the cycle, knowing its got issues and limitations but at least sticking it out w the one will make those systemic. Another nice thing about the online is they reach more actual young voters bc as a polling capable person, the single largest "weight" you apply to live telephone

6. surveys (which are still the gold standard) is voters under 30 who have better things to do than take surveys. Another downside of online surveys is you can't have a live (trained) interviewer re-read and question and gently encourage respondents towards answering & and lot of

7. these online surveys use paid respondents who get $ to take the survey and are thus not incentivized in the same as volunteers who take them out of interest (for some surveys this is prob a GOOD thing, but I'd argue mb not for horserace polling as interest is, after all, what

8. drive them actually vote. In the big polling special you will be shocked to find out how many people lie about voting (a lot). But in the online panels there's no one to re-read a hard question so the non-response rates are universally higher & that is often what the reason

9. that you'll have large % don't know/no opinions. This is not 1 of those times y'all.

40% of VOTERS (not just American adults) in a survey where less than 10% of the electorate is unsettled about their voting intentions in Nov know who Atty Gen Bill Barr is.

Please, if you

10. are reading this, perhaps you've read my other recent commentaries about the actual Fake News media ecosystem on the Right that is so prolific now that even after tapes of Donald Trump himself have been released onto the internet affirming the virus will kill you- any and all

11. you: young and old, sick & healthy and yet in 5 weeks Trump is going to host 15 rallies that'll look like THIS one in jacksonville & perhaps the super spreader event he is holding right now, here in Newport News. And these people are going to go home & some of them are going

12. to get infected there, & infect their family members. Some of them will die. Some will incur permanent disabilities. He KNOWS this and Bob Woodward MUST allow his voice to be played out in campaign ads so that as many people as possible will hear him knowing it. And they also

13. need to hear the voice of @OliviaTroye telling @mitchellreports how Trump celebrated the pandemic so he wouldn't have to touch his "disgusting" supporters anymore. Those things must happen in as many way as possible. They must infiltrate as many bubbles as possible. And as I

14. stated in my @Morning_Joe convo, the entirety of the Rep Party is now encased in an "alternative fact" cocoon. We must infiltrate it bc Fox News plays in every dentist office, car dealership, and auto mechanic shop in OH, in GA, in TX. We must treat it like the Matrix: so

15. invisible is the bubble the shape of it is no longer discernable. Up to now, Democrats, democracy reformists, academics, etc: its always been about REACTION. A. happens, we respond w B. Technically, this is the case w what I propose here too bc A. was set into motion back

16. when the pandemic & economic collapse made more obvious to everyone what was already obvs to my research: 2020 is a "battle of the bases" (really though, its the party's coalitions-including their Indie Leaners) and the Dem's coalition is simply bigger nytimes.com/2019/01/24/opi…

17. As I have told many of the groups I've addressed- we've seen virtually no additional movement away from Trump by Rs and this includes R leaners at least up through June. I have asked for any signs of change in the Voter Study Group data used for the analysis ⬇️ bc the final

18. wave will not be publicly released until after the election & have been apprised that there is no diff in the more recent data. Please, take a second to let that sink in. From over the summer- when the Trump Admin & the GOP govs could no longer hide the obvious folly of their

19. "herd immunity" strategy- a strategy that they have not formally named, liked Sweden but what else do you call a response in which businesses, public spaces, & schools are reopening while infection rates are not only high, but STILL RISING, which is precisely what was done in

20. FL, GA, TX, AZ, IA, and other states starting in late April despite the stern warning of health officials- even the ones not muzzled within the admin in the CDC and HHS. Trump's herd immunity strategy that, thanks to the honor & integrity of Bob Woodward we now understand to

21. to have been executed despite Trump having a full grasp on the reality of the medical realities of the virus, which conflicts sharply w the "understanding" presented to the public. The public version of Trump's "understanding" is critical to maintain the illusion of if one

22. wants to be able to excuse Trump's policy responses as blundering stupidity, as they are often described. BC if its NOT, if he UNDERSTANDS that the virus is "deadly," that its "5Xs more deadly than the flu," "that it can target anyone and just kill their lungs spontaneously,

23. if he knows that athletes, young healthy collegiate athletes, esp college football athletes, might develop no other symptoms except a potentially a deadly heart condition, but for his own selfish purpose pushed them to play, and worst of all, if he directed his Sec. of Ed to

24. threaten our cash strapped public schools so that the admins charged w running them were faced w an impossible calculus: kill some of their staff or kill some of their essential programs. So if he knew, and as it turned out HE DAMN WELL DID KNOW every single one of these

25. things and understood them just fine but preferred to play stupid on TV bc it made it easier for him to lead his voters into slaughter, well then, that makes him not only one very fucked up individual, it also makes him a person who has decided that his policy response, his

26. INTENTIONAL, planned out, admin-wide policy response is to expose as many Americans as possible to this virus and hope that mass exposure on one end, hopefully met with an eventual vaccine from the other direction, will "deal" with the virus. It is a mass causality strategy.

27. An intentional widespread infection strategy. You want to know what the tell is? The real tell between herd immunity and some kind of "meh" thing instead? Its the mask thing. BC Trump, in theory, could have his reopen cake and eat it too. And people talk about the anti-mask

28. movement- which is vibrant enough to fill large arenas w virtually no masks in sight (which have decidedly cult-like vibes about them, do they not?) and these strange convention and other official events like the Rushmore speech w the crazy gov @KristiNoem proudly declaring

29. "and we will not be social distancing or masking!" I mean that was some weird shit there! I mean WTF. Its a deadly virus! That makes NO SENSE. Side note: she also allowed the Sturgis bike event to occur- cost to taxpayers $12 billion and frankly, I think she (SD) should have

30. foot it. Before there was an anti-mask movement, there was Trump and his rejection of wearing a mask. And we can't ever measure a counterfactual but I'll tell you this, I am confident that had Trump just acted like any other president, left, right, or center, on the issue of

31. wearing a face mask during a deadly pandemic, the anti-mask movement would be a lot less vibrant. And not just a little. I'd assume, and again, its an assumption, but almost negligible- the size of anti-mask movements in other countries which, at least in the case of our

32. closest allies, has likely been somewhat inflated by Trump's influence & the proliferation of American conservative media abroad (other countries-I'd consider a travel ban of 1: Steve Bannon). Its amazing to me, or maybe it isn't, that we're doing herd immunity, that Trump

33. has even accidentally admitted its a herd immunity strategy, and yet, the media has utterly failed to define it as such or to contextualize the American pandemic in its international context. So here I do it again- it is an unmitigated disaster, and purely a product of the

34. inexplicable design of Trump to fail to do a national, coordinated shutdown followed by a national coordinated reopening based on strict CDC metrics. That did not happen in America and ONLY in America. And that is why we 7 million infected and 200,000+ dead. And our herd

35. immunity plan, left to run its course, is expected to steal up to two million lives. I have no doubt that unless one of them came from his nuclear family, Donald Trump wouldn't give two shits.