My first inclination is not to comment at all. But since I put some skin in the game a few months back, it behooves me to say something.
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| Happier times. |
“How’d the polls get it wrong — again?” Back in February of '16 Stephanie Slade persuasively made the case that polls don’t work. The changes that have occurred since then have only made this science slipperier.
Also, my glances at social media — and they are just that, I work very hard to steer clear of it — indicate the predominant mode is 45’s mode. Whether in support of or in opposition to him, participants do not “engage” that mode, they become that mode. Social media — and for all the opprobrium Zuck has rightly received, it is worth noting that Twitter is the platform 45 has mastered — drove this election harder than all the older media combined.
Given the commonality of madness evident in the binary extremes, the best outcome we could hope for was a close one. And here we are.
“Slow Internet,” people — now more than ever.
7 comments:
It's been occuring to me that the pundit who really called this election was Dylan: "But watch what you say for the wheel's still in spin and There's no telling who That it's naming, For the loser now may be later to win..."
You and I both predicted a Trump victory. In light of that, I suppose I should be happy, but I find myself agreeing with Van Jones:
https://youtu.be/4W4SVjOUlCE
(And by the way, thanks for that Van Jones link the previous post.)
"A repudiation" -- yeah, that was my hope also, albeit an exceedingly slender one. Insofar as this is not a runaway, or even a win, for 45 I am ... happy, I guess. Someone tweeted, "Imagine what a walloping Trump would have delivered if he'd done the responsible thing with COVID." It's disturbing to contemplate, but worth the pain I'd say. What are the reasons for his uptick, in the exit polls, in support among black, Latino, female, even LGBTQ+ voters? I'm left scratching my head, frankly.
Here (as ever) for the slow internet!
At my suggestion we had a family call — that is, T.’s parents and the two of us — last Saturday just to be straightforward with each other about the fact that all the buoyant poll-data reporting could be misleading us and that Trump might well pull it off more or less in reprise of 2016. I said then that I was hopeful that wouldn’t be the case, not just to keep the mood less dour but because I believed it. Also said that I didn’t think a D win for the White House would be the end of anything, that we need to stop talking as though up to 2016 we’d been living in a democracy the way we’ve preferred to imagine, and that the fight that matters is going to be the rest of our lifetimes. All of which feels very confirmed now, of course.
Anyway … right, gentlemen, carry on.
Well, and we knew whatever the final tally came to there was no foreseeable end to the "Reality Show" we are all, willingly or no, participating in. My sleep has not been affected by the election/post-election circus, to my own surprise. I did not place much hope in it, I guess. Also, household concerns are closer to the fore. I wish these people to the south of us the grace to proceed generously. But at the end of the day I just don't have much say in the matter.
On a related but different note...
Just caught up on Steve Donoghue, and realized how alarmist he is getting. I normally respect this guy's opinion, but this seems a bit far fetched. Or is it?
https://youtu.be/r-mDhgHfV7g
I'm certainly not going to attempt dissuading Steve Donoghue from anything, but where you and I are concerned I will quote Walter Sobchak and add that 45 does not (yet?) have an ethos to pull together half the population and harness their murderous impulses for his particular means. And to be fair to Donoghue he even admits this might not be something 45 pulls off, it might be "the next guy" -- his point is half the populace is evidently primed for such a thing. And it is an observation worth making, I think.
I think it's worth adding that I am surprised and somewhat taken aback by the commentary coming from the ardent Dems on my feeds. There is a definite "Peace in our time" vibe being fostered. But maybe that's not a bad thing(?).
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