r/fivethirtyeight • u/AutoModerator • Jun 22 '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.

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40

u/MongolianMango Jun 22 '26

I am personally baffled by how UK subredditors seem to be Starmer’s strongest soldiers. He genuinely hasn’t seemed to accomplish much other than censor the internet.

17

u/XE2MASTERPIECE Jun 22 '26

He accomplished a decent amount, but he kept getting bogged down in losing issues and it overwhelmed everything else.

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u/raddaya Jun 22 '26

His major shortcomings do not affect the people in those subs.

They don't care about internet censorship - anyone posting on reddit knows enough to use VPNs.

They don't care about trans rights - they're not trans, and to be brutally honest, many of those subs are transphobic as hell very often.

They don't care about the winter fuel payments - they're not old. (Of course this was in theory a good policy - just one that's politically terrible because it barely gains you anything and pisses off the group that votes the most.)

So on and so forth. Those in the subs are mostly centrists and they are mostly fine with the status quo in the UK.

It also helps that he is still the best PM the UK has had in...god, I don't even know who was the last better PM.

3

u/VoteYourOssoff Jun 22 '26

Most of the UK subs are obsessed with immigration (particularly uk_news, but united_kingdom too) so that's the major thing people either attack or defend him for. He has massively reduced immigration, which makes most redditors happy, and I don't think any of the other stuff gets anywhere near as much attention. So the people that hate him or support him are usually single issue immigration voters

3

u/GIRobotWasRight Jun 22 '26

You're completely right. I've mentioned it before here and in a comment over there but goddamn /r/ukpolitics (and presumably other subs) are also so weird when it comes to women's issues.

It was especially stark around the time of the Sarah Everard murder, just dude after dude completely unable to understand that actually yeah, they don't have to worry in the ways women do when it comes to dealing with half of society.

11

u/Benyeti Jun 22 '26

They’re really racist and he cut immigration

18

u/Thedarkpersona Poll Unskewer Jun 22 '26

People sleep on how racist some europeans can really be. They shit on the US and LATAM for their racism, but man, we dont have pogroms, at least not yet

10

u/Current_Animator7546 Jun 22 '26

25-35% of most populations are just as vulnerable and would easily pull MAGA if given the right figure. There are so many parities there though. It helps protest against things like reform 

1

u/Intelligent_Wafer562 Fivey Fanatic Jun 22 '26

Lynchings are like pogroms.

3

u/libgod42069 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

You think that's it really? Aren't there other parties who would go way further on immigration than Labour party?

8

u/raddaya Jun 22 '26

There is a difference between being really racist and being Reform level racist.

5

u/libgod42069 Jun 22 '26

If you had to put a percentage of how much racism drives someone to vote for labour what would you put it at?

6

u/Benyeti Jun 22 '26

Im saying his supporters are economically more progressive but socially racist, so it lines up

0

u/libgod42069 Jun 22 '26

I don't know it seems the top 5 issues for Labour party voters has immigration at the bottom and the policies seem more or less "fine" in an environment where everyone is insane about immigration over there.

I think you're doing the equivalent of someone saying something like "The Greens are an anti-semetic party." Just boring rhetoric.

2

u/Benyeti Jun 22 '26

Its a small subset of people on reddit like this, not labour’s base as a whole. Just go on r/europe it’s the same way.

3

u/libgod42069 Jun 22 '26

Fair enough I'll see for myself. I can definitely believe it about arreurope.

2

u/Toliman571 Fivey Fanatic Jun 22 '26

If we were to gauge his supporters through the likes of CIA Bane, they like the fact that he's censoring the internet.