"How fortunate for governments
that the people they administer don't think."
-Hitler-
"Only two things are
infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the
former."
-Albert Einstein-Old
Updates....
11/17/20 (20:34)
Most of what I write here strives to
be different from what is normally talked about. For this reason, and others,
I probably come off as more controversial than I actually am. I'm exploring
ideas and looking for areas that aren't as discussed or agreed upon. There's
no fun or point in writing 2,000 words on how and why Trump is a POS.
Picking up where I left off last time...the
media was making a big deal because Harris is the first woman VP-elect.
We had this
choice before many many times in the past. What's notable about it
this time is that she won. But if this was a big deal for you, there were
many times you could have let your actions speak louder than words. For
example, in 2000 I voted for Ralph Nader and his VP running mate Winona
LaDuke. I also voted for Elizabeth Warren and Biden/Harris. I didn't, however,
vote for Sarah Palin. I suppose, though, that you could have done that
if it was really important to you to have a woman in office. I'm guessing
none of my readers cared enough about it to vote Republican, however.
Here are a couple facts: Georgia has
a population of 3.7 million. Popular vote in Georgia is approx. 5 million.
So, those are two facts as far as we
can tell and yet when you combine them it looks lot like there is voter
fraud. How can Georgia have a population of 3.7 million if they've already
counted almost 5 million votes cast in Georgia for Trump and Biden? The
answer is that the country of Georgia has a population of 3.7 million and
the state of Georgia has a population of 10.6 million. Apparently these
two facts, when combined in a confusing way, have contributed to some thinking
there has been fraud in the election. Sad!
NYC had lines of 4-6 hours for early
voters. This lines issue is the same issue that has been used as ammo in
the argument for voter suppression elsewhere. (Purging of voting rolls
being the other big example of suppression). But here are excessively long
lines in what is a Democratic stronghold. So, I don't think it's fair to
say that long lines are always a sign of suppression. Although,
that doesn't stop some people ("“This is nothing more than clear and simple
voter suppression,” she said. “Voter suppression of senior citizens, voter
suppression of people with disabilities and voter suppression of working
women and men." The truth is that NYC didn't open enough polling places
for early voting so there were long lines. Even with COVID and mail in
voting, people still showed up in person so much that the lines were 5
hours long. This is ridiculous, of course, and another sign that government
can't do its job - even when Democrats (who supposedly want to see government
working well) run things. But it's also a sign that incompetence is more
likely than malice (Hanlon's razor)...even if you wish it were otherwise.
And let's be clear, there are some who really want there to be suppression
so they can have someone to blame for their failures - or those of their
party.
White men are the most privileged in
society, right? So why do they disproportionately commit suicide? The most
common theory I hear is that they have no one to blame for their fate in
life so they take their own life when faced with despair. Whatever your
model of the world, you have to come up with a theory that explains such
an outcome.
A big part of my outlook on life is that
life is suffering. My view of the state of nature is that it's basically
chaos and despair. Happiness isn't the state of nature - hard work and
despair are. Hobbes said life is nasty, brutish, and short. I think that's
more accurate than the opposite.
I watched a lot of national geographic
type stuff when I was a kid. And though most of it wasn't as concentrated
as (this) that sort of thing
is basically my view of nature. I think if you view life as potentially
that bad on a regular basis, then it's a lot easier to take things like
COVID in stride. If, however, you think life should be rainbows and unicorns,
then any derivation from that hurts all the more.
If you have a rainbows and unicorns view
of life it's also easier to go down the path of blaming others and thinking
of life as oppressor vs. oppressed. After all, life should be great and
yet it isn't so it must be someone's fault. Nature is paradise so things
only go badly when corporations and governments and oppressors fuck everything
up...so the reasoning goes. It's also easier to have this view of life
when you've been spoiled by the success of the generations before us which
have helped build a society that is good relative to the chaotic state
of nature.
Someone said "Small minds discuss things.
Average minds discuss people. Great minds discuss ideas." (Some think it
was Eleanor Roosevelt, but it's not confirmed.) I think this is an important
quote to remember these days. We have a lot of brilliant minds that have
been focusing on one person for the last four years. I've said for a long
time that Trump will be gone in 4-8 years, maybe less, and so we need to
have discussions that keep that in mind. I'm less concerned about what
he does or says than about the ideas raised by his tenure. I've also seen
enough bogeymen in my life to know that it's just whack a mole with these
idiots. All the experts have been saying for years that so and so is as
bad as they come (Gingrich, Tom Delay, Mitch McConnell, Trump, Boehner,
Lott, etc.). Principles and ideas should rise above these idiots and yet
they hardly ever do.
Democrats are bewildered once again this
election cycle. Among other things they are scratching their heads over
the increase in votes for Trump by Blacks (small increase to about 10%)
and Latinos (decent increase 28-->32%). The reason this doesn't compute
is that they have a model of the world that views things along starkly
racial lines. It mostly holds for Blacks (90% voting for Democrats), but
for Asians and Latinos (both about 30%) it's not as stark as Democrats'
view of the world would expect. It's the same reason they have no answer
for Log Cabin Republicans (gay Republicans). They think belonging to a
demographic group should equate to a political outlook. Besides this being
a pretty racist world view, it's also plainly wrong. It doesn't take into
account that race/gender aren't defining characteristics for all people.
It doesn't take into account religion. It doesn't consider free thought.
It doesn't allow for nuance like Mexican vs. Cuban or Chinese vs. Vietnamese.
Liberals tend to be the ones to point out that race is a social construct
and yet they are also the ones who don't seem to understand the limitations
of this construct.
Why did we hear about Kanye West running
for president and possibly taking votes from Biden, but I never heard about
Jo Jorgensen taking votes from Trump (538 may have actually addressed it
once)? I think this is yet another indicator of a clear pro-Biden bias
in the media. Jorgensen received way more votes and (as I pointed out in
a previous post) may have actually influenced the election (if you buy
that sort of thinking), yet she received almost no "spoiler" type coverage
in the liberal media that I follow. Half as many results come up for "kanye
spoiler biden" as come up for "jorgensen spoiler trump" in case that means
anything.
If we want better people in leadership
positions (and I think we should) then we need to allow them to make mistakes
from time to time without canceling them or raking them over the coals.
With the media coverage as it is you get people who don't mind the constant
scrutiny and attention....in other words extraordinarily thick skinned
people or very power hungry people or narcissists like Trump and Bill Clinton.
Couple this media dynamic with the need to raise ridiculous amount of money
and you get narcissistic people who are super rich, don't mind asking for
money, are beholden to the rich...none of these things are recipes for
good candidates.
If you haven't heard of onlyfans then
you're probably not on the internet much. Seeing as more and more of the
real world is moving to the fake world, you should probably at least be
aware of what's going on there. In a lot of ways the internet is the distillation
of the worst (and best) of humans. Anyway, here's a
video on the psychology behind onlyfans. Might be an interesting data
point to keep in mind when you consider the dynamics of power in gender
today.
If you're a pro-diversity person, like
me, then you have to be saddened by studies that find that Blacks do better
when taught by other Blacks (1.
2.
3.).
Or that girls learn better in all girl environments (1.
2.
3.). I've
heard these arguments before and it's always in a pro-black teacher or
pro-all girls school sort of discussion. But, at the same time, it undermines
any argument you might make for diversity as a strength. It reaffirms things
that David Duke and Mohammed Ali agree on: people should stick with their
own tribe. This is a sad outcome if you don't like that conclusion. Personally
I'm not a pro-all girls school type of person. I believe that girls need
to learn to get along with boys and vice versa. At the same time, it sure
seems clear that girls do better without boys around so should do worse
because we believe in diversity?
I haven't been able to find as much data
on how boys do without girls, so that's another question. It's also pretty
clear to me that school today is a better match for girls than boys. No
more shop classes or vocational training and much more geared towards people
who can sit still for hours on end and learn in a rigid environment. Boys
tend to be more high energy - ADHD and autism spectrum types and these
attributes are in stark contrast with the pedagogy of today's schools.
Makes sense, I suppose, since most
teachers are women. We also now have more
women in college than men. So, it sure seems that, at least in education,
the power seems to be clearly on the side of girls.
When Clarence Thomas got grilled his
response was to call it a modern day lynching. When Kavanaugh got grilled
his response was equally angry and he called it an attack because of pent
up rage having to do with Clinton's loss. WTF is wrong with these people?
I think Kavanaugh's response, in particular, was disqualifying. However,
I didn't see much discussion about Amy Coney Barrett's qualifications when
she was nominated. There was a bunch of talk about the process, but very
little in the media about whether she could do the job or not. This should
be the only real question. After Kavanaugh showed his partisanship he should
have been out. ACB, though, didn't have a response like that. She dodged
all the questions like they usually do, but that's not unusual anymore.
I wish they were required to answer questions of substance. This would
be accountability of some sort, but that doesn't happen. It's interesting
to note that a lot of people have in mind that Thomas sexually assaulted
Anita Hill. In fact, some talking heads have even claimed that...I guess
the collective memory on this has shifted. The reality is that he talked
to Hill about porn and stuff and made her uncomfortable, but he was never
accused of rape or assault like Kavanaugh (or Biden and Clinton and Franken
and Trump and Hastert for that matter).
If you believe that SCOTUS judges should
be term limited (18 years is usually the number thrown out), would you
be willing to have that term limit start with the judged selected under
Biden? If you're not even willing to make a simple concession like that
then how do you expect the other side would ever concede anything?
Unfortunately we have a society that
thinks in zero sum ways these days. If I give in then I lose and they win.
This is what happens when you have this sort of unholy alliance between
the worst parts of Marxism and Post-Modernist-everything-is-about-power
thinking.
Does anyone else find the timing of the
vaccine announcement pretty obvious? They clearly had the information in
the bag and waited until after the election was called to announce it.
Election was called Saturday and the vaccine was announced Monday. Not
saying this is a bad thing...they probably didn't want to influence the
election one way or another, but it's interesting to note. From what I
gather, the vaccine looks pretty legit, but will have some logistical issues
since it requires a cold chain (quite a bit colder than usual, too) and
requires two shots.
I'd also like to throw out there that
I'm in no rush to get the vaccine. I'm not in an at risk group and this
vaccine came in less than a year when the fastest vaccine in history was
4 years. Are any liberal minded people going to be brave enough to be at
all skeptical of the vaccine or are they going to toe the party line? Does
the fear and hate of multinational corporations suddenly disappear because
the party is all in on the pro-vaccine train? It combines the anti-anti-science/anti-anti-vaxxers
movement with the anti-Trump (who is in denial about COVID) movement, so
I'm guessing Democrats will be all about getting a vaccine...and this is
supported
by the polls. 81% of Dems say they would get vaccine and 58% of Republicans.
It's another one of those situations
where we get to see what is more important. If having a woman VP is super
important then you would have voted for Palin. If distrust of multinational
corporations is really high then you wouldn't get the COVID vaccine. But,
in reality, it looks like having a woman VP isn't as important as having
a Democrat VP. And embracing science is more important than distrusting
the profit motive of a huge corporation. Personally, I'm in no rush - I'll
let other people be the guinea pigs. I trust science, but it's gotta be
real science that is well-reviewed, has a large sample size, isn't rushed,
etc. Good science takes time.
The COVID situation is changing as the
experts predicted. With the changing weather the case count is increasing
quite a bit. See first image below. However, the deaths are staying steady.
Usually deaths lag behind, but that's not the issue here. Deaths are going
down because we're getting better at dealing with COVID. We're also identifying
more cases because testing is increasing. As I called many months ago,
the number of cases was way underreported in the early months.
Of course none of this seems to matter
to any of the people in charge. The fact that we're handling things better
than ever doesn't seem to have entered into the calculus for Newsom or
others who are now calling for increasing restrictions as case numbers
increase. The fact that students have been out of school for 8+ months
doesn't matter. The mental health impact doesn't matter. It seems as though
the only data point worth their while is the number of cases.
11/5/20 (23:34)
Things are looking a lot better for Biden
now. Definitely a squeaker, but it appears as though he could get as much
as 306 in the electoral college, which is what Trump got in 2016. And he
would win by as much as 7 million popular votes. This would be good news
overall, but not the repudiation of Trump I was hoping for.
I think the big story of this election
(once we get past the lawyers doing their bullshit and we finally have
a winner...assuming there isn't some kind of attempted coup) is the split
vote from Americans. They clearly didn't approve of Trump (projected 7
million votes more for Biden), but they also don't approve of the Democratic
agenda (to the extent that there is one). Just like the Republicans under
Obama, Democrats haven't done much to articulate a coherent national agenda.
Party leaders haven't pushed a Green New Deal or healthcare or any of the
other things the pundits discuss. I frankly don't know what they were planning
on doing the next couple years other than those things that their proxies
talked about. There are discussions of defunding police, raising taxes
on the rich...but I'm I think they are being purposely vague so they don't
tie themselves to a particular policy.
So, there are vague policy ideas in the
mix and this is coupled with an overall sense that Democrats are oriented
towards the kinds of things I mentioned. Race is a central issue. The environment
may be a big issue. Healthcare. Increasing taxes. Police reform. But because
nothing has been very well articulated they've left a bit of a vacuum and
the imagination runs wild for the average voter. They look at how Democrats
are running things in Seattle and Portland and California and they are
forced to decide if that's what they want on the national level. The average
American probably isn't too excited about most of what they're seeing there.
So, they don't like Trump and vote against
him. They don't think the Democrats have much of a plan and see that the
Democrats are basically oriented pretty far to the left and so they vote
for Biden and their local Republican Senator or Representative. Democrats
are going to lose seats in the House and likely won't gain control of the
Senate.
If you're the Democrats you're happy
about Biden, but you really should be taking very seriously this loss in
the Congress. Of course, the Dems probably won't learn their lesson. They
will double down on racial issues (which don't resonate with the marginal
voter). They will flub the discussion of taxes. They will talk about the
environment from the wrong perspective (tending towards talking about how
much we pollute and how awful we are [Americans are bad - see my 3 points
below] instead of talking aspirationally about how we can bring blue collar
jobs to middle America and lead the world in self-sufficient technology).
In GA the race is now within 1,000 votes.
Why haven't the Democrats complained about the 3rd party candidate Jo Jorgensen
who has 61k votes? A couple reasons: 1. the election isn't over yet and
it probably won't come down to GA. 2. the 3rd party candidate is from the
Libertarian party so she is "taking votes away" from Trump, not Biden.
Jorgensen is getting 1% of the vote in GA, PA, AZ, NV...If she wasn't on
the ballot there's a decent chance we'd be looking at a second Trump term.
So, if you're one of those people who blamed Nader for Bush, then you should
be thanking Jorgensen today. I won't hold my breath.
Every time there's an election the media
pundits try to ascribe the win to a single group of people. Sometimes it's
women. Other times it's Hispanics. This year it will probably be black
voters. Just bear in mind that this is an absurd idea being put forth by
absurd people.
Another example of bad Americans I forgot
to add below is the "basket of deplorables" from Hillary. How did she think
that would go over well with the undecided/marginal voter who probably
has a family member who is voting for Trump? Your friends and family are
deplorable and racist for voting for Trump...vote for me. Well, we saw
how that worked out.
Another Hillary example that ties into
point #3 is her comments after the election that, though she lost, she
won the parts of the country that contribute to most of the GDP. here.
"I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic
product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving
forward. And his whole campaign, 'Make America Great Again,' was looking
backwards. You know: 'You didn't like black people getting rights, you
don't like women, you know, getting jobs, you don't want to, you know,
see that Indian-American succeeding more than you are, whatever your problem
is, I'm going to solve it.'"
She embodied a lot of what's wrong with
politicians and Democrats more specifically. I think this is why people
still talk about her. In a way she's a more interesting and relevant politician
than her narcissistic, lying husband.
This comment of hers in particular illustrates
the kind of elitism you see from the leftist intelligensia. Like much of
what they say it's factually correct and yet quite wrong-headed. What's
the implication of a comment like that? "Yeah, I lost the dumb people who
don't generate any money, but they don't matter as much." If you hate those
voters they probably won't vote for you. And this is where I have more
faith in the average American. They tend to have a pretty good bullshit
detector. They can tell when someone is disengenuous.
So, what happened with the average American
voting for Trump in 2016 then? Isn't he a bigger con artist than Hillary?
Of course he is - in a way. I think the average American could tell that
Trump truly believed America is a great country and wants to help the average
American. They could tell that normal politicians hadn't worked in a long
time. So it was time to give Trump a try. Back to my 3 points below. Trump
affirmed that America is having trouble, but that America and Americans
are fundamentally good. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Things are fucked
now, but I can help, I want to help, and it's not your fault that things
are this way.
Republicans added something like 13 women
Representatives. If you're a rah-rah feminist type is this a good thing?
What's more important - Democratic representation or female representation?
This is interesting to me because it's a chance to see what people actually
value. Do you actually want women and their different life experiences
coming to the table? Or do you want people who are going to uphold your
view of what women should want in the political sphere? Is it better to
have a pro-life woman on the supreme court or a pro-choice man? If it's
actually about female representation then it's the former. If it's about
perceived women's issues then maybe it's the latter.
11/3/20 (20:08)
Voted for a major party candidate for
president for the first time in my life this week. Not thrilled about Biden,
but Trump is cancer so I had to do it.
If Trump wins, remember, it's no big
deal. Like John Mulaney said - nothing will change...Trump vs. Biden...same
difference since they're both old white guys.
If Trump wins, it's exactly this kind
of thinking from Democrats that will hand him the victory. All old white
guys are the same. Your race and gender determine who you are.
The Democratic/intelligentsia argument
generally seems to be along these lines, and I've written directly and
indirectly about this before:
2a. You're bad. If you're a cisgender
white man then you're part of the power structure and you're bad for even
existing. White silence is violence...and yet your speech is also violence.
If you speak then it's because of your entitlement. If you don't speak
then it's upholding a racist/misogynist paradigm. If you move into an urban
area it's gentrification (racist), if you move out of an urban area it's
white flight (also racist)
2b. Not only are you bad for existing,
but much of what you do is bad in the eyes of some of those in our coalition
(whom we openly embrace out of fear of getting called out by our own):
You eat meat, which is murder. You drive a truck which contributes to global
warming, which is the greatest threat the world faces. If you have doubts
about the peaceful nature of Islam then you're an Islamaphobe. If you're
not attracted to trans women then you're transphobic. Etc.
3. You're stupid. Americans are stupid.
You're dumb for loving America. You're dumb for considering voting for
Trump or Bush or even McCain and Romney. Romney is evil, remember? You
don't understand science. You don't understand culture. You're without
culture. Any culture you have is bad. Any good culture you have is stolen
from others (cultural appropriation).
I don't think this is a good way to get
the middle to vote for you. America is bad. You're bad. You're stupid.
I'm not a Republican and yet I feel this message coming through in what
much of what the Democrats have to say about the country. Republicans tend
not to acknowledge even the existence of a bad history in America. Democrats
almost revel in this bad history. They seemingly love writing books and
articles about it. Other Democrats share those books and articles. If you're
reading this you're probably a Democrat and you've probably shared books/articles
about these things by: Michelle Alexander, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-nehisi Coates,
Nikole Hannah-Jones. You've lamented over the evil history and present
facts of America on issues of race or foreign relations. We're a war-mongering,
overly religious, stupid, unenlightened country. These are the things that
Democrats I know generally believe. They have evidence for these things
and are therefore not incorrect.
However, that doesn't win elections.
Obama won in part because of that message of hope. He turned out the black
vote and that helped, but he also didn't judge whites for the evils of
the nation's past. He talked more about the great things the country is
about.
I went in to tonight hoping that Biden
would win Florida and NC and we could rest easy that, even with all the
counting to be done with mail-in votes, Biden would get a clear victory.
However it's looking like the chances of knowing anything definitive tonight
are unlikely.
As things stand right now, AZ is probably
going to Biden which is good news. Biden needs VA and 2 of 4 midwestern
states (OH, PA, MI, WI). Democrats are going to continue to cry about the
electoral college and democracy. I think Democrats aren't clear on what
game it is they're playing.
It's possible to play chess and make
the goal getting as many of the opponents pieces as possible. But that's
not how you play chess - it's all about checkmating the king. Crying about
the fact that you got more of the other player's pawns after they get your
king is kind of idiotic.
Let's say the Democrats win the trifecta...I've
heard some pundits talking about what the priorities should be. To me it's
very clear what they should do and, as usual, I'm not in line with what
they've been saying. Most have said things like Green New Deal or reestablish
good ties with our allies abroad or healthcare reform or roll back tax
cuts for the rich or a wealth tax or any number of pet policies.
To me, though, it should be entirely
about changing the game going forward. Getting started on things like:
1. federal standards on voting so we don't have 50 different ballots for
federal elections (no more butterfly ballot issues, no more hanging chads,
no more questions about digital votes, etc.). 2. DC representation. Whether
they become part of MD or their own state. They need representation. 3.
Properly aligning electoral college and representatives according to population.
WY's district has under 500k people. MT's district has almost 1 million.
Fair apportionment of representatives and electoral votes should be common
sense. Increasing the number of representatives almost certainly needs
to happen along with this. 4. Get rid of filibuster.
In 2016, 538 gave Trump a 29% chance
to win. This year they gave him a 10% chance to win. The chance that he
wins both those would be 2.9%, right? So, if Trump wins then I'm done with
538. I like them. They seem very smart and well-reasoned. They seem balanced.
If they're wrong again, though, it's just not a very useful site when it
comes to prediction (which is what they're supposed to be about).
I used to buy the line that the media
is only as liberal as its rich corporate owners. But I think these days
it's pretty obvious that the media is (overall) quite liberal. One thing
I've noticed about the media is that they do a lot of stories about the
things the reporters like and wish for. So, they will do stories about
how suburban white women are rising up and voting Democrat. (You may recall
that white women voted for Trump over Hillary in 2016). The obvious take
away from a story like this is that white women, like the one telling this
story, are righting a wrong and going to swing Biden into the Oval Office
in 2020. This is an aspirational story. It's something that the reporter
wants
to be true. Sure, all the facts of the story are likely to be true - all
the people interviewed are doing what they said they're doing, things have
been fact-checked, etc. This makes the facts of the story true, but not
necessarily the conclusion that the reporter wants you to reach. There's
a lot of this kind of "reporting" that I see and it's a big part of the
reason for my dropping podcasts like Radiolab from my feed a couple years
ago. Everything becomes political, and it's not even the kind of political
that seeks truth - it's political that seeks to find a way to reinforce
an existing belief.
This is a core problem not only with
our media, but also our society. We live in a data age. There's so much
data out there that it's easier than ever to assemble a few white moms
who don't want to vote for Trump this time around and think it means something.
You can assemble gaffes from Hillary and make her look like she's losing
her mind. 538 seems above this to the extent that this is possible. So,
if I lose 538 it will be a big blow to my faith in yet another institution.
BTW, I called Lindsay Graham winning
reelection. Democrats
sent almost $60 million to his opponent in just a few months and yet
Graham still won. When I found out about this I knew it was a bad idea.
They did this against Ted Cruz in 2016 and O'Rourke lost there. They did
it again with Graham and lost. The ironic thing about the Democrats is
that they're the party of smart people (they tend to win the college educated
voters by a good margin), but they make some of the dumbest possible decisions.
You're just throwing your money away by trying to defeat Graham and Cruz.
Can a registered Democrat reader explain this to me please? WTF is your
party doing?
Along the same lines of making the same
mistake twice...GA and TX are supposedly swing states this year. I can't
say I ever bought into that either. I'd be shocked if either go to Biden.
NYT currently thinks things are close in GA. I'm highly skeptical that
GA will go to Biden.
If you think that Trump is Hitler-esque
then what would you expect? Well, Hitler used the Reichstag fire as an
excuse to subvert the rule of law and take a step towards fascism. Trump
had an equal opportunity with COVID and rioting. He could have shut down
the borders. He could have instituted martial law. So, perhaps he's not
as fascist as some would have you believe. You can't simply ignore a fact
like this. It's easy to miss because it's a thing he didn't do,
but it's an important thing to notice.
Another thing that Trump could have done,
but didn't, was announce that a vaccine was approved and shipping out.
He's a liar and a bad person. He could have announced it today, but he
didn't. Why didn't he?
If Trump wins, and possibly even if he
doesn't but it's close, I think political scientists, pundits, etc. really
need to rethink how they evaluate things. What does someone need to do
to lose a reelection campaign? No one has lost reelection in 28 years.
Is it even possible anymore? Money doesn't move the needle like people
used to think. Trump has underspent his rival both times and won once and
has a chance to repeat. Having the media on your side doesn't seem to matter
anymore. No point in making nice with them like the Democrats always do.
Trump speaks directly to the people via Twitter, etc. In some ways, being
adversarial with the media is an advantage because, like me, many Americans
don't have much respect for the media anymore. Again, more things that
Democrats don't seem to understand about the country.
How much does policy matter? It matters
to the media. It matters to the academics. But how many white papers have
you read? Do you even know what a white
paper is? Does anyone care that Hillary had a white paper on just about
every policy a candidate could have a policy on? People care about party.
People care about how a candidate makes them feel. They care about disposition
and attitude. They want the candidate to be on their side.
When was the last time the shorter presidential
candidate won? In the TV era the shorter candidate has won 4 times. 1972,
1976, 2000 (debatable), 2004.
So, let's say Biden wins. If so, it'll
be a close win and maybe after a few days or weeks. Will there be rioting?
I'd say the more likely source of riots would be if Trump wins.
Trump could announce that he's won tonight.
He's the kind of person who would do that despite it being very much uncertain.
If you're Biden maybe you beat him to it. The media will cover it. They'll
be surprised and will probably give some caveats and fact check a bit,
but Biden could just assert that PA is projected to go his way and that
he's won the race. Puts Trump on the defensive. These are the kinds of
games people could start playing if they really don't care about norms
anymore.
It pains me to say this, but CNN has
the best coverage tonight. John King is really good about putting the numbers
in context. They seem to have gotten past all the hologram nonsense that
they were doing in years past. It seemed that they were trying to be cutting
edge with technology as though it indicated they were good at reporting.
They also don't have 10 talking heads on the screen at the same time like
they have done in the past. So, as far as covering the horse race aspect
of the election, they're doing well.
