Thread by @davekarpf

Okay, I’ve got a couple of election-aftermath takes I want to share.

Each of these ought to be a column, but 👏parenting 👏 in 👏a👏pandemic👏is👏exhausting.

(1/who knows?)

First, I know everyone is mad at Nate Silver and the pollsters. I agree that we’ve probably gotten a little too into modeling and polling aggregation.

BUT!

The rise of Nate Silver was a response to endless utter-vacuous-bullshit punditry.
(2/x)

There is a news hole to be filled. In the epic-long campaign, there’s demand for some expert commentary on where things stand. Sites like 538 aren’t perfect, but they’re so much better than the alternative.
(3/x)

If 538 disappeared tomorrow, it would leave a vacuum. You know what would replace it?

More Chris Cillizza. More David Brooks and Bret Stephens. An endless sea of overconfident, underwhelming white dudes offering howlingly bad predictions.

(4/x)

Second take: the Lincoln Project.

I don’t think democratic dollars should go to moderate republicans, even if theyre VERY snarky moderate republicans.

Our dollars should go to (1) Stacey Abrams and (2) whoever else Stacey Abrams suggests.

BUT!

I’m kinda pro-Lincoln Project

The USA is designed as a two-party system. I’d like to change that through a constitutional convention, but I’d also like a unicorn and a good night’s sleep. None of that is gonna happen anytime soon.

We need two responsible/responsive parties. We only have one.
(6/x)

In the short-term, the answer to the Republican Party abandoning any semblance of interest in responsible governance is for Dems to humiliate them at the polls.

In the medium term, the answer is Republicans doing better.
(7/x)

Maybe the Lincoln Project will just be a grift.

That would suck.

But maybe it becomes a space for Republicans counter-organizing within their own caucus and finally starting to fix their bullshit.

That would be very, very good.
(8/x)

And, in the meantime, if they’re gonna constantly pwn Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz for being empty vessels masquerading as leaders, I’ll bring some popcorn and happily watch.
(9/x)

But the real point is that Republicans are going to be the ones to reform the Republican Party. Not progressives.

And they need to get to work on that right away. Otherwise the system keeps not working even a little bit.
(10/x)

Last thought, on the “be civil/nice to Republican activists who have the sads now.”

No. Absolutely not.

We are governed both by laws and by norms. Republican leaders have broken BOTH with impunity for the past four years.
(11/x)

You handle the lawbreaking through lawsuits. You handle the norm-breaking through public shaming.

If norms are broken without consequence, they cease to have any force. It makes the norm-breaking okay. It makes it normal.
(12/x)

We hold them accountable not to be spiteful, but to be responsible.

It is our civic duty to stand firm behind our norms.

It is our civic duty to make clear that weaponizing the administrative state in support of authoritarianism was wrong, and has consequences.
(Fin)