The last four years of political punditry and analysis have been objectively wretched. Regardless of your feelings about the present political moment, precisely no one can defend the quality of the analysis that dominates the airwaves and pages of our corporate media.
They told us throughout the 2016 campaign that the notion of Donald Trump winning the presidency was a joke. The mockery increased as election day drew near. From the Washington Post: “Donald Trump’s chances of winning are approaching zero.”
At 10:20 P.M. on election night, The New York Times assured us that “Hillary Clinton has an 85% chance of winning.” They gave Hillary a 95 percent chance of winning Michigan, a 93 percent chance of winning Wisconsin, and an 89 percent chance of winning Pennsylvania. They declared, in other words, that the probability of Trump winning all three of those states, which he did, was 0.04 percent.
Their numerical confidence colored their reporting throughout the campaign in ways that materially supported their political cohorts, chiefly Hillary Clinton. Then they responded to their humiliating failure to understand the electorate by rolling into a series of delusional conspiracy theories they claimed explained his victory.
While failing to understand the country you’re paid big bucks to understand is humiliating, admitting their failure would have been a better alternative to the spiral of Trump Derangement that grips many of our media and continues to make their political analysis a sad joke.
[Good Read]
See Also:
(2) Reminder: National Presidential Polls Are Useless
(3) Elizabeth Warren Thinks Voters Are Stupid
(4) Democrats Win Control of Virginia Legislature
(5) The Washington System is Sick – Here’s How.
