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14 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
just fabulously put. no one's waiting in the afterlife to give you bonus points for your correct predictions, and almost all of them will be wrong in the end, anyway. fight for the stuff you want and then, if you don't get it, fight for the next best thing, and so on
our political class has become utterly obsessed with the act of prognostication and prediction, which, in addition to often being paralyzing and useless -- what good is predicting failure and disaster if you don't stop it? -- is a doomed enterprise. the world is too complex.
think about the last five years. which of the major events, from trump's victory, to his impeachments, to COVID-19, to the knife-edge negotiations for the fate of democracy in a 50-50 senate, could you have predicted with any certainty in advance? none of it. literally none of it
it doesn't matter if you get the broad strokes of political forecasting right because in history the tiny details matter. big doors swing on imperceptibly tiny hinges. forecasting is a silly game. just try to make things better. work towards better outcomes, not better forecasts

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More from @whstancil

Will Stancil Profile picture
13 Jul
It's really remarkable how much mileage reactionaries have gotten out of the idea that every suburb in America is more like Warren, Michigan, circa 1968, rather than Silver Spring, Maryland circa 2020.
You don't have to convince liberals their agenda is wrong. You just have to convince liberals they're special brilliant ultra-tolerant snowflakes that all real Americans hate, and they'll happily throw their agenda off a cliff for you.
By the way, we actually have data on this - both polling and demographic - and barely any suburb in the country looks like the all-white fortresses of reaction that defined American politics in the 1970s. White suburbia, if not extinct, is critically endangered.
Read 4 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
13 Jul
Liberals, 2020: “It’s important we learn the lessons of the past and impose accountability. We can’t fall into the trap of saying we’ll look forward, not backwards, just because Trump is gone.”

Liberals, 2021: “Hm, but now Trump is gone! Let’s look forwards, not backwards.”
Liberals, 2020: “Okay, feeding the 90s panic over crime may have seemed wise at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, we now know it probably did not help us politically and fed a lot of racism.”

Liberals, 2021: “Hm, but maybe this time would be wise to focus on crime.”
Liberals, 2020: “We’ve learned our lesson: the hopeless quest for a bipartisan deal sabotaged Obama’s policy agenda and caught his largest bill in a morass.”

Liberals, 2021: “It really would be nice to get some bipartisan votes on infrastructure, though. What’s the harm?”
Read 4 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
12 Jul
Yes, why don’t climate activists stop protesting the most powerful person in the country with the greatest range of unilateral action, and instead send out a press release thanking Biden and hoping for more action in the future?? Brilliant. ImageImage
Ah, of course, here we are: the ritual citing of issue polling.

You see, although a significant majority of the public thinks climate is an important problem, they don’t think it’s the MOST important problem, and therefore Biden’s hands are tied and we have to cook the earth. ImageImage
“I’m sorry, son, I know you’re living in a scorched hellscape, but only 55% of the public believed climate was an important issue and although we controlled each of the major policymaking branches, we had to prioritize issues according to the polls.”
Read 4 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
10 Jul
There remains literally no evidence whatsoever that “wokeness” — whatever that even means — is harming Democrats. But white media men keep writing these stories suggesting that the critical weakness of the party is its reluctance to condone racism
We are watching, in real time, a bunch of white guys, massively overrepresented in media and politics, even among nominal liberals, attempt to start a narrative that all this thinking-about-race-and-gender stuff has gone too far. Not hard to see what’s happening
The political leanings of communities of people are HEAVILY guided by the demographics of those communities. Top tier political media is an area run completely by middle-aged white men. Shocker of shockers, come to find out they all think that Democrats take racism too seriously
Read 6 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
10 Jul
A fundamental divide in our politics: Republicans just say, directly to voters, why the voters should pick them over the other side.

Democrats set up elaborate indirect demonstrations of their argument, almost all of which voters end up overlooking.

politico.com/news/2021/07/0…
Passing bills and hoping voters will see your accomplishments? Indirect: you're expecting voters to notice and then pick you.

Letting the GOP seethe and obstruct and hoping voters will see how unreasonable they are? Indirect: you're expecting voters to notice and pick you.
Trying to improve real economic conditions for voters? Indirect: you're expecting voters to notice you did it, and then pick you.

Implementing new programs that will benefit voters? Indirect: you're expecting voters to notice you did it, and then pick you.
Read 11 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
9 Jul
Extremely astute point from @brianbeutler, which is that it's entirely too convenient that "wonks who are extremely invested in the details of good policy" have now decided that "the details of good policy" is ALSO the best way to win elections. What are the odds..?
The belief that policy wins elections has survived a fusillade of counterexamples - most recently and notably, Biden's stimulus. It should have been Dems' crowning glory; most presidents can only dream of passing a bill so large and popular. But it's had no real political effect.
Of course, in some sense, this belief is unfalsifiable - it's a frame of interpretation. If Dems do better than expected next fall, pundits will say "Seems voters like Biden's policy achievements!" If they do worse, pundits will say "Looks like Biden's policies were unpopular!"
Read 6 tweets

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