Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-vote-count"
Lying Numbers: Why We Can’t Trust Statistics
One of the funniest moments in the unintentionally hilarious Jonathan Swan interview of Donald the Clown happened when Trump brought out some charts to show Jonathan how well America was handling Covid compared to the rest of the world. The alternately blank and rubber-faced Swan said in his posh British accent, “Oh, you’re looking at deaths per cases; I’m talking about deaths per capita.” Trump: “You can’t do that.” Swan: “Why not?” Laurel and Hardy, Rowan and Martin, and Martin and Lewis were dull compared to those two. I found that exchange especially funny because it illustrated a point I had made about statistics on Twitter. Numbers only appear to be factual, objective, and trustworthy. They’re actually often more misleading and potentially biased than anecdotal evidence or even opinions. Numbers lie when they’re used out of context, when they are inaccurate, which happens frequently, and when the person using the numbers is a liar, deliberately misrepresenting data.
When William Barr, who seems to be as corrupt, dishonest, and almost as crazy as his boss, claimed that this year so far 11 unarmed white people had been killed compared to 8 unarmed black people, one of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee quickly pointed out one problem with that statistic. There are many more whites than blacks in the USA, so Barr should have used percentages (or per capita as Swan would say). But there are some other problems with context. First, how is Barr defining white? According to one possibly lying social media commentator, Kamala Harris’ birth certificate lists her as white. Clearly, she’s not. But are the Kardashians, who are part Armenian? Was their father, who some people thought was Mexican when they saw him walking into OJ’s house? When CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria wondered in an interview dealing with race if he would be classified as white, I found myself agreeing with the racist who claimed he wouldn’t. I said, “Hell, no, look in the mirror, fool.” These harder to classify folks can be used to manipulate statistics. As comedian Wanda Sykes said at the beginning of Obama’s reign as President, when we liked what he was doing, black folks would claim him, but when he messed up, we’d call him a half-white man. Speaking of what black and white people are doing, that’s another problem with Barr’s statistic. “Unarmed” does not necessarily mean “not dangerous.” Were any of the unarmed white people killed large men who were fighting with the police, maybe trying to take their guns? Were the unarmed white people killed running away from the police or toward them? Of course, the biggest problem with Barr’s statistic is that he’s a shameless liar. He lied about the Mueller report, about the BlackLivesMatter protesters, and about how he would behave as attorney general. Numbers are only as reliable as the people using them. And even reliable, honest people may cite false numbers because there may be some miscalculations, as often happens with the jobs created per month numbers, or in the case of unarmed civilians killed, under reporting. The cops don’t want to tell the truth about how many unarmed people they’re killing.
According to one count, the person least likely to tell the truth in America, if not the world—the Liar-in-Chief—has lied (publicly) more than 20,000 times since he became President. Is that an accurate count? Let’s assume the counter(s) is (are) honest and as objective as a human can be when evaluating a politician. There are still several questions raised by that statistic. 1) When the Liar-in-Chief repeats a lie, is it counted again? 2) Do the counters distinguish between hyperbole, which we all engage in occasionally and con men like Trump do more frequently, and lies meant to deceive? 3) When the crazy Liar seems to believe what he says, is it counted as a lie?
The statistic that we know Trump will lie about, no matter what happens on November 3, is the number of votes he won compared to Biden. Even if he manages to squeak out a win (vote and pray, everyone), he will still claim that he won by more votes. And why shouldn’t he? Those numbers are clearly not completely accurate. I’ve seen two different percentages given for the Hillary black woman vote (98% and 94%) and the Trump white woman vote (53% and 47%). Numbers lie, but if we vote blue in large enough numbers as soon as we can start voting, we will defeat the Liar-in-Chief, his dishonest, enabling Attorney General, and their fake numbers. VOTE SO YOU CAN BE COUNTED!
When William Barr, who seems to be as corrupt, dishonest, and almost as crazy as his boss, claimed that this year so far 11 unarmed white people had been killed compared to 8 unarmed black people, one of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee quickly pointed out one problem with that statistic. There are many more whites than blacks in the USA, so Barr should have used percentages (or per capita as Swan would say). But there are some other problems with context. First, how is Barr defining white? According to one possibly lying social media commentator, Kamala Harris’ birth certificate lists her as white. Clearly, she’s not. But are the Kardashians, who are part Armenian? Was their father, who some people thought was Mexican when they saw him walking into OJ’s house? When CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria wondered in an interview dealing with race if he would be classified as white, I found myself agreeing with the racist who claimed he wouldn’t. I said, “Hell, no, look in the mirror, fool.” These harder to classify folks can be used to manipulate statistics. As comedian Wanda Sykes said at the beginning of Obama’s reign as President, when we liked what he was doing, black folks would claim him, but when he messed up, we’d call him a half-white man. Speaking of what black and white people are doing, that’s another problem with Barr’s statistic. “Unarmed” does not necessarily mean “not dangerous.” Were any of the unarmed white people killed large men who were fighting with the police, maybe trying to take their guns? Were the unarmed white people killed running away from the police or toward them? Of course, the biggest problem with Barr’s statistic is that he’s a shameless liar. He lied about the Mueller report, about the BlackLivesMatter protesters, and about how he would behave as attorney general. Numbers are only as reliable as the people using them. And even reliable, honest people may cite false numbers because there may be some miscalculations, as often happens with the jobs created per month numbers, or in the case of unarmed civilians killed, under reporting. The cops don’t want to tell the truth about how many unarmed people they’re killing.
According to one count, the person least likely to tell the truth in America, if not the world—the Liar-in-Chief—has lied (publicly) more than 20,000 times since he became President. Is that an accurate count? Let’s assume the counter(s) is (are) honest and as objective as a human can be when evaluating a politician. There are still several questions raised by that statistic. 1) When the Liar-in-Chief repeats a lie, is it counted again? 2) Do the counters distinguish between hyperbole, which we all engage in occasionally and con men like Trump do more frequently, and lies meant to deceive? 3) When the crazy Liar seems to believe what he says, is it counted as a lie?
The statistic that we know Trump will lie about, no matter what happens on November 3, is the number of votes he won compared to Biden. Even if he manages to squeak out a win (vote and pray, everyone), he will still claim that he won by more votes. And why shouldn’t he? Those numbers are clearly not completely accurate. I’ve seen two different percentages given for the Hillary black woman vote (98% and 94%) and the Trump white woman vote (53% and 47%). Numbers lie, but if we vote blue in large enough numbers as soon as we can start voting, we will defeat the Liar-in-Chief, his dishonest, enabling Attorney General, and their fake numbers. VOTE SO YOU CAN BE COUNTED!
