What Is Wrong With "The Atlantic"?
(Photo of Roman crowd giving "thumbs down" at Gladiator spectacle. Pollsters at work)
April 29, 2021
I post the following "Atlantic" article (link below) for your perusal. It addresses the prospect of a potential Democratic wipeout in 2022 as the motivation for Biden to "go big, or go home". Aside from the fact that it drowns us in pessimism, deconstructs the political upheavals of the last several years, especially those in 2020, ignores the extraordinary organizing process that enabled Democrats to fight through layer upon layer of Voter suppression, intimidation, and disinformation to deliver States like Georgia which had been Red since always, it is largely devoid of any insights which might have come from frontline political organizing experience. Instead it relies on polling data, the "feelings" of pollsters about their data, and the popularity ratings of politicos and TV personalities who comment on these pollster's feelings about their data. It is just plain incompetent academic blather.
Why, you ask. Because it is written by a social scientist who believes in Behavioralism, who projects his own fixed and arbitrary view of human nature onto the general political situation. Most of these academic types have not spent five minutes on the street in public with a table or signs at 66th and Broadway, or Reading Terminal Market in Philly, or gotten on the phone to actually have a real political dialogue with real people. Their polling method is the same as someone who posts a Facebook photo of Ted Cruz sodomizing a Democratic Donkey on National Animal Rights Day to see how many "angry face emojis" are generated, metaphorically speaking. Its "profiling" and social engineering, not education.
These polls mean less than nothing, because they cannot predict human behavior in an unprecedented crisis after shocking or traumatic events, or the discrediting and collapse of political institutions. Likewise, they rarely understand the impact of truly revolutionary changes for the good, in science, politics or other life achievements, the things which inspire people for generations to come. Social and political scientists and other commentators repeatedly make the same conceptual error, which is trying to predict human behavior based on past trends and patterns, and therefore often make false assumptions about how people will respond to change. This is because so few venture out beyond their personal information bubble or their comfort zone, nor do they attempt to use foresight to anticipate wholly unexpected events. This is absurd, given that the dynamic of history itself is driven by such unexpected events, and the way in which governments, institutions, and individuals respond to such occurrences.
"What am I talking about", you may be asking at this point, where am I going with this?
Well, first I would throw out the inane discussion of political trends or voting patterns going back within our own lifetimes and forget about this failed attempt below to impose political Algebra upon a living dynamic system. Forget about trends. If you want to look backward, look at those unexpected events which have in various ways changed our lives. For example, 9-11. The JFK assassination. The "Bloody Sunday" Selma March, or the Apollo 11 mission, or Watergate. The murders of Malcolm X, RFK and Martin Luther King. There was the election of our first Black President Barack Obama, in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 near collapse of the world's financial system. Look at the effects of the covid pandemic, or the murder of George Floyd, events which had they not occurred would mean that Donald Trump would still be President with majorities in both Houses.
Take those events, and look at what people said they believed in polls both before and after. You will see that there is very little correspondence between them, because people change in a crisis. Either they have an epiphany and see in bold relief the collapse of their own false axioms of thinking, (or non-thinking) and are thereby forced by events to reexamine their own thought processes. Or they double and triple down in stubbornly defending their worldview, despite the fact that events have just swept their self-delusions out to sea like a Tsunami, taking everything they thought they knew with it. Those folks will either degenerate or become radicalized by those unexpected events which disrupt all of the tidy boxes of belief and ideology which sit neatly stacked and gathering dust in their closets.
Now, from that standpoint, a commentator whose primary interest is not adding up clicks, likes, ratings, or academic acclaim, but someone committed to giving people the information and direction needed to embolden them to become active in a timely and effective way, can then make a forecast based on a little bit of rational speculation about what might happen in the next two years. You can ask the questions about what effect unexpected events will have on people's thinking. That is what I try to do. I'm not trying to be haughty, rather I do it because I care about what happens to people and I try to help them think ahead as a way of solving big problems before they happen.
So, try reading the article from that vantage point, and ask what will happen in the 2022 elections if;
...Trump is indicted and put on trial by State and Federal prosecutors.
...Giuliani is indicted in New York, and not having the cover of a Pardon, drops a Dime on Trump and his criminal family to weasel out of a long sentence.
...the Matt Gaetz scandal spreads faster in the Florida and National GOP than covid at a Spring Break spreader orgy. How many leading GOP figures have been deleting their Venmo and "Plenty of Fish" accounts this month? Are they, or aren't they? Only Lindsey Graham's hairdresser knows for sure.
...if/when Bitcoin and other Fiat crypto garbage out there tanks and settles in at around $640? Can you say Credit Default Swaps?
...Russia moves in militarily to take Donbas? Or if Navalny dies and Russia descends into political chaos?
...if/when we get hit with some further mutated version of the Brazilian or other new covid variant, and how a "Fifth Wave" of the Pandemic driven by GOP anti-public health lunatics might affect the election? Does anyone even want to think about this? I hope it doesn't happen, and that we have a plan if it does. We'll find out after a few months of "filled to capacity" Sports Stadiums in Trump's precious Red States, and a year or more of full classroom attendance of unvaccinated kids. What will happen when hundreds of thousands more of GOP voters are "cancelled" by the people they donate to and vote for?
...Israel's Netanyahu decides to preemptively launch a full set attack on Iran to blow up any potential for resuming negotiations for the JCPOA Nuclear agreement? Iran's nuclear facilities are deep underground in hardened sites, where conventional bombs won't penetrate. Might a politically desperate Bibi use the Nukes which the Israelis never admitted having to get to them?
... the January 6 crowd launches a national right wing terror wave, and the GOP sedition caucus cheerleads for it? Could that be a "last straw" which shakes loose a 10% or more chunk of the GOP voting base, which doesn't want to patronize psychotic idiots anymore. That might have an affect on 2022, ya' think? Also, I would think that Fox being forced to fire their very own "Goebbels," Tucker Carlson and friends at some point might put a damper on the GOP "QBalls" morale and voter turnout.
...if one or more of our indispensible Democratic Senators or Congressman who are a bit North of 80 years old falter in some way?
These are just examples. Nowhere in this article is there a real discussion of the highly unstable political environment we are operating in, or the prospect that any one or combination of these very real threats or events could hit within a very short window of time. We could actually see a further political destabilization of the US, or better, the collapse of the GOP itself under these circumstances. It's like trying to predict the winner of the Mayor's race of Gotham City without hazarding an educated guess about what the Joker might do between now and then.
This is why when I read articles like this Atlantic piece, I think of sports nuts betting the spread or handicapping horses, or little kids playing with dolls or action figures. How does one try to make a political forecast while attempting to keep the real world from sliding into the conversation? It is "game theory" and statistical fudgery which has little relationship to the current crisis. There is no effort to anticipate or plan for the unexpected, and that is what is wrong, even though I have no idea what will happen myself. It is not serious or helpful because it leaves unasked and unanswered the question of, "what in the Hell should we do"? Why bother to write about it if you are not making that question the subject?
What I know for sure is that "nothing" will not happen between now and 2022, and we'd better be prepared for that nothing to not happen.
I don't know the answer actually. I just know that somehow, this Atlantic writer has a job. And I'll say again that I'll never, ever, attempt to do anything important based on polls. That's not Democracy. Its "groupthink" and manipulation.
Ok. I'm done.
