Not quite, it's a subtle nuance. The concept of a shy Trump supporter is that they're afraid of a stigma associated with admitting support for Trump.
That is different than someone who just doesn't want to take a poll but may be perfectly happy to tell you their views if you struck up a conversation. My own observation is that over the last 4 years, Trump supporters have become ever more loud and proud of that support, not more shy.
> Now, do people like me lean one way? "Get out of my face and leave me alone" people might plausibly lean toward Trump, but I wouldn't be dogmatic about it. Even more, I wouldn't claim that it's statistically significant.
The "shy Trump voter" hypothesis is not that there are lots of people who won't answer polls, but that there's a bias in the response rate and truthfulness of the responses received, and that pollsters are not able to accurately correct for that bias. So whether or not you answer polls doesn't speak to the validity or plausibility of that hypothesis. What is relevant is only the bit you say "might plausibly lean toward Trump"; clearly, your a priori opinion of that hypothesis is also fairly low.
> We've had four years of the media relentlessly telling us how stupid, evil, and wrong Trump is, and how stupid and racist all his supporters are. We've seen the media twist the facts to support this narrative.
You're talking specifically about the media that Trump supporters largely avoid watching and do not give any credence to. There's plenty of other evidence that Trump voters aren't ashamed of publicly expressing their support, and not much reason to believe that they would be much more shy about it when answering polls than when going about their daily lives.
It's clear now that Shy Trump Voters existed. Some opinion pages trafficked in arguments against their existence.
I think of them in terms that our Austrian friend described.
Some pollsters were better at accounting for them.
I avoid "most media outlets" language and try to look at the data.
Anecdotal, but I have never met a Trump supporter that was shy about who they were voting for, this year or in 2016.
If anything, Trump supporters have been extremely vocal about who they were supporting, to the extent that they frequently violate social norms and try to takeover events and gatherings to make their political affiliations known, like this week with Among Us.
No, "shy Trump voter" specifically means someone who says they are not voting for Trump (or undecided) then does so, because they're afraid to "admit" voting for him.
I have seen this argument most often from vocal, proud Trump supporters trying to explain away Trump's consistently low approval ratings. Why would someone so enthusiastically for Trump that they're willing to shout it to the world suddenly be circumspect about indicating their support in an anonymous poll with no human on the other side?
Of course, you can argue that those people are not the same groups of people. But there's no evidence that this thing exists, even when people have looked for it in the past (see "shy Tory effect").
Not to dismiss your experiences, but we are talking about the claimed "large quiet group". It doesn't seem so large if Republicans are strongly supporting Trump and Trumpists.
In the Republican party of some people's wistful imagination, perhaps, but not in the actual one.
Trump is broadly unpopular with the American people as a whole, and every common demographic subset of them other "white males without a college degree".
But among Republican party members? His claims of "94%" are bullshit, naturally, but the actual results of real mainstream polling[1] put it north of 80%.
To paraphrase Marlo Stanfield: A lot of people want America to be one way. But it's the other way.
While polarization is bad now, it's nowhere close to historical extremes, and it's not even as bad as it was during the post-Vietnam era only a few decades ago.
As for fear of doxing: plenty of people openly supported and voted for George Wallace (a noted white Supremacist) back in the day, and even Roy Moore (accused pedophile) just 2 years ago. Proud Boys members openly pose for the cameras even as they espouse racist views, and QAnon members brag about being part of QAnon.
I know too many of those people in my personal life to believe that they are a tiny minority. Trump has built himself an effective cult following. People turn off their brains in order to follow him and start to believe most of what he says. They'll say that they understand that he's a liar, bu then still believe the lies. It's frustrating to watch it happen.
There's substantial data backing up a lack of support for Trump, and for Republicans generally, for all of those categories to different degrees. And usually for fairly obvious reasons.
Are you unaware of this, or does acknowledging it just make you uncomfortable?
I also tend to agree with Peter Thiel's point on The Portal podcast: a significant number of Americans lie on polls because they're ashamed of voting for Donald Trump.
My opinion: I think deep down these people feel they are rationally wrong for voting in a president that promised to, and now is actually attacking USA's democracy and freedom which used to be touted as America's strong point. They know they're acting on instinct, and people tend to hide their instincts in public.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/515198-pol...
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