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)
There’s a tension in election coverage that is going to become increasingly jarring in the weeks ahead.
We’re going to read stories about business-as-usual campaigning, alongside stories of structural voter disenfranchisement.
The two storylines don’t easily coexist. (Thread)
Here’s a business-as-usual example:
Florida is an important battleground state. Polls show a close race. Whose message is resonating/what strategic choices are the campaigns making/who will win?
It’s a genre of reporting that we’re all used to — horse race reporting.
But then there’s this alternate storyline:
The courts have just effectively barred 770,000 Florida citizens from voting. This is part of a multi-year disenfranchisement effort that FL Republicans launched after FL voted to restore voting rights for ex-felons.
Here's what I think will matter from tonight's speech/this convention:
The premise of the RNC is that everything was going great, COVID has been a blip, but we're totally past it and back to fine now.
That's comforting to an audience that wants to believe it. But it's fleeting.
It's nine and a half weeks until the election. That's a really long time. Particularly now, when every week brings another disruptive horror.
Nine and a half weeks ago was June 16th. What news do you recall from June 16th? What has stuck with you that long?
Reality is the unavoidable problem for the Trump campaign.
They just spent four weeks utterly ignoring reality. I'm sure that felt nice for the supporters who tuned in -- it sure felt infuriating to us critics!
But, tomorrow, reality will start setting in again.