Don’t worry, Lichtman will change the evidence he uses to make his prediction in time to get it right, sometime in mid-November, no matter who actually wins.
As for Silver, he seems to have gone off the deep end. Really don’t know what the hell to make of him these days.
Agreed that Harris apparent softening in the polls is not an ideal time. Stuff gets real after Labor Day.
To be clear, if I was a US resident, I’d of course vote for Harris, no matter who Cheney supports. In my book, Trump is a massive evil and danger for the cohesion of society there. But Cheney wasn’t far behind at the time as I wrote above. He’s a cancer.
Honestly, too much time on twitter. He is the type who got a bit of a kick out of the criticism of him after 2016 seemingly got a lot of enjoyment arguing with people upset over the “failure of the polls” telling people why they didnt know what they were talking about. You dont have to spend that much time in that position though before it becomes your whole personality, where you are desperate for a new contrarian position to take to fight with people over. And then Covid happened (I think its safe to say you could fairly describe him as a covid minimizer) and he just went full goon from there. He was so focused on everyone else’s inability to understand how risk works and the need for cost-benefit analyses (which is laughable to think the FDA needs to be made aware of such a concept) that he just didnt pay enough respect to his own lack of domain expertise on the science of the debate.
By the time of the 2022 midterms I could see evidence of it by then affecting his work. There was a lot of debate over the correct treatment of the raft of partisan republican newcomers, who by all appearances existed only to generate favourable polls for the GOP. Nate only ever engaged in those debates, at least publicly, in bad faith, refusing to characterize the main arguments for not using them or down weighting them far more significantly than he was. Then by the time he was ready to publish his retro on the performance of his models he cited the very thing that he had been refusing to hear from his critics - that the partisan GOP polls totally mischaracterized the race without acknowledging he had been roundly rejecting it before.
He still may well have valuable insights to share about the election, but I think he is quickly approaching territory where if he does get it “right” it is more likely to be in a Lichtman like pulling it out of his arse than due to judgement.
What actually really disappointed me recently was a video where it seemed he was hoping the incumbent key could be manipulated in order to keep the key a dem key. His proposal was something along the lines of, if Biden leaves office before end of term, and Harris becomes president, thereby the incumbent key does not change. I thought he belittled his system by suggesting that.
Just before the 2016 election, there was a video about a school (junior) that had predicted correct result for a period of time (long, not sure how long), and they interviewed this young girl (probably under 10) and asked her who was going to win, and she says “Trump”. The interviewer asks her why, and she says “I want to be the first woman president”. Thought it was cute.
The economy seems to be the orange rodents main plus,I wonder if any of those voting for him stop to think what slapping a 60% in imports from China will do to the economy and their own hip pocket nerve!Replacing everything that is made in China would cause a major burndown!
Tariffs are already anywhere from 10% to 100%. Canada just implemented some 100% tariffs recently.
That is his MO, and why I am so dismissive of him. He routinely does that with his ‘keys’, though the incumbent one is one of the more genuinely binary and objective ones
Before Biden stepped aside, it was all over. The Dems were sunk. Once Harris emerged as leader, we were in a fight, so from the Dem perspective, massive progress. The initial Harris surge has slowed to the point that it looks like a very close race.
I don’t really trust the polls, as far too many have their own inbuilt bias, and I don’t think a way has been found to adequately quantify Trump in the polls.
I will watch tonight’s debate with great interest. If content matters, Trump is the worst debater we’ve seen, as there isn’t a coherent thought in his head, and he comes across as someone who doesn’t understand how anything works. There’s no grasp of policy, the world, the workings of government, etc.
But he is effective at blustering his way through, being confident, and stumbling onto a soundbite here and there that has his base eating out of the palm of his hand. In that regard he has changed the game, whether we like it or not.
My hope is that on the eyeball test Harris will come across much better - younger, with ideas, and a winning story to tell about the greatness of America that can capture hearts. My hope is this will be in sharp contrast to the mean and vindictive nature of Trump.
At least 90% of it is already decided. There is nothing Trump can do tonight that will make his base not vote for him. He has 45% locked down.
But for the handful in the middle - and it is not many at all, they could possibly be moved one way or the other, influenced by what they see and hear tonight.
I will have the popcorn at the ready, tuning in to see what happens.
Also worth pointing out that he now works for a Thiel backed betting company heavily involved in the politics market. It is bad on its face given his well documented critical views on both that market and Thiel himself, and while its a bit conspiratorial to connect these dots, we do know that a necessary prerequisite for the election stealing strategies is creating a perception that Trump is favoured. We know RW groups put a lot of money into bad polls to invent an expectation of a red wave in 2022 and fudging betting markets is just an extension of that strategy.
It doesn’t. Everyone, and this includes the press, approaches these from the perspective of how they think other people will respond. And inherent in that is positioning these other people as people who dont know enough to evaluate the content and instead can only respond to the theatre. And of course by covering it like that they are not only encouraging the regular viewer to approach it that way as well, but refusing to provide them with the information they would need to actually evaluate the content and debate.
No one thinks this will go well from an actual debate perspective. Everyone knows Trump is a moron who will say nothing that has any merit, and this is so baked in that they coverage wont even ping him for that. Sure, Daniel Dale will be put on CNN at 1am to spend 20 minutes going over his various lies, but the framing of this is almost exclusively “how can Harris fuck up.”
“Oh sure, she was factually correct in rejecting Trump’s absurd lies about Hatian illegals stealing people’s pets and eating them, but did she have to do it in such a crass tone? People wont have liked that, and I think to the white working class factory workers in PA she will likely comes off as too prepared…too knowledgeable. She could definitely smile more”
I’ve actually seen something along the lines of that today, but I cannot remember definitively if it was about Harris or someone and something else.
Its was Chuck Todd’s actual critique of Hillary in 2016 so people are likely referencing that. Although I imagine some people are using it as a joke of how bad the coverage might be without realizing it was an actual real comment…from the Political Director of NBC news
What’s up with that dude anyway, why is he in that position? Everytime I’ve seen him he has such weird takes and I can’t be the only one getting an arseholish vibe from him?
People have been asking themselves that for 15 years. Literally no one know the answer, and are left to cynically conclude that his awfulness is just a reflection of how broken the editorial perspective is within the major newsrooms here.
I have heard him address the criticism he gets for the softball approach to interviews with Republicans he allows on his shows to just lie without being challenged, and his take is that he has a choice - hold them to account and then soon after have his booking manager not be able to book any republicans to come on his show, or to let them speak and have the viewers decide. How can he possibly believe the latter is the better path when people like him are responsible for giving viewers the information they need to be able to tell when an elected official is lying to them. It’s proper brain breaking shit to hear these people justify their role in how deranged our information systems are and how little dignity they have in allowing themselves to be used in this way.
He hasn’t changed the game.
The rightwing media has.
This is the kind of incisive and well-informed post that TAN is famous for.
It’s still better than any of yours.
I have the excuse of senility.
Whippersnapper.
All she needs to do is not look at the weirdo or give him the time of day.
From there, it will all fall into place.
This works for me with @Sithbare.