Nate Silver is Talking Out His Ass
(My model predicts with 99.9% accuracy.)
Nate Silver, Post-Event Soothsayer, is deep in analysis mode once again, having figured everything out after the fact and thereby crediting himself for predicting it all.
You might recall that before the election, Nate had little more than a “gut feeling” that Trump would win, saying the odds were essentially 50-50.
Now, as he continues to inundate our inboxes with deluges of his brilliance, we find out that he saw the writing on the wall long before the rest of us but kept it to himself for good measure.
Here’s an excerpt from one of his insightful emails:
“The failures of Biden’s presidency were not due to bad luck or ‘misinformation’ among the broader electorate but rather were failures of its own making: overstimulating the economy, relaxing border controls amid a massive public backlash to immigration, and then trying to run Biden again.”
First of all, Nate, I’m going to introduce you to two logical terms you should memorize: the first is what’s known as a “false dichotomy”; the second is a fallacy we call “cherry-picking.”
Let’s address your idiotic false equivalency first: Believe it or not, Numbers Nostradamus, two things can be true at once, even if presented together as if they’re a choice. For instance, if I say, “Either he yells at his wife or he loves her,” and then you see that same man yelling at his wife, you shouldn’t conclude that he must not love her because really what I presented you with was a false dichotomy. It’s the calling card of dummies. Trump uses it all the time, pretending, for instance, that Jews either support him or they don’t support Israel (my ole tribe, by the way, was smart enough to vote against Trump by about 3:1, based on exit polls – so Mazel Tov!).
Nate claimed that it wasn’t that voters were misinformed but that Biden overstimulated the economy, had failed at the border, and had made a mistake in running again.
The truth is that even though Biden had to contend with the economic impact of COVID, real wages were outpacing inflation before the election. Overall, Nate, he deserves fairly good marks on the economy, as pretty much any economist would tell you (You know, Nate – numbers people – you should like’m.). Blaming Biden for overstimulating the economy is like blaming the hoses for the damage caused by the Chicago Fire.
As for Biden’s failures at the border – yes, he did mishandle things – including the terribly planned CBP One app and his refusal to recognize the problem. But the problem was also greatly exaggerated by Trump and the media. There was no “migrant crime wave,” yet many Americans believed there was: a poll by the Chicago Council on Public Affairs found that half of respondents saw immigration as a “critical threat” – even though we’ve had no acts of terrorism, 99%+ of migrants live and work here rather peacefully, and many of them are cooking our foods and taking care of our kids.
Yet nearly half of Americans (49.9%) voted for Trump, meaning that they did not see the guy who tried to overthrow the government as a danger.
So you’re going to tell me, Nate, that they’re not misinformed? Yes, clearly they’re up on things. It’s not like Trump had the world’s richest person who controls one of the world’s biggest media platforms on his side and pumping $200 mil into his campaign. (Oh, wait…)
Or that the controller of the other biggest media platforms, Schmuckerberg, had called him a “badass” and seemed to be rooting for him as well. (Oh, wait…)
And it’s not like Trump had the biggest cable station that people watch for (supposed) news in his corner, Fox “News.” (Oh, he had that too? Plus Newsmax, One America News, multiple print publications, and practically every talk radio station? And that knucklehead Joe Rogan?!? Hmm. But I bet they wouldn’t misinform Americans at all, right Nate?)
As for Biden refusing to step aside sooner, we agree: he made a terrible mistake. And I should’ve been more concerned about it too, as evidenced by this Newsweek piece that certainly hasn’t (if I may say) aged well. But this mistake and all the others (including not having primaries) do not mean that Trump wasn’t helped by misinformed voters, misogynistic voters, women afraid to go against their husbands, obvious racism, and a blatant failure of the media to accurately assess dangers. Both things can be true, Nate.
Now for the cherry-picking:
Yes, you can pick out Biden’s mistakes. But have you also considered some of his successes, like the CHIPS Act, bringing the economy back, the Inflation Reduction Act (including provisions for green energy), lowering insulin prices, and getting rid of “junk fees” – just to name a few (for a fuller list, see this Politico article)?
The biggest failure, really, of the Biden presidency was that he trusted in the system and didn’t (as some genius argued for Newsweek) arrest Trump on January 21st, 2021.
It’s easy to point fingers and act the contrarian by going “Aha! I told you so!” – even when you really didn’t actually tell us before the election, Nate. It’s also very convenient.
But the bigger problem I have with people like Nate Silver and “journalist” Bari Weiss (Ugh! Just saying the name leaves a bad taste in my mouth!) is that they love to criticize the left and claim that they’re just being honest, but they don’t really concentrate so much on being honest about the right. To say that the people who voted for Trump weren’t massively misinformed, Nate, is an egregious, egregious lie and play for subscribers and you know it. You want to be honest, Nate? You want to be a “truth-teller,” Bari? (Hold on, I need mouthwash.)
I’m back.
Anyhow, if you want to be honest and insightful, don’t start by excusing or downplaying the blatant racism, sexism, and stupidity we all just witnessed. And maybe start to recognize (as some brilliant person wrote about this week for The New Republic) that the dangers to our rights – including free speech – are much more potent on the right than among the liberals you love to lambast.
And if you really want some truth, both you and Bari should consider – every once in a while –ruminating on your analyses just a bit more. Maybe take the advice Eddie Murphy said Richard Pryor told him to relay to the rapist Bill Cosby: to “have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up.”
Because I have a model that predicts you’re going to say some really stupid shit again in the future, Natey-boy, and it’s right about 99.9% of the time.