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[时事热点] 美国总统候选人简评

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521#
发表于 2016-9-27 21:46:40 | 只看该作者

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发表于 2016-9-27 21:47:35 | 只看该作者
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  • TA的每日心情
    无聊
    2017-5-7 03:15
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    [LV.5]元婴

    523#
    发表于 2016-9-27 23:10:27 | 只看该作者
    Dracula 发表于 2016-9-27 19:57
    我刚才查了一下,昨晚总统大选第一次辩论,媒体评论,不管是偏左的纽约时报、华盛顿邮报,还是偏右的华尔街 ...

    伯爵,如何看不同的媒体对统计结果的不同?你能不能从读者的组成和媒体的控制人角度来讨论讨论你和马丁的结果不同。
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    [LV.Master]无

    524#
    发表于 2016-9-28 01:37:11 | 只看该作者
    伯爵和马丁的结果似乎都是网上投票的吧,水分太大。
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    慵懒
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    [LV.10]大乘

    525#
     楼主| 发表于 2016-9-28 06:20:01 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-27 23:10
    伯爵,如何看不同的媒体对统计结果的不同?你能不能从读者的组成和媒体的控制人角度来讨论讨论你和马丁的 ...

    老马丁引的是网上的投票,不是正规的polling。参与网上投票的人不是个random sample,还有可能作弊,不说明什么问题。另外Trump的重要支持者纽约市前市长Rudy Giuliani建议他不参加下次辩论这也很说明问题。下面是Wall Street Journal的文章,因为要注册,我下面转贴一下。Fox News对辩论的评论,你可以到网站上去看。

    Undecided Voters React Coolly to Donald Trump During Debate

    Republican Donald Trump’s performance in the first presidential debate on Monday night was likely to bolster his supporters, but risked turning others off, interviews with undecided voters and experts in both parties said.

    “I feel that the way he talks to other people, the way that he addresses other people, can be extremely rude and extremely disrespectful, and I don’t think that’s the temperament we should be looking for in a president,” said Garrett Thacker, 30 years old, of Galloway, Ohio, who has voted for presidential candidates in both parties.

    Still, neither Mr. Thacker—nor any of the other undecided voters who participated in a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll interviewed—said the debate had persuaded them to back either candidate. It was unclear whether the much-anticipated debate would fundamentally alter the course of the tight race.

    Mr. Thacker, a Republican who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, said he still doesn’t fully trust Democrat Hillary Clinton. “I honestly don’t know at this point,” he said.

    Chris Kofinis, a Democratic consultant, conducted a focus group of undecided voters in Cleveland, and at the end of the debate, 11 people said Mrs. Clinton won, no one said Mr. Trump won, and 17 people said neither candidate won.

    “After 90 minutes, they did an incredibly effective job of moving no voters,” Mr. Kofinis said. He said Mr. Trump did better in the beginning of the debate, but lost people when he began personally attacking Mrs. Clinton. “It was worse than the fact that she beat him. He beat himself,” Mr. Kofinis said.

    But the results from another focus group of undecided voters, in Pennsylvania, found 16 participants saying Mrs. Clinton impacted their vote more, with just six saying the same about Mr. Trump. When the moderator, Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, asked them a word or phrase to describe Mr. Trump, answers included “strong start, weak finish,” “bombastic,” “not presidential” and “sloppy.” When asked for the same about Mrs. Clinton, they offered “prepared,” “firm,” “powerful” and “same old, same old.”

    Scott Ratcliff, 31, a Republican who participated in the recent Journal poll, said he isn’t likely to vote for either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, but was more impressed with her.

    Some of the experts agreed with that assessment. “Trump’s lack of preparation seemed to catch up with him as the debate wore on,” said Republican consultant Kevin Madden, an adviser to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

    Still, Mr. Madden suspects the debate did little to change minds. “These debates are usually defined by big and memorable moments, but this debate didn’t create many of those. The few moments that did stand out aren’t likely to move the needle in a big way with undecided voters.”

    Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under President George W. Bush and a backer of Mr. Trump, said that Mr. Trump’s interruptions and outbursts may not have served him well.

    “Those for Trump are still for him, and those for Hillary are still for her.  The undecided are probably still undecided,” he said. “I would add, however, that Hillary stayed calm and cool, and I thought Trump was too hot too often.”

    “If it’s possible, Trump has probably invigorated his supporters even more,” said Democratic consultant Bill Burton. But he said that is nowhere near enough and that he likely turned off other voters he needs to win. “The path to 270 electoral votes does not run through the sputtering, angry, agitated performance we saw from him.”

    Ben Robinson, 33, a project manager in Houston, said the debate was the heated argument he expected it to be, with Mrs. Clinton keeping her composure better than Mr. Trump. He said he thought Mr. Trump was struggling.

    “He doesn’t seem like the standard political misdirection—not answering the question,” said Mr. Robinson, an independent. “He just seems like he doesn’t have any answers to it.”

    He said he could “absolutely not” see himself voting for either candidate, and would like to see Libertarian Gary Johnson at the next debate.

    Yolanda Grimes, 40, a small-business owner from Norcross, Ga., said that at the start of the debate she was undecided and frustrated with both candidates, and by the end she was even more so.

    Ms. Grimes describes herself as a Democrat but said the debate convinced her Mrs. Clinton can’t be trusted to stand by her word. “She contradicts herself,” Ms. Grimes said.

    Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was a “good night for Hillary Clinton,” adding that Mr. Trump was “rambling” and “seemed in the first part of the debate to be overcaffeinated.”

    Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, said he was struck by how different the two candidates came across, and said they both likely connected with voters.

    He said Mr. Trump did well channeling voter anger, but that Mrs. Clinton got the better of the argument about his failure to release his tax returns.

    “Trump didn’t lose votes from those who turned on the debate supporting him,” he said. “Clinton might have motivated her base and brought some undecideds her way with her composed answers.”


    http://www.wsj.com/articles/unde ... g-debate-1474947738

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    [LV.5]元婴

    526#
    发表于 2016-9-28 07:50:47 | 只看该作者
    本帖最后由 fish97 于 2016-9-28 07:54 编辑
    Dracula 发表于 2016-9-28 06:20
    老马丁引的是网上的投票,不是正规的polling。参与网上投票的人不是个random sample,还有可能作弊,不说 ...


    按你的说法,另外18个老马丁方上媒体的投票都具有倾向性。而只有正规的投票才据有可信性。进一步得到结论就是只有支持trump的选民热衷于在其他网站投票,而hillary的支持者不愿意参与这种投票。如果你的说法是正确的,而且我们前面得到你喜欢用的逻辑,从统计学的角度看,所有人的参与程度都是一样的。那么或者是trump方面的人作弊,或者你那个正规的投票统计作弊了。如果Trump 方面作弊,而且人数众多,很难想象不被这么多不喜欢他的媒体人抓到。那么为什么没有动静那。所以最终结论就是你的那个可以由少数人控制的统计更容易被操纵。所以你的结论是错误的,因为你的信息来源是不可靠的。。你认为我的推论如何?

    点评

    给力: 5.0 涨姿势: 5.0
    给力: 5 涨姿势: 5
      发表于 2016-9-28 09:00
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    [LV.10]大乘

    527#
     楼主| 发表于 2016-9-28 08:22:32 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-28 07:50
    按你的说法,另外18个老马丁方上媒体的投票都具有倾向性。而只有正规的投票才据有可信性。进一步得到结论 ...

    我是说这不是从likely voters那儿取的一个random sample。参与这种投票的大多数是双方的铁杆支持者,从这能得到的结论就是Trump支持者的热情更高。但是同普通选民的看法没有太大的关系。

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    528#
    发表于 2016-9-28 09:10:18 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-28 07:50
    按你的说法,另外18个老马丁方上媒体的投票都具有倾向性。而只有正规的投票才据有可信性。进一步得到结论 ...

    理论上说CNN的poll投票和网站的投票都有取样问题,都是有误差的,不准的民意反映。区别在于,CNN的poll投票可以说是人为的,故意的。据说这次关于辩论的500多人的poll,民主党的占了40%多,共和党的只有20%多。而网站的投票则是self-selection, 勇于发声的网民中支持Trump的占多数,这些人跟着屁股投票。而希拉里的很多支持者也许没空上网,都在忙着吸毒,抢劫,做炸弹,dicking bimbos...
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    2016-7-29 01:48
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    [LV.7]分神

    529#
    发表于 2016-9-28 09:21:55 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-28 07:50
    按你的说法,另外18个老马丁方上媒体的投票都具有倾向性。而只有正规的投票才据有可信性。进一步得到结论 ...

    其实无所谓。。选票决定一切。。川普只要放出“do you hear the people sing",估计能刺激的投票率一跳一跳。。精英总是”live in their reality“,总是不明白,川普这么大的支持率实在是被精英自己给逼的。他们要真是赢了,就不会这么忧心忡忡的忽悠粉丝出来投票说是为了阻止川普。。。

    其他民调说川普高,可以解释成川普支持者热情,但同时也说明川普支持者最终出来投票的比率会大增。。怎么解释这个呢?难道女克的支持者现在没热情,动动手指就可以参与的网络polling,到最后投票就有热情走出家门参与投票?。。
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    [LV.Master]无

    530#
    发表于 2016-9-28 09:23:17 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-27 18:50
    按你的说法,另外18个老马丁方上媒体的投票都具有倾向性。而只有正规的投票才据有可信性。进一步得到结论 ...

    正规媒体无一例外都是说希大妈赢了首回合辩论。今天NPR的专题节目从一开始就总结了各主要媒体对作为辩论的看法。指向上没什么争议,程度不同而已。NPR的几个主要分析兼评论的立场都偏左,但还是以事实和数据为基础做分析和发言的,我对这几个人的职业素养是有信心的,也抱有很大敬意。NPR的主要受众是知识精英,如果真的让个人倾向明显影响自己的分析,NPR这块牌子早就砸了。NPR虽然认为首回合是一边倒的结果,但对此结果能帮助希拉里胜选并不乐观,因为大部分川普的支持者不会因川普辩论表现不佳就不再支持川普。另外,NPR 的 Colin McEnroe 也说,正规媒体的投票也存在(好像是)differential bias,就是说甲乙两人辩论,如果普遍认为甲胜乙负,则支持甲的选民更有可能主动出来投票,而乙的支持者则兴味阑珊,对投票的热情没有对方阵营辣么大,这样无形中放大了甲乙之间的真实差距。

    Collin McEnroe 也提到了“中间派”。他说这一次有不少选民一直和第三党眉来眼去(他用的是flirting),这批人的数量是往届的两三倍,因为他们对希拉里和川普都很厌恶。现在这帮人对第三党彻底死心了,暂时加入了未决定一方(未决定方里面有真正的未决定者)。希拉里和川普的机会在他们身上。Collin的意思似乎是,如果川普真的做足功课,汤汤汤汤拿出一个系统完整的国际国内policy package,对中间派的选择会有重大影响。

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    531#
    发表于 2016-9-28 10:45:33 | 只看该作者
    煮酒正熟 发表于 2016-9-28 09:23
    正规媒体无一例外都是说希大妈赢了首回合辩论。今天NPR的专题节目从一开始就总结了各主要媒体对作为辩论 ...

    床老有PASSION,西太准备充分,各有粮店。

    就算是平局的话,从MOMENTUM看,好像西太可以借助这次辩论来稳定一下近期的颓势。
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    [LV.5]元婴

    532#
    发表于 2016-9-28 13:36:49 | 只看该作者
    Dracula 发表于 2016-9-28 08:22
    我是说这不是从likely voters那儿取的一个random sample。参与这种投票的大多数是双方的铁杆支持者,从这 ...

    你这个回答有两个逻辑漏洞,第一个是我们上面所有的推论都是从统计学的角度看双方的热情是不应该有区别的。第二个是,如果Trump的选民热情更高这个假设前提是正确的,那么最终投票去的人trump的人数也会高多,那么最终赢得大选的,Trump 的可能性更大一些。这样你的结果还是错误的。你现在可能处在一个情绪化阶段了,因为自己喜欢的hillary可能失败,所以利用各种技巧来否认可能的失败。

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    参与人数 1爱元 +6 收起 理由
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    [LV.5]元婴

    533#
    发表于 2016-9-28 13:51:09 | 只看该作者
    煮酒正熟 发表于 2016-9-28 09:23
    正规媒体无一例外都是说希大妈赢了首回合辩论。今天NPR的专题节目从一开始就总结了各主要媒体对作为辩论 ...

    我到认为1.NPR这么做反而刺激更多trump的人参加选举。2.他们在有选择的挑选和强调他们自己认为正确的数据。
    唯一的问题是他们这种挑选是故意还是心理倾向性的。我个人的心理倾向性地认为他们是故意的。就是认为他们职业化的厉害,一般可以避免这种错误,所以我认为他们是在故意误导观众。
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    [LV.5]元婴

    534#
    发表于 2016-9-28 14:06:18 | 只看该作者
    老马丁 发表于 2016-9-28 09:10
    理论上说CNN的poll投票和网站的投票都有取样问题,都是有误差的,不准的民意反映。区别在于,CNN的poll投 ...

    看见你说的那些忙其它事的人,想起好像移民局工会的人宣布支持trump.如果这些精英们,继续这么做,最后的结果就是促使更多的人出来选Trump.
    我另外在考虑一个问题就是选民有没有因为hillary的女儿嫁了个犹太人所以造成这种由犹太人控制的媒体支持她,而普通大众反对她们?在这种由犹太人控制下的媒体今天,这种消息是很难得到的。不知道你有没有这种消息。

    点评

    国外这种基于血缘,婚姻的联系和支持没有中国人想象的那么强。另外,不管trump或希拉里当选,尘埃落地两个人回头还会和气交往。  发表于 2016-9-28 20:48
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    [LV.10]大乘

    535#
     楼主| 发表于 2016-9-28 19:36:25 | 只看该作者
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-28 13:36
    你这个回答有两个逻辑漏洞,第一个是我们上面所有的推论都是从统计学的角度看双方的热情是不应该有区别的 ...

    我什么地方否认希拉里失败的可能性了。我那个帖子里不是说了吗,希拉里现在的优势已经变得挺微弱的,让很多民主党人非常紧张。另外我那个帖子里说希拉里辩论获胜提到了好几个方面的依据,并不仅是polling,而且辩论获胜同大选获胜是两回事,2012年第一次辩论媒体和polling也都一致显示Romney获胜,但他在大选还是输了。我不知道你干嘛对希拉里是这次辩论的获胜者这一点如此耿耿于怀。

    我的政治立场是中间偏右,这次大选我最欣赏的候选人是John Kasich,其次是Jeb Bush,对希拉里并不喜欢。我在爱坛发过两篇关于克林顿夫妇的文章,一篇是希拉里的活牛期货,一篇是克林顿伪证案涉及了90年代克林顿夫妇的各种丑闻,都挺负面的。对克林顿夫妇的各种丑闻我觉得我比爱坛大多数人知道的还要多一些。我就是对Trump非常厌恶,认为如果他获胜不仅是对美国,对整个世界都是个灾难。

    我以前在回复老马丁的一个帖子里提到,一个候选人支持者的热情高并不必然意味着支持他的人数量多,不然的话这次民主党初选的获胜者就应该是Bernie Sanders,而不是希拉里了。历史上这种例子还挺多的,像Barry Goldwater,George McGovern同样都是支持者热情非常高,但都输的很惨。Trump支持者的热情高其实在现在的polling里已经体现出来了。我们现在看到的Trump同希拉里非常接近或者稍稍领先的poll都是从likely voters里取的样本。在registered voters里,希拉里的优势要大不少。这里的差距就是Trump的支持者在回答问题的时候显示他们热情更高,更有可能投票。但是希拉里的ground operation要比Trump强很多。在voter turnout方面其实她也有潜在的优势。

    点评

    希拉里胜过Bernie是因为超级代表选票拿的多,单数人头应是Bernie胜出。  发表于 2016-9-29 09:08

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    参与人数 1爱元 +2 收起 理由
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  • TA的每日心情
    郁闷
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    [LV.Master]无

    536#
    发表于 2016-9-28 20:47:36 | 只看该作者
    本帖最后由 煮酒正熟 于 2016-9-28 07:50 编辑
    fish97 发表于 2016-9-28 00:36
    你这个回答有两个逻辑漏洞,第一个是我们上面所有的推论都是从统计学的角度看双方的热情是不应该有区别的 ...


    我倒不觉得伯爵有什么情绪化。他就是陈述一个判定罢了。我之所以这么说,是因为我接触到的媒体所给出的判定,和他还有席琳说的完全一致:川普前20-30分钟取攻势,后面的时间里面希拉里完整体系化的论辩明显占据上风。当然,别人也可以做出相反的判定。但是无论如何,我觉得不该轻易指责别人情绪化。

    说到喜欢哪个候选人,伯爵并不喜欢希拉里。我看坛子里没有谁真的喜欢某个候选人,大多都是两害相权取其轻的想法,或者说谁更讨厌,谁的价值观和政策更让我反感。

    至于网投和媒体投票何以出现如此巨大反差,我有个不成熟的 hypothesis:支持川普的大多反体制,支持希拉里的大多不反体制;而在投票表达自己观点的渠道上,正规媒体显然代表的是“体制”(establishment),是希拉里的支持者们习惯去的地方,而各大媒体建立起来的网投渠道则是新型渠道,更能吸引那些讨厌正规媒体的选民。所以这里面或许有个 channel bias.

    无论是什么原因造成的这种观感差异,我觉得可以讨论,可以争论,但没必要指责别人情绪化
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    537#
    发表于 2016-9-28 21:02:21 | 只看该作者
    Dracula 发表于 2016-9-28 19:36
    我什么地方否认希拉里失败的可能性了。我那个帖子里不是说了吗,希拉里现在的优势已经变得挺微弱的,让很 ...

    可能的问题是现在的你倾向于哪个候选人?因为基本上是二选一,也许你自己都没有太在意,但是你文中的情绪暗示了你的下意识的倾向,故此引发一些争议。每个人都有自己的观点,我从不试图说服别人,基本上态度中立,屁股坐在自己利益(长期优先)一边。其实仔细想想,这里、西西河每个人都有我欣赏的部分,即便我不赞成其观点,并不妨碍我看某些人的一些专业性的发言。希望大家平和一点。谢谢!
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    [LV.10]大乘

    538#
     楼主| 发表于 2016-9-28 21:32:58 | 只看该作者
    lintian18 发表于 2016-9-28 21:02
    可能的问题是现在的你倾向于哪个候选人?因为基本上是二选一,也许你自己都没有太在意,但是你文中的情绪 ...

    我是对Trump很厌恶,但这有什么可引发争议的?爱坛里骂希拉里的帖子比我写的要难听的多,乃至因为我认为希拉里获胜的可能性大,好几次都直接骂到我身上了,好像也没人抱怨过,看来爱坛的政治正确是在支持Trump的一派。我就是提到希拉里在民意调查上一直都是领先,到现在也还是有一些优势。像FiveThirtyEight等根据polling的预测模型还是挺准的,希拉里获胜的可能性现在来看还是挺大,这和我对两个人的偏好没什么关系,但就是这个在爱坛看来也是很不受欢迎,成为很有争议性的言论了。

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    539#
    发表于 2016-9-28 21:44:47 | 只看该作者
    Dracula 发表于 2016-9-28 21:32
    我是对Trump很厌恶,但这有什么可引发争议的?爱坛里骂希拉里的帖子比我写的要难听的多,乃至因为我认为 ...

    如果你明确表示你的倾向,可能反倒会减少很多来自其他ID的情绪化发言(我对你不会有任何异议,因为本来就没有试图说服任何一方。又,你的一些帖子很有知识性,我喜欢阅读,虽然并不完全同意有些观点。)。共勉。
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    [LV.10]大乘

    540#
     楼主| 发表于 2016-9-28 23:04:50 | 只看该作者
    挺有意思的一篇文章

    In Texas, Even Trump Supporters Hate the Border Wall

    By Leonid Bershidsky

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/a ... ate-the-border-wall



    "Nobody likes the wall," says Tony Martinez, mayor of Brownsville, a city in the southeastern corner of Texas across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico. He's the son of Mexican immigrants and a Democrat, but he's not exaggerating: Even Donald Trump supporters in the town hate the border fence that has been here since 2008.

    "Build that wall, build that wall!" I have heard people chant at Trump rallies in the small towns of Iowa and New Hampshire, far from the Mexican border. Trump promises to build a wall that will be "impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful."

    The fence in Brownsville is 18 feet tall and made from rusty iron bars. I could climb it in about 15 seconds. "Our record is eight," says Michael Seifert, an organizer for the Equal Voice Network, a coalition of civic groups in the Rio Grande Valley.

    It has cost more than $6 million per mile to build, and it runs through farmers' fields and townspeople's backyards. The local consensus is that it hasn't helped anyone except contractors and drug cartels.

    The fence stretches across private lands as far as two miles from the Rio Grande, the natural border between Texas and Mexico. It doesn't quite reach the Gulf of Mexico. There are gaps for every county road and gates for farmers to move between parts of their bisected properties. The gates have electronic code locks. Bonnie Albert, whose family owns the Loop Farms at the southeastern edge of Brownsville -- a sizable operation that grows vegetables and citrus fruits -- says the locks freeze from time to time. Farmers have to call the Border Patrol to unlock them.

    It's common for farmers to live on the south side of the fence: It went up north of some houses because of terrain peculiarities and administrative problems. "The government is selective about whom it protects with this wall," says Eloisa Tamez, a nursing professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, who knows all about the wall because it runs through her yard. She has to walk around it to get to the southern part of her property.

    Albert doesn't think the fence protects anyone at all. "In places, you can see scuff marks on it where they climb over," she says. "And there are so many gaps."

    Nor does Cuban Monsees, a 68-year-old known as Rusty who lives alone with his dog on a 21-acre ranch at the end of a road that bears his family's name. He says the wall's concrete foundations have shut off water to wells along the border, requiring them to get costly permits to dig deeper.

    But people still get across, including people paid by the cartels to deliver drugs or run errands like smuggling in Central American refugees. According to Border Patrol statistics, only slightly more than half of the undocumented immigrants apprehended last year were Mexicans. Most of the others came from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

    Monsees says people from a cartel have been offering him money for the use of his rather overgrown property, but he has rejected the advances. Albert says the cartels run everything south of the border, but she is reluctant to talk about the specifics. "We have to live here," she says.

    "The wall has created a pressure cooker," says Seifert, a former Catholic priest who has lived on the border for 29 years. "Before it was built, people crossed to pick peaches or lay roofing and came back. Then suddenly it became hard to do. The human smugglers loved it."

    Albert and Monsees aren't bleeding hearts. "We must enforce immigration laws," says Albert, who says that faced with a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton, she'll vote for Trump. "It's expensive even to take care of your own family, and the people who come over need taking care of. But they will keep coming if there are no consequences to it, wall or no wall."

    Monsees, who says he suffers from two forms of cancer and survives on Social Security, let it be known in 2014 that he needed help staying safe. The call spread on social networks and gun-toting locals and out-of-staters turned up to form a kind of militia on his property. "Some of them were good people, but others were here to play Rambo," Monsees says. "It was a vacation thing for them."

    They shot their AR-15 rifles and hunted illegal crossers. Fortunately for everyone, no deaths ensued. Two of the militiamen turned out to be convicted felons who had no right to possess firearms. They went to jail, and local police told Monsees, a former highway patrolman, that they didn't like the company he kept. Monsees says he sent his "helpers" home.

    Despite this history and his support for Trump, Monsees believes in increasing border patrol numbers more than he does in fences, ugly or "beautiful." I didn't notice any lack of personnel -- as we talked on the tailgate of Monsees's shabby truck on the south side of the wall, a patrolman passed back and forth no less than three times, waving to us in a friendly way -- but Monsees doesn't feel protected. He'd like to sell or lease his ranch and go away.

    Brownsville is in fact extremely safe. It is last of the 24 Texas metro areas in violent crime. Matamoros is another matter. There is a State Department warning for Americans to "delay all non-essential travel" there because of robberies and kidnappings.

    "The cartel violence in Matamoros is the real wall on the other side," says Seifert, who used to cross the border every weekend but no longer does. "There used to be a great atmosphere there, but no more."

    It's not the wall that's keeping the violence out of Brownsville. "The criminal enterprises are like corporate America in a way," Mayor Martinez says. "They don't want any part of the U.S. judicial process; problems are the last thing they want."

    In Mexico, the cartels fight their wars. In the U.S., they do business. They have captured the heroin and fentanyl market from South Asian suppliers, and they don't want to lose it by attracting too much attention.

    Rather than keep down crime and illegal immigration, the fence ended up hurting ordinary Americans who lost their land under eminent domain. "I got raped on the deal," Monsees said. "An acre went for $10,000 back then, but they offered me $1,500 for three acres and said if I didn't take it, they'd just take the land. So I took it." Albert said the compensation Loop Farms received was adequate for the land itself, but not for the disruption of the business.

    Eloisa Tamez, who fought the partition of her property in court and forced the government to consult with her on the placement of the fence, was paid $56,000 in compensation for less than half an acre on which the fence went up in 24 hours after she lost the last appeal. She has established a scholarship fund for nursing students. But she grew up on the property and the trauma hasn't quite healed. "If they could get away with that, what else could they do to me?" she says. "I never felt so lost as during that time. I was not treated as a citizen."

    That psychological effect is perhaps the wall's biggest wound to Brownsville, a community with a 91 percent Hispanic population. "Before the fence went up, we used to travel between Brownsville and Matamoros in a pretty liquid fashion," Mayor Martinez says. "We all have relatives on the other side."

    Many locals are angry at Trump. I watched Monday night's debate with a group of mostly Spanish-speaking people at a local law office, and one woman showed up in a T-shirt with a Spanish vulgarism under the Republican candidate's picture. "To be categorized as rapists and undesirables is extremely hurtful and unwelcome," Martinez says.

    The disappointment runs deeper, however. Tamez, who is a registered Democrat, doubts that she's going to vote for Clinton. Like many people here, she remembers that the militarization of the border began under President Bill Clinton. The decisions to build the fence and appropriate land for it were made under President George W. Bush, and Tamez's unsuccessful legal battle took place under President Barack Obama. Tamez, who met Obama and hoped he would stop the construction, now worries that democracy no longer works at all.

    Others in Brownsville believe the system's inefficiency is their shield from worse problems with Trump's wall. "I don't think he can build it," Albert says. "It's one thing to talk about it in New Hampshire where you heard it and another thing to actually try to do it here. There are all these little regulations to stick to."

    "Look how unfinished it is," Mayor Martinez says. "It's impossible to do in the four years that these guys get in the White House. Trump is just offering people who don't know better a quick fix. And it's not as if this fellow has never failed."

    Martinez hopes the existing wall will eventually come down. He points to the first private space launch pad in the U.S. that Elon Musk's SpaceX is building near Brownsville. "We are about to become an interplanetary civilization," he says. "And here we are talking about a wall separating what is essentially the same community."

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