Thread by @ThyConsigliori

18 September 2020 #BetweenTheLinesDotVote Analysis

Suspension Of Disbelief...Or...?

When you watch a movie or TV show, listen to a radio show, or read a good story, your mind does the funniest thing. It suspends disbelief. Same thing happens if a friend tells you a story.

2) You know you're not there. You know it is not actually happening right now in front of you. You know you're not participating or even actually observing. But, your mind places you as if a fly on the wall, or a ghost in the breeze, and you see and hear everything...as if real.

3) It's as if the whole thing is happening in real time. Yet it's not, it isn't even happening at all. Many times, it couldn't happen, no matter what. We call that form, fantasy. I bet you never thought of it, but political polling demands the exact same function of mind.

4) When you look at the data, for it to have any meaning at all, you have to pretend it's true. And beyond true, representative. How can 6,000 people reflect the voting will of about 130,000,000 registered voters in America? This is no trivial question. Suspend your disbelief.

5) What's the opposite of "suspend?' Perhaps engage, or re-engage. Such as, re-engage your disbelief? Take back your suspension of disbelief. Believe less? I bet you're getting the idea. So, as you see on today's chart above, I'm asking where the real story here is. Huh, huh?

6) I hope my continued drum beat doesn't bore you. The thing is, if a theory makes a prediction, and step by step confirmation keeps coming in, well, the theory is not yet disproved. That's actually a technical term from the great master of the Scientific Method, Sir Karl Popper.

7) Popper didn't believe you actually prove a theory, but you can disprove one. This is called "falsifiability." Popper drew a strong line between science and religion. You can't disprove a religious statement. To be scientific, a statement must be disprovable, falsifiable.

8) If you've been following my analysis, you'll recall that the very first time Dornsife released their numbers, I called a possible foul over this new Insignificant Difference Area - which I had to rename for them. They call it the "Area of Insignificance," which is nonsensical.

9) And as the numbers evolved I immediately developed my theory that this thumb on the scale corruption of the data, with a predetermined outcome, and I thought I might be able to picture how they'd do it. Biden always above, Trump always below the Insignificant Difference Area.

10) Following Popper, today's chart DOES NOT prove my theory right. But it also does not disprove it either. In fact, in technical analysis terms, it gained additional confirmation today, sadly. It's easy to see. Three times, now, Biden has dropped down toward the upper limit.

11) And...three times, now, Biden has bounced right back up away from that upper limit. Trump's proper compliance with the rule is much more strongly demonstrated. If you don't count day 1, he's tested the lower limit 4 solid times, and if you do count day 1, then it's 5 times.

12) Tell me it isn't so. Let me regain my suspension of disbelief please. Request made I have to offer a counter-theory to my own. Biden really IS that much above, and his support really IS that strong. So also with Trump in mirror image opposite. Meaning, they're actually right.

13) That's a tough one to hold, but I'm happy to keep it running as long as I can't completely disprove it. I am obviously on the hunt. As Trump always says...

We'll see...

14) I am a little proud of this chart and the next. If you look back to yesterday, I anticipated we'd have one or two new formations shaping up today, and said so. The old formations could have reasserted themselves, with yesterday just being a blip. But here they are, forming.

15) It's tempting to say that just a few days' worth of data isn't all that meaningful. I don't agree with that. I believe that the simple math and geometry of these formations makes them powerful indicators of what's really going on. And Biden's is very interesting.

16) First note that his resistance line remains essential unquestionable. There it is. If he breaks out above, and builds a new formation there, that could be his victory path. But that's not what looks like it's shaping up as. Honest, it's not looking good. Here's why not.

17) If you compare today's to yesterday's Biden charts, you'll see that his resistance line has fallen and not by a small degree. The most important thing is that it has gone from un upward slope to a downward one. Sure, he may change that rapidly but again, that's not indicated.

18) Part of the way I read a chart is very subjective, but I don't mean driven by my desires, although I absolutely HAVE to account for my own bias. Rather, what I refer to by my subjectivity is the feeling of the chart, and, believe it or not its gravity vs its lift.

19) Obviously, gravity pulls down, lift rises up. With a strongly tested, and negatively sloped resistance, and a lowering support line, also strongly tested, I feel a gravitation pull dropping downward. And this one is even more special. Look at this...

20) Biden's first 3 days were dropping, no big deal but that was the initial direction. That counts with me. Then, his support line could have been drawn, had I prophetic foresight, right then with those 3 days right there on a deal line, even. Cut forward to today. 3 days also.

21) Think about that with simple math. That's six days on this line. Suddenly, overnight literally, this support line looks like it's just about the strongest damned line we've got in the whole suite. And right there in the middle, you can see yet another downard channel testing.

22) You know what. I think that's actually important enough to merit its own chart. Hold my espresso, and I'll go draw it up, okay? Be right back...

23) Here it is. I can tell you frankly and truly, if I'm a Biden advisor looking at that, it might be the thing that gave me nightmares tonight. There's just such a strong, downward slant, not only to that, but to the entire, heavy, drooping formation, worse now than before.

19) I really do my best to prevent myself from making strong calls. I really do prefer to analyze what I see, rather than predict what has not yet happened. But eventually, I always fold. I'm not saying I'm making the call today, but this is looking like a break to the downside.

20) And if only Dornsife allows Biden's numbers to go, even briefly, beneath the upper limit of the insignificance line, I might be able to start patching up my disbelief a little. But as all stock pickers will tell you, the other hand is Biden could explode form here. We'll see.

21) Trump's formation has also changed, and while it may not look at that dramatic, it really is, at least to my eye. Just one more day upward, and he'd have maintained the previous resistance line, which would have been great. But as you look you see he dropped hard, yesterday.

22) While very possibly dramatic as I said above, it also may not be that big a deal. Meaning, when we look tomorrow he might spike up all the way to previous resistance, and a couple more days up there, and boom, he's got his old channel form right back.

23) Those two spikes above this new resistance line in the middle, corresponding obviously to Biden's deep slope secondary channel. Funny thing, in '16, Trump made me draw a much lower resistance line till the very end. Remember, I need 3 points to draw a line.

24) Of course, living with our suspension of disbelief here, the bad news is that Trump is still so far below Biden that we may soon enter the land of too late to matter, if Dornsife is both honest and right. If I'm a Trump advisor, though, I'm not too scared right now.

25) But as always, caution is my watchword, and I always play as if the bad news were true. How do we win in that scenario, assuming all this data to be spot on correct? As we discussed that yesterday, I'll let my advising go for now, with that.

26) So, tell me. Have you followed this suspension of disbelief thing I've been prattling on about? Consider the two words above, both "honest" and "right." I hope it's obvious that the two are in no way mandatory in the real world.

27) You can be both honest and wrong, or dishonest and right; both states are clearly possible. That poll that should win our true support, as Dornsife won my in '16, should be both honest and right, in order to support us in our collective suspension of disbelief.

28) As it stands right now, I think I have an internal hung jury of, let's call it 9 jurors decided against, 1 on the fence, and the other 2 only weakly for, and for them, it's almost more nostalgia than any other factor. You know, old friends and all that, you cut them slack.

29) Well, I did mention my own bias above. My bias for Trump and against Biden virtually forces me, in countering it, to look at positive data for Biden and negative for Trump each as having an advantage of belief I must give them. We all have to counter our biases. Not easy.

30) As Martha says, the story goes on. I didn't plan on assessing Dornsife everyday as I have been. But, they got me for the time being. So, I'll be back here tomorrow, and we'll see how our new formations are shaping, what other drama the data may bring. Have your popcorn ready!

Thread ends at #30.