Since I started paying attention to US politics, the vast majority of errors of analysis & prediction -- from pundits, pols, & ordinary folks alike -- are of the same genre: failing to anticipate how bad Republicans will be. Over & over & over again. I'm guilty too!
I've been consciously trying to cure myself of this for *years*, but I still do it. I didn't think they'd go for Trump. I didn't think they'd unite behind Trump so totally. I didn't think they would go along with trying to overthrow democratic elections.
This is what you might call a fractal error -- it happens on small scales, in several individual stories a week, and it happens on the large scale, in the decades-long effort to secure minority rule. It's around us right now, as people sputter in shock over what Cruz is doing.
The weirdest thing about it is, after decades of consistent experience -- with the error always going in one direction, never the other -- there's STILL a kind of social pressure not to correct for it. People STILL get dismissed as partisan if they anticipate the next thing.
There's STILL this air of, "oh, don't be hysterical, don't catastrophize, chill out and be savvy like me." If anyone 4 years ago had predicted exactly what Trump & the GOP in fact did, they would have been scoffed at by the Cult of Savvy.
The point of this is not to relitigate old fights (promise), just to say: it's time to take the experience of past decades to heart, to integrate it into analysis & prediction. What will the GOP do next? *Probably the worst thing.* That's not hysteria, it's just learning.
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