@Le Frog @Le Frog

as Must-Reads/Listens.

If you haven’t checked out the Citations Needed podcast yet, you really ought to. Two of the brightest journalists of media critique around (including Adam Johnson of FAIR).

Nate Silver and the Crisis of Pundit Brain

Nate Silver tell us Joe Biden’s inconsistent political beliefs are, in fact, a benefit. They’re “his calling card” and evidence he “reads the room pretty well”. Venality, we are told, is “a normal and often successful [mode] for a politician.” Insurgent progressive groups like Justice Democrats shouldn’t call Biden out of touch with the base because, Silver tell us, “only 26 of the 79 candidates it endorsed last year won their primaries, and only 7 of those went on to win the general election.”
On Twitter and his in columns, high-status pundit Nate Silver, has made a career reporting on the polls and insisting he’s just a dispassionate, non-ideological conduit of Cold Hard Facts, just channeling the holy word of data. Empirical journalism, he calls it. But this schtick, however, is very ideological - a reactionary worldview that prioritizes describing the world, rather than changing it. For Silver - and data-fetishists like him - politics is a sport to be gamed, rather than a mechanism for improving people’s lives.
We are joined by Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson.

And then the Chapo guys doing what they do best - shredding the whole lame, pathetic Neoliberal cesspool with razor sharp wit, satire and intelligence.

“Our fictional pundit predicted more correct primary results than Nate Silver did”

Virgil Texas to the rescue...

He went from being a hostage of Russian security forces to predicting the exact results of the Iowa presidential caucuses, right down to the third- and fourth-place finishers. He called Bernie Sanders’s upset win in this past week’s Indiana primary, when his competitors all said Hillary Clinton had it locked down. He has correctly predicted the results of 77 out of 87 races in this year’s primaries, an 89 percent accuracy rating that equals that of FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver while tackling nearly twice as many contests.

And he’s a fictional character.

Carl “The Dig” Diggler is a parody of political pundits written by Felix Biederman and me for CAFE. Carl exists to satirize all that is vacuous, elitist and ridiculous about the media class. From his sycophantic love of candidates in uniform to his hatred of Bernie Bros, from his reverence for “the discourse” to his constant threats of suing the people who troll him on Twitter, Carl is predicated on being myopic, vain and — frankly — wrong...

The success of two amateurs writing a fictional pundit who relies on “gut” and bogus “racial science” highlights the collapse of the expert prognosticators this year. For months, professional data journalists at FiveThirtyEight, Vox, the New York Times, et al, proclaimed that Trump and Sanders had no chance. They checked the numbers and reassured readers that the Trump bubble would pop, that Sanders would win two states and then go home.

In particular, Silver, who correctly predicted the results of the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, enjoys the imprimatur of scientific authority. His site is the grandaddy of a strain of data journalism — er, “empirical journalism” — that insists that hard mathematical analysis is more objective and more accurate than old-school pundits with their capricious instincts. “DataLab,” the name of FiveThirtyEight’s blog, conjures up wonks in white lab coats chalking authoritative equations.

Here’s the Chapo Trap House Reddit thread filled with folks like us.

(Edited to correct the title of the Citations Neded episode)

#2 #2

maybe we can all him Nate Slither, because he can't seem to stop smarming put of the tall grass to hiss and spit about in a fit of nonsense.

Apologies to real snakes and other wildlife that slithers.

@Le Frog
"Gnat's Liver"?
"Nail Sliver?"
"Fate Slaver"?
^
the esoteric one; reflects nicely on his presumed status as a 21st-Century Imperial Haruspex

#2 #2

maybe we can all him Nate Slither, because he can't seem to stop smarming put of the tall grass to hiss and spit about in a fit of nonsense.

Apologies to real snakes and other wildlife that slithers.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

What you say about Bernie is spot on but like Jilani, I also have noticed that more than a few of his campaign higherups seem to be doing an IdPol thing by harping on the diversity of Bernie's staff and electoral base. What's important is to win over voters. And that might not be the best way to do it in Iowa and New Hampshire although I don't know if staffers' diversity messaging is overriding Bernie's most excellent same ol' same ol emphasis on class or even getting through to anyone much beyond twitter which course is fine by me.

#9

is that his message doesn't change with his audience.

So his message to the 55% of...whatever (Democratic primary voters who weren't purged off voter rolls or out of the party via an involuntary party registration change?) who voted for Clinton is the same as his message to me.

@gulfgal98 I agree, probably not much $$$.
I have a feeling they didn't need to tempt him with money; he was much more motivated by the prospect of being granted a seat at the "cool kids table".
Just my opinion, obviously... but it's certainly as valid as his these days.

#11 Like the rest of the pundit class, Nate will be well paid for it. It would be interesting to learn just how much it takes for someone like Silver to sell out. My guess is not that much.

@jim p unpalatable and is something he plans to roll out during his potential presidency. It's pretty extreme to be the president of America and want to put down the imperialism pipe, regardless of party/ideology, generally speaking.

#13 his focus on moving money and domestic systems toward benefitting ordinary people has an inherent, though unspoken, corollary. Those resources have got to come from military.

Aside: I can see why he doesn't overtly challenge Empire because he probably still wants to do things for a long while. But you can't get to his policies without reigning war making in. Just seems obvious to me why they want him gone; why he limits his public boldness to domestic matters.

@gulfgal98
has called for an annual tax on WEALTH, not just income. It is as radical as anything proposed in American public policy in my lifetime, and I didn't miss ratification of the constitution my much.

Elizabeth Warren's willingness to endorse some neoliberals is a strength. If Bernie wins the presidency his movement will force his policies through congress. Don't hold your breath. Bernie will have about 8 members of congress and maybe a senator. Bernie was quite willing to compromise on the campaign rhetoric as mayor. It's that or nothing.

If a few people owe Warren something for campaign visits she might be able to get a bit more. The more you can disagree without being disagreeable, the more you're likely to walk away with.

#13 are being funded by the oligarchs in exchange for their propping up the status quo.

Bernie and Tulsi are both real threats to the status quo because they both are talking about making systemic changes. Tulsi on foreign policy and regime change wars and Bernie on domestic policy and investing in those of us who consist of the 99%. Both are a real threat to the gravy train which has been siphoning off assets from the people to line the pockets of the banks and the MIC.

Elizabeth Warren pretends to be one of us, but in reality is not going to systemically change things. She is a neoliberal through and through. Yes, she will nibble very lightly around the edges, but she is not a real threat to the oligarch's entrenched power.

@Le Frog

"His supporters are annoying."
"His supporters are misogynistic."
"His supporters are racist."
"His supporters are mean to me.
"His supporters are...."

How silly is that to support and want MFA, increased minimum wage and the other things he's offering, but you won't vote for him because someone was mean to you on Twitter? This has to be dumbest meme ever!

#14 is that his supporters are annoying, but never mind that Sanders is the only candidate running a campaign to speak to every voter regardless of where they are on the spectrum? But sure, let's get that Basket of Deplorables out and start filling it up again. I remember when President Hillary Clinton told people to stop insulting other people for who they supported and how ran on principles of outreach and inclusion... oh, wait a minute...

@jim p

#15 come back to him, it'll be that it's a too-cluttered mix of people.

@Centaurea

Twitter apparently just introduced a new functionality allowing Twitter users to remove from public view ("hide") any replies to their tweets that they don't like.

I think that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey may have just killed off Twitter by doing this.

Fingers crossed here.

I'm not at all convinced the world is a better place due to the existence of Twitter ... or Facebook either, for that matter.

#17

Twitter apparently just introduced a new functionality allowing Twitter users to remove from public view ("hide") any replies to their tweets that they don't like.

Here's what Caity Johnstone says about it. She starts out by referring to Nate Silver's "annoyingness" tweet, and then goes on:

We’ve been seeing many such complaints from elitists of the political/media class about the way Twitter’s somewhat egalitarian structure allows ordinary citizens to effectively criticize their posts, and it’s been growing louder and louder in recent years.
[...]

This ongoing meltdown by elitist narrative managers over the fact that mere commoners now dare address them in public without reverence and respect is the result of the novel nature of this dynamic. It used to be that the unwashed masses were kept quarantined from the narrative makers of the plutocratic media; they’d stay safely insulated among their own kind and they’d tell the rabble what to think from behind a wall of inaccessibility. Now if you’re in politics or media you’re expected to maintain a social media profile so that potential future employers can see what a good establishment lackey you are, but this new dynamic is clashing with the surging western populist movements who have an ever diminishing respect for that same establishment.
[...]

You can tell the [new "hide replies"] function is designed to appease the elitists of the political/media class by those who are happy about it, like the president of the Center for American Progress think tank Neera Tanden, who spends much of her time on Twitter smearing everyone to the left of Elizabeth Warren and tweeted “This is great” in response to the news about the “hide replies” function. 

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/twitters-hide-replies-function-serves...

Personally, I think that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey may have just killed off Twitter by doing this. All you'll see now is a bunch of narcissists showing off and their admirers expressing adoration.

Oh, well.

@Centaurea

Ole Nate weighed in after his residue remark:

“I honestly think the annoyingness of a certain candidate’s supporters on Twitter prevents other reporters/analysts from pointing out that said candidate’s campaign obviously isn’t going that well,” griped the popular statistician/establishment narrative manager Nate Silver on Twitter today, following angry backlash from American progressives for a controversial racially charged tweet a few hours earlier in which he referred to Bernie Sanders’ diverse base as “residue”.

Gee which candidate is he talking about here? Does he think only Bernie's supporters are mean to people on Twitter? Guess he hasn't seen the cat fights between Warren and Kambama's supporters? Well I have and some of the responses are down right nasty! I'll try to find some examples. This goes back to my previous comment..."Mom! A Bernie supporter is being mean to me again!" Good grief. What's next? Oh I know. Lots of Bernie's supporters are having trouble seeing the responses to their tweets or they keep having their followers erased. I haven't been paying much attention to this, but now I see what I've been reading.

This guy nails

If no one replies to you, and no one watches you, eventually no one is going to care what you think. And I think that's a good outcome for you.

— NeoTrotsky For The 21st Century (@LTrotsky21) September 21, 2019

Heh

If you think that is great, just wait until Bernie Sanders is president and everyone has health care.

You going to hide all the replies that remind everyone you're a union buster?

This...

Not necessarily. I know a ton of resistance accounts that have been hit with Reply Deboosting. Basically, for non followers to be able to see your replies, they would need to click on "see more replies" at the bottom of all your replies. Really limits reach.

Thanks for the Caitlin essay!

#17

Twitter apparently just introduced a new functionality allowing Twitter users to remove from public view ("hide") any replies to their tweets that they don't like.

Here's what Caity Johnstone says about it. She starts out by referring to Nate Silver's "annoyingness" tweet, and then goes on:

We’ve been seeing many such complaints from elitists of the political/media class about the way Twitter’s somewhat egalitarian structure allows ordinary citizens to effectively criticize their posts, and it’s been growing louder and louder in recent years.
[...]

This ongoing meltdown by elitist narrative managers over the fact that mere commoners now dare address them in public without reverence and respect is the result of the novel nature of this dynamic. It used to be that the unwashed masses were kept quarantined from the narrative makers of the plutocratic media; they’d stay safely insulated among their own kind and they’d tell the rabble what to think from behind a wall of inaccessibility. Now if you’re in politics or media you’re expected to maintain a social media profile so that potential future employers can see what a good establishment lackey you are, but this new dynamic is clashing with the surging western populist movements who have an ever diminishing respect for that same establishment.
[...]

You can tell the [new "hide replies"] function is designed to appease the elitists of the political/media class by those who are happy about it, like the president of the Center for American Progress think tank Neera Tanden, who spends much of her time on Twitter smearing everyone to the left of Elizabeth Warren and tweeted “This is great” in response to the news about the “hide replies” function. 

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/twitters-hide-replies-function-serves...

Personally, I think that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey may have just killed off Twitter by doing this. All you'll see now is a bunch of narcissists showing off and their admirers expressing adoration.

Oh, well.