Somewhere, Nate Silver Is Huddling in a Closet, Contemplating Suicide...

[mallorys_camera]

I was too wasted to attempt the drive back to the Hudson Valley yesterday, so spent the day in B’s kitchen hunched over my computer, generating income. It was rainy and very cold, though not quite cold enough to snow. I wondered about autumn’s gradient. The trees in the Catskills forests I’d passed on the drive up here were completely bare, but here in T-burg, many of the trees were still decked out in yellow and orange. Differential CO2 levels, perhaps? Assuming CO2 has some insulating effect.

In the evening B cooked me spaghetti and then screened the very lovely documentary City of Gold, which is all about the L.A. Times’ food critic and his deep affection for the City of Los Angeles – an affection I momentarily shared while I watched this film. Really! It was the first time I felt nostalgic for California since I left California.

Since EVERYTHING is about the Election, I will note here that the L.A.Times ran the only poll that consistently predicted Der Donald’s victory. Along with everything else, this election probably marks the end of random call polls as a useful tool. It may even mark the death of proscriptive data journalism except as a kind of not-terribly-illuminating postscript in hindsight analysis.

Somewhere, Nate Silver Is huddling in a closet, contemplating suicide...

###

Not much time for introspection this morning, so I will merely add to yesterday’s rant (though I promise to stop writing about politics very, very soon!):

The electorate was hungry for the change that Obama promised but never delivered.

Rule #1 in electoral politics: Mobilize your base.

Rule #2 in electoral politics: Listen to your base.

The Democratic National Party should have read the tealeaves and gotten out of the way. They didn’t. HRC said the right things, but she was the wrong messenger. She was never gonna be the change that voters wanted. Maybe if she’d picked a more dynamic running mate… Grudges from the primaries probably played a part in her defeat, especially after those revelations about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazille, but her “experience” was never gonna mobilize the base. The Dems’ Go-To Strategy became Fear of the Orange Bogeyman. Her last two weeks of campaign speeches were all variations on, Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Unfortunately, that didn’t motivate 50% of the electorate.

Because fear can never replace enthusiasm.

Comments

[lilchiva.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm really stunned that Nate Silver missed this. My Bookie got this and bought out my 150-1 Trump bet. Everything other than the polls pointed to Trump. Gah.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, Silver is an aggregator not a pollster. And an aggregator is only as good as his or her primary sources.

150-1 Trump bet.

Ha, ha! I had three bets riding on this election, all of which involve dinners in expensive restaurants. I maintained HRC would win. I'm now wondering whether I can wiggle out of the bets because the exact wording of the bets wasn't that HRC would become the next President but only that she would win the election. Which technically, she did. :-)

But it would be wrong of me to wiggle. Sigh...

[lilchiva.livejournal.com]

I bet on them both. So, I was covered either way. But, my point is that the people who put money down on the election event knew, as did several economists, as did several historical pundents. I'm a crank. These people are not cranks. Nobody listened to them.

HRC, as far as we know, got the popular vote. If I understand correctly, we haven't finished counting all the vote really. We just have the ones that counted counted. I wouldn't wiggle out on that either. It'll be "just great". lol

[cah1470.livejournal.com]

"Because fear can never replace enthusiasm. Really??? I thought fear (of losing jobs, way of life, 2004 gay marriage) has been motivating the Republicans for decades now.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my first reaction was What motivated a lot of Trump voters if not fear? IIRC, mallorys_camera made exactly that argument here after the San Bernadino shooting.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, fear motivated Trump voters. I don't think it works too well to energize a more progressive base, which HRC voters presumably were. I see my wording above is unclear, but this is what I mean. You don't win over a group of people who are basically optimistic about change in the future with a fear message. It's the wrong emotional tone.

[petrona.livejournal.com]

I was about to say; the Trump Supporters made their choices based on fear.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Right! They're conservatives! Protectionism is motivated by fear.

But HRC's base was not conservatives; they were a coalition of centrists, liberals, and out-and-out progressives. Maybe the centrists are motivated to some degree by fear. But the message that plays to liberals and progressives is (you should forgive the phrase) hope and change.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Motivating Republicans, yes. Not Progressives. I see I wasn't at all clear in what I was writing above, but what I meant to say was that the fear message didn't play well to her prospective base. What plays well to a progressive base is hope and change.

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

I got what you meant and agree. There was a lot of fear mongering on both sides. A lot of the folks I spoke to who were either not voting or were voting third party as a protest vote were former Bernie Sanders supporters who were angry about the whole mess with the primaries and the way they felt the party had betrayed them.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the more details that emerged about the dirty pool that Wasserman Schultz played, the more Bernie Sanders voters recused themselves. I'm not judging them either. The HRC machine proved itself to be totally backstabbing and untrustworthy.

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

Of course in many states it wouldn't have mattered either way. My home state voted so over the top for Trump that everyone against him could have just stayed home and it would not have changed the outcome one bit. Our county on the other hand was just the opposite. Not that it mattered.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What's your home state?

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

Tennessee is my home state and also where I live at the moment

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Eastern part of TN or western part of TN?

I've heard western TN is really red-state.

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

Shelby County which include Memphis is typically democrat heavy but that depends on who actually gets off the couch and makes it to the polls.

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

I believe shelbyvote.com has a link to our local results

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

I thought for sure Hillary would win easily. I still can't believe she didn't. But truthfully, Obama was exciting. He got the young people motivated. Hillary just wasn't ever going to do that.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Nope. So the search is on for a candidate who will!

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

They can't so "safe". That just doesn't inspire the voters. Bernie inspired people! Some people thought he didn't have a chance, but I bet he would have won.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I don't think Bernie could have won -- the heartland would never have voted for a "socialist."

But I'm sure there was someone who could have won. Thing is Hillary Clinton's ascendency to the throne Presidency was shoved down people's throats as an inevitability. And quite a few people resented that.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for the past 20 years it was basically a given that she was going to be our first woman president.