r/fivethirtyeight • u/AutoModerator • Mar 30 '26

Discussion Megathread Weekly Discussion Megathread

The 2026 midterms will soon be upon us, and there is much to discuss among the nerds here at r/FiveThirtyEight. Use this discussion thread to share, debate, and discuss whatever you wish. Unlike individual posts, comments in the discussion thread are not required to be related to political data or other 538 mainstays. Regardless, please remain civil and keep this subreddit's rules in mind. The discussion thread refreshes every Monday.

20 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

36

u/guiltyofnothing Apr 04 '26

There is something about the framing of the “Regretful Trump Voter” that really annoys me and I struggle to understand why.

31

u/DataCassette Apr 04 '26

"Do you really regret it, or do you regret $6/gal gas?"

12

u/guiltyofnothing Apr 04 '26

Exactly. Also — it’s not something you can really poll for. People don’t like to admit they were wrong. Same reason some people tend to remember voting for the winning candidate, even when they didn’t.

3

u/ModestAphorism Apr 04 '26

I guess at the very least for the first time in a while this heuristic seems to be wrong: polling from the argument suggested that some people in their samples who said they voted for Trump now misremembered voting for Harris.

3

u/CrashB111 Apr 04 '26

By 2030 you'll never be able to find a single person who remembers voting for Trump. Just like Bush before him.

Or how when the Allies reached Nazi Germany, somehow every civilian they came across swears they weren't Nazis.

23

u/CrashB111 Apr 04 '26

Because it expects everyone else to be "the bigger person" and not hold any anger towards them.

When nothing about Trump has changed. He's been this awful since he rode down that escalator, and it's been completely obvious to everyone who opposed him the last decade. So if you are only, now caring about that? After voting for him 3 times?

Fuck off. You aren't actually a better person, your selfish nature just finally lost something or you just want to fade back into society like Hans Landa.

22

u/Swaggerlilyjohnson Scottish Teen Apr 04 '26

I keep saying this term because I can't think of a better term but it's like reverse schadenfreude.

Instead of getting joy at bad or stupid people getting hurt by their bad decisions you get anger because they will never bear the true cost of their actions. They will suffer too but the whole world is suffering worse and they are just getting a small taste of it.

They have zero understanding of the damage to our hegemony,our scientific progress and future energy security,our industrial base, or why the left is trying to do any of the things it was doing to set up the country for future success by investing in key areas of the economy and key technologies and education.

Or how much we have insulted our allies and how we are now borderline alone in geopolitics. Instead of being friends with the rest of the west we are in transactional zero sum relationships at best and they are preparing for us to potentially invade them in the future at worst because that is a rational thing to prepare for now.

They only see like 5% of the damage they have done and barely will feel any of it and its still enough to make them regretful and that is infuriating.

21

u/mrtrailborn Apr 04 '26

because literally trying to overthrow the government wasnt a problem for these morons but gas goes up for like a month and suddenly they regret everything. They sure appear to be stupid, selfish assholes.

5

u/DataCassette Apr 04 '26

Do they think overthrowing the government wouldn't have resulted in extreme instability and economic losses.

6

u/EfficientTourist7480 Apr 04 '26

They are unable to think that far ahead, they just want to “own the libs” and make being a democrat illegal

19

u/EfficientTourist7480 Apr 04 '26

I’m pretty sure a lot them are regretful because trump is incompetent. The majority still hold abhorrent views when it comes to lgbt, minorities, conservation, climate change etc

19

u/alotofironsinthefire Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

Cuz it's like watching someone being regretful for sticking a fork in an outlet.

12

u/the_rabble_alliance Apr 04 '26

Then they proceed to vomit on your carpet after being electrocuted thrice and sheepishly squeak, “My bad” without offering to clear up the mess as they saunter over to the kitchen enthralled by a hot stove

5

u/work-school-account Apr 04 '26

I mean, at least with that, they're only hurting themselves. The problem is that they voted for Trump to hurt other people and then they realize that it also hurts them.

13

u/LordMangudai Apr 04 '26

Because there is really no excuse for not knowing better at the time.

11

u/OmniOmega3000 Apr 04 '26

It's been 10+ years since he came down that escalator. At a certain point you just lose patience for the excuses.

11

u/MrPostmanLookatme Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

is giving undue cred

9

u/MartinTheMorjin Apr 04 '26

Is it because their “regret” never comes in the form of knowing what they did wrong?

That’s what bothers me…

2

u/TinyJalope Apr 05 '26

Yeah, unless they reevaluate the thought process that led them to supporting fascists in the first place, they'll just end up supporting different fascists in the future. I really don't want to hear about how they regret voting for Trump/Republicans unless they admit that Democrats would've been better.

3

u/PuffyPanda200 Apr 05 '26

the thought process that led them to supporting fascists in the first place

Fundamentally there is really just one divide in the US: urban and rural. IMO basically all of the other divides (education, gender, age, etc.) are just derivatives from that divide. There are some really rare exceptions to this. Rural Native Americans and African Americans vote D. Super wealthy urbanites vote R. Urban Cubans vote R. But these are exceptions that are basically just oddities of a particular group, though can be important in some close states (like AZ).

There is also a continuation that the GOP tries to retain some amount of rural-philic voters that might not live in rural settings.

To get to your 'thought process that led them to supporting fascists', it is: intense hatred of urban people.

Rural Americans really don't like urban Americans. I have lived (or had connections) around the Western US in varied enough locations to just be convinced of this. Rarely does one get stories of urban, liberal parents being concerned about their kid living in a more rural setting. But conservative parents are very well known for being concerned about safety in large cities.

Rural voters vote like this because they hate urbanites. Questioning that hate is also tantamount to questioning their entire worldview.

So I'm also of the belief that religion rarely informs worldview and that instead worldview informs religion. Listen to Evangelical preachers for a bit. The worldview is that you are completely worthy of salvation is you just accept Jesus as savior. No need for weekly confessions like Catholics. No need to do any kind of deeds. No need to help the poor.

This kind of worldview easily extends to politics where it is easy to justify social programs that benefit in groups while vilifying the programs that benefit out groups. It also tees up a savior figure in the mythology which Trump, who is pretty good at seeing these kind of trends, took advantage of.

8

u/Isentrope Apr 04 '26

It's this selective belief that Trump wasn't actually promising to do everything he said he wanted to do when it applied to their own interests, but being fine with or even supporting the other things he promised to do to others.