Randomly revisited this almost a year later, but the last sentence ("Or do you tell them that the system is broken, ... and outline a strategy for protest and civil disobedience outside the electoral arena?") strikes as foreshadowing for what ended up happening on January 6. Though, still not sure what Matt meant by "ought to be governed along democratic lines of political inequality."
The part of this that rings most true and is most unsettling is the "Trump Unchained" prediction that Trump's top priority for a second term would be to rid the Executive Branch of anyone with "political commitments that went beyond bare-bones follow-the-leader principles."
One thing Trump did accomplish is to prove that the "unitary Executive" concept is not just an abstraction. It's a reality that follows necessarily, even obviously, from the org chart of the federal government, and is the default state of things in the absence of a strong, assertive Congress and Court willing to keep the President in check. As long as the President is a political, partisan and biased figure -- i.e., more a politician than a constitutional monarch -- all that keeps the whole power of the Executive Branch from falling under the whim of a strong-willed President is a strong Congress and judiciary willing to bring the Presidency to heel.
But unfortunately the expediency of the now means that what we'll probably get from the Biden Administration is not a long-term vision of shifting power from the Presidency back to Congress for the enduring health of our democracy, but a series of ever greater assertions of presidential power in the service of short-term policy goals that can't get through this Congress.
I just hope that Democrats continue to press for democratic reforms notwithstanding the Biden victory. Too often, we get fired up when we lose (2016) and we see the starkness of the Republican bias, but then we win something and pivot to magnanimous "see, the system works if we choose the right candidate and run the right campaign." But 2020 should be an even starker reminder. Biden will win by over 7MM votes and almost 4% with a 51% majority - and STILL nearly lost. While larger margins than Trump in 2016, the margins in the swing states were pretty small and, if AZ and/or GA and/or NV and/or PA had gone a different way, or even just been closer (AKA GLA circa 2000) then those shenanigans and lawsuits wouldn't be something easily dismissed.
The analysis and reaction to this victory should be the same as if Biden had lost. We need to fix this system immediately. Because we can't keep hoping that Republicans run the most horrible, disliked, unpopular, inept, disgusting person possible every time.
“Democrats nominated the most moderate option in their field, a candidate who had explicitly disavowed banning fracking, broad-based tax cuts, Medicare for All, and defunding the police.”
Personally, though I kind of disagree with Matt's take a bit. I think there's a lot to be said for David Hopkins from Boston College's idea that while Trump was an atypical person to be president, he kind of ran a typical presidency in a lot of ways.
That is he governed as a hard-right conservative, his big "accomplishments" such that they are, are a big tax cut for rich people and hard work to roll back protections for the environment, worker safety, blah blah blah
Anyway Matt is right that Trump being reelected would have been a disaster, but I think it's important to put said potential disaster of Trump as the most conservative president since Collidge.
Having said that, Matt's totally correct that Joe winning is a big deal and great for our country.
On the NEJM note: It's not clear to me that low trust people know about or care about institutions like NEJM. I wouldn't be surprised if the first time many people heard of the journal was after they endorsed Biden. I'd be interested to know if people think an endorsement from NEJM simply signals to Trump voters that medicine is one more institution that they should not trust while not meaningfully changing the minds of any voters. However, I also take the point that Trump is such an authoritarian mess of a human being, that NEJM might have felt they needed to throw whatever weight they hold behind Anyone But Him. I would love perspectives from health care providers about whether or not they are seeing a lack of trust in medicine, beyond Covid or before Covid happened. I get that many people don't trust public health officials, but I was under the impression that trust in "medicine" was still fairly high, I worry this erodes it.
Usually, articles like these will offer substantial criticism of a losing campaign in order to give the readers a real sense of narrative. The closest I see to that here is Dems practicing "narrow electoralism" and "keeping their eyes on the prize". It's not hard to imagine that there might be a market for some substantially more dramatic takes in the event that Trump had eeked it out, but its not obvious what they would be in the context of such a high turnout election
You are certainly right about the facts around the systemic imbalance, but you can't fix that imbalance without first winning some elections in the system as is. I happen to agree that there is very little the Biden campaign could have easily done better, but the fact is they won the presidency by less than a percentage point (in the pivotal state of WI). Trying to find fixable flaws in their campaign, presentation or coalition has a lot more utility than citing the (significant) unfairnesses that any dem will have to overcome.
Ga and az were both closer than WI. If Biden lost those 3 states it would have been an EC tie and the house (voting by state delegation) would likely elect trump.
So if Biden had lost more than .6% (his Wisconsin margin) across the board, he would likely have lost
Now that I understand better I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement. Passing legislation requires winning elections. Propaganda (aka messaging) is a useful strategy for winning those elections.
Complaining about the rules of the game is both true and maybe even a useful communications strategy. But this time our propaganda wasn't as good as we would like it to be and so we won't get to pass as much voter registration improvements (or other stuff) as we would want. I'm just interested in the specifics of how we can improve our propaganda over time.
Honestly both this and the Hillary one would've both hurt my heart. It sure has been a time over in DC and across the country, and I really, really hope that the Biden years and beyond will be at least a little bit less of A Time.
Interesting interview by Greg Sargent with David Wasserman, the analyst of House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Money quote:
Trump helped Republicans down-ballot in two ways. He drove out millions of low-propensity conservatives who would never vote for their average Republican Joe in a midterm. But he also allowed Republican candidates to pick up voters who could not stomach Trump.
In 2018, when he wasn’t on the ballot, the only opportunity for independent voters, especially suburban women, to vent their anger at Trump was by voting against a Republican congressional candidate. This time around, those voters could do so directly, but vote for a more conventional Republican down-ballot.
I want to offer two cheers for the bad polling this year. With Biden ahead in the polls by ~8 points, 538.com put his odds at winning at 90% because he could survive even another large polling error -- and that's what happened.
Had polls been accurate, showing Biden with a 4 percentage point lead and all the swing states effectively tied, I and millions of other Democrats would have been driven insane with worry and terror. We would have been living in mortal fear that even a small (and normal) polling error in Trump's direction would have delivered the election to him. To find out after the election that the polls, this time, were actually accurate, and Biden won, would have been joyful, but the scars of that dread I think would have lived on.
I much prefer that the bad polls spared us that period of existential angst and at least gave us the hope that Biden would win fairly easily, even though we didn't get the landslide we were hoping for. Sucks what happened in Congress, but Trump winning would have been an extinction event.
Take the polling aggregators to hell then too with their undergrad stats models. I find their work almost morally offensive. Feels like a grift sitting up on top of the real work the pollsters are doing out there.
Huh--I think I disagree here. I think the aggregators do a key job, and I think the 538 model of LIKELIHOOD wasn't that bad (though their point estimates were clearly poor).
Yeah, I think the high trust/low trust thing absolutely did happen, which explained Biden's underperformance in the polls. It just wasn't enough to entirely sink him.
Here's something to noodle--in what world do we get basic Democratic reforms (abolish EC, D.C., P.R. statehood, filibuster reform) most quickly? A.) A world with a Biden administration splitting power with a GOP senate? Or B.) a world where the resistance is taking it to the streets, as Matt suggests would be the outcome of Trump redux?
Do you have any idea about what questions pollsters could ask people to determine social trust, so that they can model better? I’ve heard “How many friends do you have?” as a possibility, but that seems odd.
Randomly revisited this almost a year later, but the last sentence ("Or do you tell them that the system is broken, ... and outline a strategy for protest and civil disobedience outside the electoral arena?") strikes as foreshadowing for what ended up happening on January 6. Though, still not sure what Matt meant by "ought to be governed along democratic lines of political inequality."
The part of this that rings most true and is most unsettling is the "Trump Unchained" prediction that Trump's top priority for a second term would be to rid the Executive Branch of anyone with "political commitments that went beyond bare-bones follow-the-leader principles."
One thing Trump did accomplish is to prove that the "unitary Executive" concept is not just an abstraction. It's a reality that follows necessarily, even obviously, from the org chart of the federal government, and is the default state of things in the absence of a strong, assertive Congress and Court willing to keep the President in check. As long as the President is a political, partisan and biased figure -- i.e., more a politician than a constitutional monarch -- all that keeps the whole power of the Executive Branch from falling under the whim of a strong-willed President is a strong Congress and judiciary willing to bring the Presidency to heel.
But unfortunately the expediency of the now means that what we'll probably get from the Biden Administration is not a long-term vision of shifting power from the Presidency back to Congress for the enduring health of our democracy, but a series of ever greater assertions of presidential power in the service of short-term policy goals that can't get through this Congress.
I just hope that Democrats continue to press for democratic reforms notwithstanding the Biden victory. Too often, we get fired up when we lose (2016) and we see the starkness of the Republican bias, but then we win something and pivot to magnanimous "see, the system works if we choose the right candidate and run the right campaign." But 2020 should be an even starker reminder. Biden will win by over 7MM votes and almost 4% with a 51% majority - and STILL nearly lost. While larger margins than Trump in 2016, the margins in the swing states were pretty small and, if AZ and/or GA and/or NV and/or PA had gone a different way, or even just been closer (AKA GLA circa 2000) then those shenanigans and lawsuits wouldn't be something easily dismissed.
The analysis and reaction to this victory should be the same as if Biden had lost. We need to fix this system immediately. Because we can't keep hoping that Republicans run the most horrible, disliked, unpopular, inept, disgusting person possible every time.
“Democrats nominated the most moderate option in their field, a candidate who had explicitly disavowed banning fracking, broad-based tax cuts, Medicare for All, and defunding the police.”
Do you mean broad based tax increases?
If not could you explain this point?
Heh this is awesome
Personally, though I kind of disagree with Matt's take a bit. I think there's a lot to be said for David Hopkins from Boston College's idea that while Trump was an atypical person to be president, he kind of ran a typical presidency in a lot of ways.
That is he governed as a hard-right conservative, his big "accomplishments" such that they are, are a big tax cut for rich people and hard work to roll back protections for the environment, worker safety, blah blah blah
Anyway Matt is right that Trump being reelected would have been a disaster, but I think it's important to put said potential disaster of Trump as the most conservative president since Collidge.
Having said that, Matt's totally correct that Joe winning is a big deal and great for our country.
On the NEJM note: It's not clear to me that low trust people know about or care about institutions like NEJM. I wouldn't be surprised if the first time many people heard of the journal was after they endorsed Biden. I'd be interested to know if people think an endorsement from NEJM simply signals to Trump voters that medicine is one more institution that they should not trust while not meaningfully changing the minds of any voters. However, I also take the point that Trump is such an authoritarian mess of a human being, that NEJM might have felt they needed to throw whatever weight they hold behind Anyone But Him. I would love perspectives from health care providers about whether or not they are seeing a lack of trust in medicine, beyond Covid or before Covid happened. I get that many people don't trust public health officials, but I was under the impression that trust in "medicine" was still fairly high, I worry this erodes it.
Usually, articles like these will offer substantial criticism of a losing campaign in order to give the readers a real sense of narrative. The closest I see to that here is Dems practicing "narrow electoralism" and "keeping their eyes on the prize". It's not hard to imagine that there might be a market for some substantially more dramatic takes in the event that Trump had eeked it out, but its not obvious what they would be in the context of such a high turnout election
You are certainly right about the facts around the systemic imbalance, but you can't fix that imbalance without first winning some elections in the system as is. I happen to agree that there is very little the Biden campaign could have easily done better, but the fact is they won the presidency by less than a percentage point (in the pivotal state of WI). Trying to find fixable flaws in their campaign, presentation or coalition has a lot more utility than citing the (significant) unfairnesses that any dem will have to overcome.
How was Wisconsin pivotal? It only has 10 electoral votes. Biden got 306 and needed 270. He'd have won without Wisconsin.
Ga and az were both closer than WI. If Biden lost those 3 states it would have been an EC tie and the house (voting by state delegation) would likely elect trump.
So if Biden had lost more than .6% (his Wisconsin margin) across the board, he would likely have lost
Now that I understand better I don't think we have a fundamental disagreement. Passing legislation requires winning elections. Propaganda (aka messaging) is a useful strategy for winning those elections.
Complaining about the rules of the game is both true and maybe even a useful communications strategy. But this time our propaganda wasn't as good as we would like it to be and so we won't get to pass as much voter registration improvements (or other stuff) as we would want. I'm just interested in the specifics of how we can improve our propaganda over time.
Honestly both this and the Hillary one would've both hurt my heart. It sure has been a time over in DC and across the country, and I really, really hope that the Biden years and beyond will be at least a little bit less of A Time.
Interesting interview by Greg Sargent with David Wasserman, the analyst of House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Money quote:
Trump helped Republicans down-ballot in two ways. He drove out millions of low-propensity conservatives who would never vote for their average Republican Joe in a midterm. But he also allowed Republican candidates to pick up voters who could not stomach Trump.
In 2018, when he wasn’t on the ballot, the only opportunity for independent voters, especially suburban women, to vent their anger at Trump was by voting against a Republican congressional candidate. This time around, those voters could do so directly, but vote for a more conventional Republican down-ballot.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/27/why-did-democrats-bleed-house-seats-top-analyst-offers-surprising-answers/?utm_campaign=wp_opinions_pm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_popns
I have been wanting people to publish these, so thank you!
I want to offer two cheers for the bad polling this year. With Biden ahead in the polls by ~8 points, 538.com put his odds at winning at 90% because he could survive even another large polling error -- and that's what happened.
Had polls been accurate, showing Biden with a 4 percentage point lead and all the swing states effectively tied, I and millions of other Democrats would have been driven insane with worry and terror. We would have been living in mortal fear that even a small (and normal) polling error in Trump's direction would have delivered the election to him. To find out after the election that the polls, this time, were actually accurate, and Biden won, would have been joyful, but the scars of that dread I think would have lived on.
I much prefer that the bad polls spared us that period of existential angst and at least gave us the hope that Biden would win fairly easily, even though we didn't get the landslide we were hoping for. Sucks what happened in Congress, but Trump winning would have been an extinction event.
And for those who think the fear of losing and narrow polls would have energized Democrats and motivated all of us to work harder, I direct you to Markos Moulitsas at dailyKos who would have absolutely none of that: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/15/1986564/-For-the-love-of-god-please-stop-with-the-run-like-we-re-10-points-down-nonsense
His view is that winning is contagious and energizing. I agree.
So again, thank you for your crappy performance, pollsters!
P.S. And go to hell, pollsters. I'll never believe you again.
Take the polling aggregators to hell then too with their undergrad stats models. I find their work almost morally offensive. Feels like a grift sitting up on top of the real work the pollsters are doing out there.
Huh--I think I disagree here. I think the aggregators do a key job, and I think the 538 model of LIKELIHOOD wasn't that bad (though their point estimates were clearly poor).
Actually, your analysis of "high trust" and "low trust" voters has been used in analysis of how the polls were off for the down-ballot races.
Yeah, I think the high trust/low trust thing absolutely did happen, which explained Biden's underperformance in the polls. It just wasn't enough to entirely sink him.
Almost like Matt talked to some polling experts before writing this ;)
careful - Trump is going to latch on to this as more evidence of his landslide victory
Here's something to noodle--in what world do we get basic Democratic reforms (abolish EC, D.C., P.R. statehood, filibuster reform) most quickly? A.) A world with a Biden administration splitting power with a GOP senate? Or B.) a world where the resistance is taking it to the streets, as Matt suggests would be the outcome of Trump redux?
Do you have any idea about what questions pollsters could ask people to determine social trust, so that they can model better? I’ve heard “How many friends do you have?” as a possibility, but that seems odd.
There but for the grace of God go we.