So...this is gonna be a dumpster fire. I mean in one corner you have the blowhard himself who screams from the rooftops that Biden is gonna lose and screams down anyone who disagrees with him, Cenk Uygur, and then on the other you have the blueMAGA copium dealer Allen Lichtman pushing his 13 keys as if they're gospel, claiming Biden is totally gonna win because his metrics have never been wrong.
I'm not really in agreement with EITHER of these guys, as such, I found this debate interesting to watch and pick apart.
To Cenk's credit, he did cite realclearpolling averages and really hammered home that yeah, Biden is gonna do badly and that no one down this much can realistically come back from that. I'm not sure I agree with that and do think Cenk oversells the argument and gets overly emotional and screams over people, but yeah, things are bleak for Biden, and as a "polls" guy myself, again...10% chance. 25% on a good day. It's never gotten above 33%. Biden is in a very bad position.
But hey, did you hear about these keys? They've never been wrong. I'm sorry, but how many predictions did you get right? Lichtman has been predicting elections since the 1980s and has never been wrong...except...in 2000. When he predicted gore would win. But gore did win and SCOTUS stole it and he predicted the popular vote, not the electoral vote. Ok, but what about 2016? Oh well he predicted the outcome, not the popular vote...
...see through this guy's hype yet? I mean, yeah, he came up with a model based on things that correlate with elections. But what decides elections are votes. And things like incumbency, no third party challenges, and no primary contests tend to be associated with PEOPLE LIKING THE CURRENT GUY. people dont like the current guy, and to some extent, we've been suppressing challenges to Biden, only for us to now have a rather ugly debate a month before the convention as to whether we should get rid of him now. And of course, if we do, "the keys fall and the democrats will lose"....so that means if they dont get rid of him, then the keys dont fall and everything is fine? Again, kind of ignoring that the keys are supposed to measure which is satisfaction with the current nominee.
This guy cares more about his stupid metrics than what they're supposed to measure. As if the metrics are causative and not correlative. he even admitted they're correlative and not causative, but still, seems to stick to this asinine model.
The reason I crap on this so hard btw is because I AM a polls guy, I trust the polls more than anything, I know they're a snapshot, but Im not gonna be like "everything is fine because this one model of predicting elections means everything is fine." Especially in an oddball year like 2024 where it's like everything normal about politics just doesnt apply any more. The normal metrics dont matter, they're hollow. Democrats govern to the test, and then dont seem to understand they're not popular and polls clearly indicate dems have a MASSIVE problem.
And this guy was just so arrogant and insufferable about it, acting like he was so fricking smart and cenk isn't and making this massive argument from authority, and yeah. Btw, why is lichtman going around on all of these different podcasts anyway? I saw him on nerds for humanity which is a tiny channel. is this guy really just trying to hype his crap this election cycle to sell books? Seems to be.
I don't buy his model this time. It's all well and good, but when it's blatantly contradicting the polling data and public opinion and the general "feel" of the country, I'm not gonna trust it. it's possible he's just WRONG. Of course, he's too arrogant to admit that. And his model is too vague where you can just retroactively decide you got the keys wrong and change them.
Idk, his keys are 9 for 13 for Biden by his own measure of them, and 8/13 by mine. At the same time, polling has Biden down by 5+ points, something cenk rightly pointed out, but was ignored because polls dont matter because they can change. Meanwhile he cites individual polls selectively ignoring that RCP aggregates them for the purpose of giving people the best picture possible.
I'm sorry, but my own statistical model tells me if the election were held today, he would have a 10% chance. He's cooked. The best he's had has been about 33%, he normally seems to average around 20-25% or so. It's possible the shock from the debate wears off, but I think there's a reason dems want them out. If that one internal poll of THEIRS is actually true, the picture is bleaker than even I'd predict. We're talking a 7 point deficit in PA, which is insane, and Biden losing even fricking New Mexico. So, yeah, I really can't understate how BADLY Biden is doing. It's not like he's down by a little bit. He's at significant risk of losing Maine, Minnesota, Virginia, and New Hampshire. Fricking NEW JERSEY and NEW YORK are considered SWING STATES. Holy crap, how badly do you need to be screwing up for that to happen?
It's possible Biden CAN recover. But I've been hearing the copium for months. Just wait until Trump gets convicted, he will lose 7 points of support. He lost none. It didnt make ANY impact in the polls whatsoever. And now Biden's debate performance caused him to take a hit of 2 points in the popular vote, although he's possibly starting to recover slightly now. It's possible that something will cause him to gain support, but what trigger that will take is hard to say.
2022 had the dems heading toward certain defeat until SCOTUS screwed up with overturning Roe. The reason 2022 turned out fine was literally because, THE GOP SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT electorally.
They're actually playing 2024 pretty well. Right now, Trump is actually defending Biden because he wants Biden in the race. And he's actually being otherwise silent and allowing the left to implode while he comes off smelling like roses.
Even when he smells like crap and gets convicted of 34 felonies no one seems to care. The dude IS teflon don, nothing seems to stick to him and he could shoot someone in 5th avenue and not lose any voters. or incite an insurrection, or pay hush money to a porn star, or butcher names even worse than Biden does, or go on with incomprehensible word salads that make Biden look cogent, or rape kids on Epstein's island (not proven guilty or charged of this, but it's a story that's resurfacing lately).
The fact is, no one seems to give a crap what trump does. The people who hate him hate him, the people who love him love him, and more people are upset over inflation than any of his flaws. They just see old guy not doing anything and acting way too old to be president, so they're voting for the guy who was in office when their beefy five layer burrito from taco bell wasn't $5.89.
And that's the thing. The dems are being overly analyzed and attacked for every mistake, the GOP can basically get away with murder right now, and yeah, we're living in a really sick and screwed up world these days where truth doesnt matter. Traditional metrics don't matter, and it's all feels and vibes.
And that's what lichtman's model gets wrong. It assumes voters are rational and are swayed by traditional metrics like the economy, or that no primary challenge means that voters are happy with current guy. They're not happy with current guy.
The polling says one thing, lichtman's model says the other, and I trust polling over these weirdo fundamentals models. Honestly, if you're, in the year of zombie christian guy, 2024, leaning into fundamentals, that shows me you're sticking your head in the sand and you dont understand politics.
This year is WILD. It's like one of those "end of alignment" years you get shortly before the big realignment year. Btw, i've been pushing the idea were either in a realignment or heading toward one since 2016. And IMO, that's why what's happening is happening. And in a realignment, what's up is down, what's left is right, the world stops making sense, and then things radically shift toward a new paradigm. These time periods are tumultuous, and often only truly understood through the lens of history, watching them unfold themselves is like riding a fricking roller coaster. This is crazy crap. 2024 is like 1824, 1856, 1896, 1968, 1980, and 2016 all in one. It's chaotic. It's high stakes. No one has any idea wtf is happening. And we can either ride it as it comes and update our expectations and ideas as things evolve, or we can be left in the past and end up getting it wrong.
Lichtman's model might have excellent predicting power for more normal times. For abnormal times like this, I suspect it's gonna be stressed, tested, and possibly broken. Cenk, he's actually right, but he's right for the wrong reasons. He didn't argue rationally, he argued msotly emotionally. he did have some good arguments on polling, but he's also a hack. Still, sometimes the vibes based hack is more on the money in a time like this than the cold calculating political scientist. Which is what Lichtman doesn't get. Again, this year is all vibes. Throw everything else out. It's like another chaotic 2016 year. it's all feels. And Cenk, despite not being right for the right reasons, is right that Biden seems to be heading toward certain defeat, and we're gonna need to see massive changes in polling for this to turn around. Sorry, not sorry, that's how I see it. it's not impossible that this can happen. Both 2016 and 2020 were way closer than they should've been. But those were also "weird" years too. COVID broke 2020, and 2016 was another vibes based year. Again, tail end of an alignment or in a realignment. It happens. Throw out everything you know because nothing makes sense any more. That's how I see it.
What we need is a polls based approach that adapts to the times. Keep looking at things, measuring things, and go with the flow. Be willing to change opinions on a dime as data changes. Be adaptable. if you're not adaptable and willing to stay on top of the state of the race, dont be surprised when you end up being left behind and you end up being wrong. And that applies to both of the above blowhards in this debate. Yeah, I said it, you both suck in your own ways. Opposite extremes of each other while I'm in the middle.
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