Number Crunching

I noticed in the replies to a Bluesky post recently that people are misreading certain polls in a way that drastically overstimates the support for Trump—and it’s not his supporters doing the misreading in this case, but his critics. A YouGov poll in September asked the question “How popular is Donald Trump in Western Europe?” and graphed the results by net favourability, showing −67 for France, −74 for Spain, −75 for Britain, −76 Italy, −78 Germany, and a spectacular −91 for Denmark. Some repliers to the thread were unimpressed by how much lingering support those figures implied, noting “that difficult 25% [in the UK] again”, wondering how “9% of Danes are cool with their country being invaded”, and saying that France needed to “get a grip”. But Trump’s approval figures are much lower than 33% for France, 25% for the UK, or 9% for Denmark; they aren’t 100 minus 67 or 75 or 91. The figures on the graph represent the percentage who are favourable minus those who are unfavourable, or…