Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the pollsters. The smart money may still be on Joe Biden to eventually prevail as the 2020 presidential election winner, but I’ve seen enough to declare the polling industry, and its cousin, “probabilistic election forecasting,” as the biggest losers.
I’m not alone in thinking this. Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Axios “the political polling profession is done” after Tuesday. “Political polling is a fraud,” writes conservative John Podhoretz in the New York Post. It turns out that “Trump PTSD” from 2016 wasn’t a paranoid or out-of-touch response; it was a smart defense mechanism. At one point, the night felt eerily reminiscent of 2016, which is to say, the so-called experts blew it. Again. Even if Biden goes on to win, it’s a far cry from the landslide we were led to expect.
Probabilistic forecasting, which is tightly tied to the polling industry, has harmed our understanding of elections and the electorate. That’s because it creates an inherent veneer of certainty, no matter how hard you insist otherwise. We were all better off when folks used to just say “polls are snapshots and things can always change.” The whole allure of data journalism was that it would bring objective clarity, and it just isn’t.
Comments
on topic in my feed
by artappraiser on Wed, 11/04/2020 - 6:34pm
"Polls were off significantly".
Post-election analysis are often based on expectations created by polls.
Biden does "poorly" because polls were off
One argument based on the supposed poor performance suggests it was due to identify politics
Another argument is that is was due to people being ready to vote for a white supremacist.
The truth is that Biden performed as expected because it was always going to be a close race.
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 11/04/2020 - 8:03pm
by artappraiser on Wed, 11/04/2020 - 6:45pm
Olivia Nuzzi:
by artappraiser on Wed, 11/04/2020 - 8:09pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/05/2020 - 1:19am
The opinion editor of The Forward berates a different group:
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/05/2020 - 11:49am
The problem is that so much of Trump vote was based on people believing the propaganda. That's what I took from the many articles I read on Trump voters. Yes, there was propaganda put out by Biden supporters in the media too But that propaganda isn't why people voted for him. I've been pointing out some of that propaganda here, about how Biden was so liberal. But no one on the far left that voted for him believed that propaganda for an instant.
We can dispense with those who believe Q-anon or Alex Jones types. That's a level of propaganda that indicates some degree of mental illness in those who believe it. But what did Trump accomplish that he promised. He didn't get funding for his wall, ignoring the nonsense that Mexico was gonna pay for it. For all the ranting about our deficit with China and all the pain his policies caused for his most ardent supports, rural voters in farming communities, the deficit with China went up. The US unemployment rate went from 11 when Obama started to 5 when he left office. Trump took that from 5 to under 4. So how does any thinking person give Trump credit for the "greatest economy ever?"
How does one understand why they voted for him when the reasons they give are based on false information and the real reasons seem more likely to be emotional. We don't need journalists to understand and explain it, it seems we need psychologists to explain it to us.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 11/05/2020 - 1:13pm
I think you are right with your psychologists line. But where this takes us is back to populism and demagogues manipulation of their power. This danger is always there in a democracy that promotes everyone voting and not just educated elites! No way getting around that dirty problem! My own mother with a high school education did not adore and vote for JFK and Jackie because of political policies.
I see the only solution to this problem is to downplay the power of a president as a celebrity and role model. We don't have a royal family to divert people who need that. So now chickens have come to roost, we ended up with the ultimate nightmare celebrity as president at exactly the same time a big portion of the population happen like his "in yo face anti-p.c. MAGA" persona as representing the U.S. They don't pay attention to what he accomplished or did policy-wise like they didn't care about what any other president accomplished or did. It's all in the celeb/persona symbolism.
Maybe another solution might be to emphasize other races, especially more local ones, and require people to vote in them with fines if they don't and de-emphasize the presidential race?
I have often been surprised how people can rise to the occasion on actual policy and governing on local matters when it actually affects their day-to-day life, such as school boards...
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/05/2020 - 1:31pm
Wouldn't presume to elaborate on what he means, just saw it, so sharing it.
by artappraiser on Fri, 11/06/2020 - 1:25am