From Harold J. Breaux:
Fake News Elected Donald Trump
As we install our new President a debate has continued over the legitimacy of his election. While the debate has centered around the alleged Russian involvement this writer believes the issue centers around a combination of factors including
a.) release of the Comey letter concerning Anthony Weiner’s computer that by implication might contain a stash of Hillary Clinton e-mails, which belatedly was corrected by the FBI Director,
b.) Russian involvement both through hacking and creating and/or accelerating the dissemination of Fake News.
c.) The skewing and dissemination trough social media of Fake News against Hillary Clinton by ideologues and commercial entrepreneurs.
This writer, a mathematician by profession, has extensively studied the Fake News issue and applied mathematical analysis to the issue and written a formal paper on the topic. The end result is a definitive conclusion that is described by the title of my paper, namely “Mathematics Shows That Fake News Elected Trump as President”. The paper accentuates the importance of the U.S. needing to develop and implement measures to assure that Fake News does not ever again play such a critical role in U. S. elections.
I have posted the paper on my web site at: www.complexpolitics.wordpress.com
The abstract of the paper is listed below.
ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of Fake News, aimed at voters in the Presidential Election of 2016, is examined from the standpoint of voting results, demographics of voters usage of social media as source of news, slanting statistics of Fake News on social media platforms and data on voters propensity or inclination to be swayed by Fake News.
A mathematical model is derived to estimate how votes were thus swung to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump by ideologues and entrepreneurs (and possibly Russia). The model focuses initially on the aggregation of votes needed to swing the Electoral College votes from Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania but uses a nationwide proportionality analysis for the eventual model. The end result is conclusive. Fake News led to the Electoral College Victory of Donald Trump. A remarkable numerical result from the model is that the aggregate percentage of swing votes lost to Clinton (1.07 %), (based on the reported values of 17% of social media readers having a propensity to switch after reading Fake News), when added to her actual popular vote margin of 2.22%, equals a margin of 3.29%. This compares to the aggregate or average final poll prediction results of 3.3% for Clinton reported by Real Clear Politics [10]. So as not to rely on a single estimate of propensity to switch, a parametric analysis is conducted varying this factor.
The analysis shows that this factor can be as low as 2.4% (compared to the reported 17%) and still be sufficient to switch 379,000 votes nationally, the amount needed proportionally to swing the 39,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that gave Trump the Electoral College victory.
Harold J. Breaux
Aberdeen
Harold for the love of god please get a life. Go seek mental health help and claim stress like all your other tree hugger friends are. This calls for a SMH and LOL at the same time.
Harold = Jackass
Great essay Mr. Breaux. You know youv’e done a good job of analysis when you stir up the Trump internet trolls. Harford trolls went nuts over your undeniable facts.
There is a companion article on the same subject at http://voxpopulisphere.com. The article is by William deBuy and is called Election Rigging 101: How To High Jack An Election.
The manipulation of the election was three pronged:
1. Russian cyber-sabotage
2. FBI Meddling
3. Systematic Republican efforts to suppress the vote of minority citizens with dubious voter ID restrictions
Once again, great essay Mr. Breaux.
Mr. Breaux,
1 who cares what your math says as we all know numbers can be manipulated to prove whatever.
2 Obama needed to be replaced by someone who knew how to run something besides there mouth.
3 HRC wasn’t elected due to the Electoral college.
4 You and the rest of the cry babies in your party need to find someone that isn’t a
lying do nothing crook.
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” Benjamin Disreli.
“This writer, a mathematician by profession, has extensively studied the Fake News issue and applied mathematical analysis to the issue and written a formal paper on the topic”
Mr. Breaux forgot one of the primary rules of science. Never let your opinion get in the way of your arithmetic.
I’m no math major but it’s obvious that Mr. Breaux never considered the other side of the equation. What impact did the constant drumbeat of liberal propaganda have on the electorate? Some of the most ill-informed people I know are liberals. They get all of their news from Comedy Central, MSNBC and CNN and never seek out an alternate viewpoint. Hillary Clinton was endlessly promoted by almost every media outlet and received nothing but fawning press coverage. She also is one of the most corrupt politicians every to seek office but you would never know from their reporting. The Clinton foundation is nothing more than a elaborate pay for play scheme designed for their personal enrichment first and the country second. If you need proof of this look at how their donations have dried up since they our out of power. It stinks to high heaven that two individuals who have been in government their whole life have an approximate net worth of 110 million dollars.
The fact that Hillary was not prosecuted for having her own private server is ridiculous. Mr Breaux was/is an employee of Army Research Lab. I’m curious if he ever considered installing a private server in his garage where he could store classified/TSCI information. Since this article wasn’t published from a prison cell, my guess is he never considered that an appropriate option.
The socialist experiment we’ve conducted over the last several administrations has left us with endless wars, stagnating wages and 20 trillion in debt. It’s time to drain the swamp! I don’t know if Trump will be successful but I wish him the best.
Mark you are a fine example of a Trump University graduate. Did you get your refund yet?
“their”, not “there”
Harold, you cannot seriously attempt to make such a prediction with such precision and certainty from a meta-analysis of polling data and election returns. It is simply impossible unless you already had your conclusion in mind when you selected the data points to fit your model.
Interesting analysis. I look forward to peer review of the paper. It is too late to change the outcome, but is useful information to recognize and prevent this happening again in the future.
Fake News = horseshit, you candidate lost because of her corruption, lying & incompetence, and also the public being fed up with Obama and his policies and the idea of another 4 years of the same.
get over it.
Its a mathematic model, and that makes you guys feel threatened? In the scientific world, the world where people have actually progressed past a high school diploma mentality, accept fact for what it is, like it or not. You can agree to disagree. People don’t call each other names just because they don t understand the theories and basis behind it. They just prove it wrong with their own research and thesis. Oh, wait, I forgot you guys have maxed out at a high school diploma and wouldn’t know where to begin with such a study. Well, back to sweeping floors, coffee break is over for you.
Harold, You are truly a brilliant mathematician.
Guess the fact the other candidate was under FBI investigation and should have been charged with multiple felonies had nothing to do with her losing. Unbelievable this being taken seriously.
Message to Democrats – if you nominate a politician under FBI investigation do not complain about the FBI being part of the campaign.
Also – the hacked information was not Fake News, it was actually real news. The thoughts and opinions of Dem consultants and candidates were published verbatim. Maybe that is why they keep trying to shift the blame to the Russians, so people forget what was really in the emails.
Did you guys set you clock back a hundred years this morning?
A countering analysis:
Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election
Hunt Allcott, New York University and NBER ?
Matthew Gentzkow, Stanford University and NBER
January 2017
Nice find, long read and an interesting conclusion. Not what I would have expected. Thanks for posting.
Reminds of the old “figures lie and liars figure” saying. If I believed this fake news story I would believe most of what your parent company the Scum paper prints, but I don’t. And so 44 don’t let the screen door hit you where the dog should of bit you.
Wow, lots of Luddites commenting. Putin must be laughing his butt off at the half of the American electorate stupid enough to fall for his ruse.
My math learning is very simple. It reveals that 306 tops 233 and is the real reason why Trump won the Presidency.
Fake news elected no one. Idiots that believe articles like pizza gate, and things like your health care is going to get less expensive and you are going to get a tax break are what got Trump elected.
Heck I never believed OBama was going to take my guns but sure enough last night he knocked on my door and took them.
Bottom line is Republicans are basically dumb, that’s why years ago Trump said if he ever ran it would be as a Republican. No fancy math needed. chant lock her up and the brainless will shower you with praise.
you spelt your own name wrong……. its Moron 😉
Aaaand, the Trump statement you referenced was proven to be fake. Nice try.
Joe not to be too technical for you but all Trump statements are proven fakes…. AKA lies.
Thanks for playing.
Are you really that dense or do you just play an idiot on the Dagger? Trump never said the ‘quote’ that if he ran, it would be as a Republican. Is that too technical for you, as my first post was?
Good news everyone Trump signed his first executive order letting all those people locked up in FEMA camps free. Making America Great Again!!!!
Finally, the 8 year national nightmare is over. Can’t wait for Trump to fire all of the do nothing mathematicians employed by the US taxpayer.
… and I can’t wait to see you protesting that Trump reduced your Social Security by 80%! Better to have deadbeats like you off the taxpayer’s backs, right?
He hasn’t done anything, except for removing any penalties accrued from the ACA, yet. Let’s see what he does before declaring him a jerk. He did win the election. Let’s judge him by his actions and not the rhetoric of the elections……
Well, I guess he’ll be firing a lot of Republicans too! It took two parties and a tea party to complete bring our government to a stop. Not just Democrats. Not just Republicans. Both sides behaved like adolescent idiots. Let’s be truthful about our observations and not let them be a product of the two political gang system…..
Follow-up on Mathematics of Fake News
In the last day or so (Jan 19, 2016) a paper by Stanford and New York University Economists (Allcott and Gentzkow, ( hereafter referred to as AG) titled “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election” became available on the Internet. URL is listed below [1]. Today, numerous articles based on that paper have appeared on the Internet with most of the headlines suggesting that no conclusions can be drawn that Fake News changed the election results. The AG paper is long and very detailed, nevertheless, the best way to interpret their findings is to examine their conclusion on page 22. They state:
“In summary, our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news, and even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans. For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake news story would need to have convinced about 0.7 percent of Clinton voters and non-voters who saw it to shift their votes to Trump, a persuasion rate equivalent to seeing 36 television campaign ads.”
HJB Comment 1: From this AG conclusion one can conclude that the author’s made no conclusion, only expressed doubts, about whether Fake News tilted the election to Trump.
HJB Comment 2: On page 17 of their paper, like this author, AG focused on the three swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (MWP) and stated:
“Under this assumption, for Clinton to have won the election, Trump’s margin of victory would have to decrease by approximately .51% of the voting age population , which would shift Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin into Clinton wins and deliver the Electoral College.”
This is a peculiar assumption for the following reason. The voting age population of MWP is 22.24 million [2]. .51 % of 22.24 million equals 113, 424 votes. In Table 1, page 3 of this writer’s paper, Trump’s winning vote margin in MWP was 77,734 votes. Accordingly, the Electoral College could thus have swung to Trump by 38, 868 (77,734/2 +1) votes, almost 3 times less than the AG assumption. Note that AG claims to use a national proportionality method similar to this writer for MWP.
Comment 2: In their conclusion AG state: “ For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake news story would need to have convinced about 0.7 percent of Clinton voters and non-voters who saw it to shift their votes to Trump.” On page 6 of the paper the authors AG state “we have a data base of 156 fake news articles.” Accordingly, giving the authors AG benefit of the doubt, the above quote is poor wordage at best, questionable at worst.
Regarding Dagger Comments:
To Frodobaggin’s: Both candidates had negatives. You only mentioned Clinton’s negatives. Also, your concern about reading and viewing habits (Comedy Central, MSNBC etc.) please note that I have been a daily reader of the Wall Street Journal for 20 plus years, a notable conservative paper, and I occasionally turn on Fox, (for amusement).
To Mark: Trump “was” elected due to the Electoral College. Clinton won the popular vote by2.9 million votes.
To Bernoulli: With respect to precision: Because the topic is so imprecise and statistical I did a parametric analysis which varied the key parameter, namely the gullibility/ propensity factor to switch votes based on reading Fake News. See my Table 5.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf
[2] http://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2016/comm/voting_age_population/cb16-tps37_voting_michigan-social.html
Harold J. Breaux
Mr. Breaux,
Yes, both candidates had negatives. I mentioned Hillary’s, because you rarely heard them in the traditional press and they were not factored in your calculations. Hillary stood there day after day claiming that she never sent “classified” email on her private server, only to have the story morph later in the campaign to “mark classified” Did your calculation factor in the hubris of the Clinton campaign?
To suggest that a Secretary of State never sent any classified information just assumes all Americans are stupid. The Secretary of State’s job is to deal with foreign governments. See the duties of the Secretary of State below:
https://www.state.gov/secretary/2017/index.htm
How did this effect the electorate? FBI Meddling? She should have been indicted. The “meddling” occurred in the Department of Justice that refused to indict on such an obviously criminal act. Doesn’t that trouble you? Doesn’t it make you wonder why? Que bono? .
How about when it was discovered that she received the debate questions ahead of the debate? I wonder how many Bernie voters stayed home because of this?
The problem your analysis is that it further serves to mislead and distract the American public. The truth is that most of the Washington establishment would have been satisfied with Clinton or Bush. That includes both Democrats and Republicans alike. The squirrel chasing memes of social justice and p#ssy grabbing only serve to distract the American public from the real issues at hand. Our problems are much greater than a career criminal not reaching their ultimate goal.
15 year of endless war
20 trillion in debt
Stagnating wages
Stripping of manufacturing from the United States
19 and 20 years old students having gobs of debt shoved down their throats only to acquire a less than adequate education
Hillary would have been in a continuation of everything I listed above. Trump is an outsider that seems bent on taking on the establishment in Washington that are largely responsible for the issues we have. I hope he succeeds.
Try to keep your eye on the ball.
P.S. Your comment about tuning into Fox news for “amusement” only, makes me suspicious that you never really truly consider an alternative viewpoint. You need to rescue yourself from the liberal echo chamber. I can suggest some blogs for you to read if you like.
Your whole article is Fake News.
I thought you were in DC participating in the Women’s March and protesting Trumpkin?
I see you are trying to spread fake news again.
You and the Trumpkins would be the authority on fake news.
Lol, I admit it , I was a diehard HiLIARy supporter, but one time I clicked on this suspicious looking Facebook page…I can’t explain it, but boom!, I voted for Trump.
For your next Nobel prize in Mathematics Pythagoras, please explain how sheep’s bladders can be used to predict earthquakes. .
Maybe Harold, there could be an alternative explanation….such as, Hillary was a historically awful candidate, and we were fed up with 8 yrs of Commie Barry
I didn’t participate in the Women’s March, but I did go to the Inauguration. The crowds were very sparse for this type of an event. I have been to other events where the crowds were much larger. The weather was not the best on and off. I almost thought that I had the wrong day and time information for a while. Trump will still probably claim that he had huge record breaking crowds, but that would be really stretching the truth.
Trump supporters were at work.
Indeed! I would have loved being there but unfortunately I had to work to pay the bills in support of my family.
Kind of like little orange kochroaches.
While I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the “fake news” was that sunk Hillary, I think the anger Democrats are feeling is seriously misdirected. Hillary trusted Podesta who – and I’ve heard differing accounts – either used “password” or some variation as his password or he bit on a phishing message that directed him to change his password. Either way he was a boob and he could have fallen victim to a 10 year old. The veracity of the subsequent dump of e-mails was never disputed by him or anyone else involved in the campaign – but only because that was impossible. Democrat anger should be directed at the Clintons, Wasserman Schulz, Brazile, and much of the main stream media for the appalling lack of choice and all the collusion that resulted in a primary that was little more than a farce. Don’t kid yourselves that you ever had a choice. I would have been happier if we’d gotten stolen e-mails of EVERY candidate on BOTH sides so for once in history we could choose a candidate without lies and deception. If Hillary and her people didn’t want to be caught out in lies, maybe they shouldn’t have been telling them. And while you’re busy blaming the Russians and everyone else, I’m sure we have thousands on the payroll busy every day trying to hack every country on Earth.
This is answer is absolutely correct. DNC stabbed Bernie in the back, and the leaked, *genuine* emails from Podesta showed everyone the ugly inside of the democratic elites.
Oddly enough, the emails are *not* fake news. They’re one of the only things around that we’re able to take as fact.
Thanking whoever made them available. Know we know.
“Fake” news influenced another election. Remember? Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction to a video.
How soon people forget. Sadly, people died.
Fake Math
Didn’t know that you could recognize real math.
Harold is 100% right 0% of the time.
It is better than being 0% right 100% of the time like yourself.
What mr. dildo fails to point out with his math is that millions of illegals are voting in the election. Upwords of 90% of them vote democrat. Lets say out of 20 million illegals that 20% of them voted in the last election, with 4 million illegal votes cast and 90% of them went to the hillary. Hillary would have accumulated 3.6 million illegal votes.
Based on my numbers, Trump wins popular vote by 200k votes. Keep in mind we are using conservative estimates so the margin of victory could even be much greater.
Only certain states allow illegals to vote. Maryland is not one of them. The states that are allowing it should be forced to change their laws by Federal intervention because it does not reflect the wishes of actual americans that are voting. So why did Maryland vote for Hillary when we don’t allow illegals to vote here? I’m waiting for this answer. It ought to be good…..
No state allows illegals to vote. Some states do allow illegals to obtain drivers licenses. Most of these states also allow voter registration at the same time. This is an invitation to fraud, since many of the same states do not require a voter I.D. Democrats only do this to ensure that the next crop of new voters will continue to vote for them. It’s a shame that the security and well being of the country are less important than their desire to remain in power. Since voting laws are are decided at the state/county level and none of the voting machines are connected to the internet it is very difficult to “hack the election” as the media is fond of claiming. However, if a state decides to look the other way during voter registration, then it’s anybody’s guess how many may have voted.
Such ashamed we dont pay attention to our own backyard. Harford County is being run by the two corrupt individuals; Barry & Billy. An opportunity is coming to drain Harford County’s swamp.
Home – A great place to start.