« Whoa | Main | Maybe terror attacks didn’t help Drumpf »

March 22, 2016

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Jive turkey just blew right through the last shreds of the torture taboo.

I don't think they can stop him even if he lacks a majority on the first ballot. These schemes they're hatching reek of increasing desperation.

One could also argue that Trump's original decline around early September is timed with Ben Carson's boom, the start of the surge in Trump's numbers around the Paris Attacks 11/13/15 is also the debate that seemed to start to deflate Carson (11/10/15).

Meanwhile, the guy who establishment Republicans find not beyond the pale is hiring Frank Gaffney and calling for vaguely defined patrols of Muslim neighborhoods to make sure they're not getting all radicalized.

The arrow from "London Subway bombings" goes the wrong way.

Er?

I think he means the arrow for the "London Subway bombings" is pointing to the wrong event on the chart. They are pointing to something that happened in 2011 whereas the London subway bombings occurred on July 7, 2005 (so the spike beside the Madrid train bombings). The 2011 incident would be the Breivik shootings/bombings I think.

Yes - thank you for clarifying my point, J.H. I found the error disturbing because I live in London, and have since well before 2011, and could remember no Tube bombings that year.

Oh, yes! Right. Bejesus. Fixing it now.

I'm not sure how I did that: if you click the link, you'll see that my earlier chart had the attacks labeled correctly. Many apologies!

Logan: That is an excellent point and exactly why I love active comment threads.

We can test the hypothesis. Do Carson's numbers start to fall after November 10th?

It would seem that the inflection point is indeed shortly before the Paris attacks and might be when Carson started to deflate.

Of course this could just mean that the Paris and San Bernadino attacks simply aided Trump to maintain the momentum triggered by Carson's deflation and the Brussels attacks will likely do the same.

It's not strictly scientific, but I prefer explanations with fewer steps of cause and effect. Without further evidence, an explanation that links the rise to Carson alone is stronger than a second-order effect.

I suppose this makes the Brussels horror something of a natural experiment.

I think the worry is not that Europe cannot handle the current level of terrorism but that such attacks may presage worse to come. If terrorism and migration both intensify parts of Europe may react with illiberal solutions.

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