The Post-Fact Society

You've heard me on this before, I'm sure, but I want to very clearly state that I believe pundits and prognosticators on both sides of the aisle have literally no clue what they are talking about and make arguments off of gut assumptions rather than any real evidence. Today we will start with this article and pull some tidbits from it:

Nate Silver has already debunked this message as loony. If the goal of politics in a democracy is to earn the support of enough voters for re-election, removing Obama would harm the Democrats' message.

The 2010 midterms were bad, but they were better than 1992 if anybody knows anything about how our federal government is organized, and better than 1946 and 1950 for the same reasons. We still control the Senate. Let's also take a look at that 5-point drop in Democrats. Where did he get that data? Maybe I'm crazy, but 45 =/= 31. The numbers also seem to be widening.

I think Rachel Maddow can beat this "right-wing framework" idiocy back into place:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSNjs9v78k"]Rachel Maddow - achievements in first two years of Obama administration - part 1 - YouTube[/ame]

The 1896 election was a real doozy for the Democrats, wasn't it. They would continue to do well until the election of Woodrow Wilson on a split GOP ticket in 1912. Point to be taken here: ideological purity doesn't pay. Also, see Nate Silver above. As for the 'ideological transformation,' Woodrow Wilson was a racist and William Jennings Bryan resigned over Wilson's entry into WWI. Neither person would have been accepted into the Democratic Party of the internationalist, equality-of-the-races Democratic Party that FDR/Truman/JFK/LBJ instituted.

I think it's fairly obvious that Obama did not endorse the Iraq War, GWB did not endorse health-care reform, and so on and so forth. Yes, the GWOT is a failing of both Presidencies, but the similarities pretty much end there. Maybe the financial sector, but I don't see Bush suing the banks for malpractice the way the Justice Department is.

Anyway, as more of this stuff comes up I will post and break it down. It is a sad state of affairs that the Republican party is brain-dead and the emo-gressives of the Democratic party are moving that way as well. When trash like this gets posted, there isn't much to be said aside from disappointment.

Your mistake was reading Stoller. I stopped years ago. He's the kind of guy who is bright enough to know something is wrong, but not bright enough to know exactly what's wrong -- let alone what it would take to fix things. Hence his latching onto simplistic diagnoses and simplistic remedies. (Obama is the problem, let's primary him!) Yes, the Democratic party has major problems (major, major problems). That much is correct, but only that much.

He's but the first in a long line of pundits whose prognostications will be critiqued as having no factual evidence.

This x10. We need more people to feel this way and end the pointless bickering that has gotten us to where we are now.

Well then don't vote Republican.

We should all vote independent.

Jesus Christ, morons. I am a Democrat. I worked for the Kerry campaign in 2004. The DCCC in 2006. The Obama campaign in 2008. Hell, I even swung by the doomed Kentucky Senate campaign this past election cycle to chip in a bit. I fully believe in the goals of the party. It's my team; that's how partisan politics work. So when I use we, it is to indicate myself and other Democrats. If you are not a Democrat and saw yourself as we, you have nobody but yourself to blame. If you think that I referred to "liberals" in general, you were wrong. This article was a discussion amongst, between, and to the Democratic Party and those of you (QBert as an example) who regularly vote for other political parties should not be participating in the Democratic Party primaries to begin with...this may or may not have been a large part of the article. I believe I have the article linked; it would do you well to actually bother reading it.

Not that my ability to rationally analyze the 1894 midterm election or to compare 2010 to other midterms which the Democrats fared worse in should be affected by my partisanship. In terms of how the system of governance works, it does not matter if the Democrats lose the House by 30 seats or 40 seats; the House will still be controlled by the Republicans. To skip 1994 when comparing 2010 results was amateur-hour by this guy. The Democrats (WE) still control the Senate. 2010 was actually better for Democrat (or us if you bother to read the article) than most Republican victories in the 20th century, and I included that beforehand. Nor should it affect my ability to disagree rationally with the author for his suggestion that we kick Obama out and replace him...Nate Silver, Allan Lichtmann, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, and a whole bunch of other political scientists who are paid to understand this stuff know that Obama getting primaried is bad for his campaign - only PUMAs and Republicans want it.

I'd like to finish by lamenting the nature of your comment "Stopped reading right there." I've always been unable to appreciate people who refuse to continue reading out of misinterpretations of another person's writings. Had you finished and asked me why I said "we," instead of saying "tl;dr," you might have been treated to a polite response. Instead I am inclined to think you as an idiot. Who the hell reads a post like that and says, "This is about Democrats. I'm a Democrat. I don't want to be referred to as a Democrat." It's hard enough on P&CE reading stupid stuff from the likes of steamer and Ties0511, but for people I consider intelligent to completely miss the point and then to say "Well, because I've got the attention span of a dead frog this isn't worth my time," shows quite a bit of balls and virtually no intellect. Regardless of who's writing, be it hard-right or hard-left or pro-Bradley or pro-Klinsmann, I read it to the very end so that I at least attempt to understand their argument. It's really not possible to force you, but hopefully you'll misinterpret something someday in front of your boss, or a spouse, or a friend and you will learn the lesson. Hopefully.

If incumbent Presidents get a serious primary challenge, they usually lose in the general election (Carter, Bush 41). If they don't, they usually get re-elected (Clinton, Dubbya).

They are. MoveOn is a fringe element of the Democratic Party. HuffPost is more a mainstream voice but since when does it extract promises and pledges? Whereas Grover Norquist extracted allegiance from the Republican Party. There is no Dem equivalent to what the Republicans did to Obama with the deficit-ceiling talks. The Reeps put a gun to their own heads as well as Obama's and said they would pull the trigger. No Dems tried that with W, nor with Reagan.

It's not the same, no.

Emogressives are the Underpants Gnomes of the Democratic Party. To whit:

1. Primary Obama
2. ??
3. Single Payer!

It used to be potato/potahto, w/ both parties using a bit of non-potato filler.

The GOP would deep fry their 'taters and add heaps of cheap filler.

Dems have always promised julienned heirloom potatoes with a drizzle of truffle oil and seasoned w/ pink Himalayan sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, but then deliver plain ol' russet french fries seasoned w/ regular sea salt and black pepper, just baked instead deep fried.

Nowadays the GOP is just serving dried horse shit cut in the form of french fries and claiming that they're Zagat rated.

And Fox News has a cooking show on how to cook this horse shit.

And conservative blogs attack any and all media outlets and politicians who call the horse shit for the horse shit that it is. They vilify any and all politicians who dare hint at the possibility of horse shit not being 'taters, callin' 'em RINOs and citing a bastardized version of the Reagan Commandment at the same time.

The 'fact society' was one where there was one reality. One where no discussion between Mastershake and myself could occur on the dangers of secondhand smoke; there would be the facts, and people whose ideology did not line up with the facts did not choose that line of argument. Instead, we have contests over even the simplest truths, and where we get arguments from 'Democrats' that the best thing to do would be to primary the incumbent President and live thirty years in the wilderness so that they would eventually affect the needed change.

Proponents of the War in Vietnam openly acknowledged why they were doing it, and they never claimed anything near to the extent the claims of the War in Iraq. Come on dude, you know what I'm talking about. It wasn't that the "just" side always won, it was that the talking points were based off of the same realities.

This is what I mean! You and I cannot even agree that people used to agree! GAH!

I know I don't post here much, but this has to be nominated for the most ironic post of 2011.

Yes! The 'fact' society was from primitive man up to the last fifteen to twenty years. When the Romans invaded Gaul, Caesar never claimed it was because Gaul needed democracy. When the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, nobody ever claimed it was anything but religious freedom for the princes. William Gladstone didn't oppose the British invasion of Lhasa because of self-determination. Henry Cabot Lodge didn't attack the Fourteen Points for being socialist. Only recently have we had the terms 'revisionist history,' 'moral relativism,' and 'American exceptionalism' bandied about for reasons other than their intended purpose. Let's take the last one. American exceptionalism refers to an academic theory which tries to explain why Americans didn't take up socialism in the early 20th century like European countries did - it has nothing to do with our belief in our own greatness. That's Manifest Destiny. Only recently have people ever started to believe the South could have ever won the Civil War (aside from during the war, of course). Conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group, the UN, NAFTA, the religious rights, etc., are thrown about without a shred of evidence - and people believe them! President Obama is called a socialist and a Muslim in the same breath as being called a crony capitalist and follower of Jeremiah Wright. ON BIGSOCCER!

If you believe this has been around forever, I'd like to see your proof. Because I know it never existed until recently.