Kakistocracy

Election analyses this soon after the election are nearly all based on exit polls. Exit polls are subject to “sampling bias,” meaning that members of various social or economic groups aren’t necessarily represented in the polls in the same proportion as they are in the actual population. For instance, college graduates and younger voters tend to be over-represented. Also, the overall winner of the exit poll must match the winner of the actual election, and if it doesn’t the pollster will make statistical adjustments to the results, which can further exacerbate the over-representation.

In 2020, for instance, exit polls underestimated the share of voters who were white without a college degree, and overestimated the share of white women who voted for Trump. As Wired’s Gilad Edelman wrote, though “None of this is to say that any of the emerging narratives about how various groups voted this year are wrong. We just don’t know yet.” More accurate analyses must wait until states finish updating their voter files – some time next year – and public information about who did and did not vote will be available. At that point studies validated against voter files will be released, such as Harvard’s Cooperative Election Study and the Pew Research Center’s validated voter survey.

As of this writing, the Cook Political Report’s National Popular Vote Tracker, which uses official sources from the states, shows Trump with 49.83% of the vote, vs. Harris’s 48.28%. A Trump victory, yes, but not the grand mandate his minions have trumpeted, and in fact – as we noted on our home page – in the history of presidential elections only five popular vote winners have prevailed by less.

So with the caveats above in mind, let’s take a look at the exit polls.

It'd be a shame if something happened to it...

The visible deterioration of Donald Trump’s cognitive ability on the campaign trail, including babbling, disinhibition, and canceling media appearances  has intensified focus on vice presidential candidate and Washington newcomer J.D. Vance. Vance has less political experience than any vice presidential candidate in the last nearly 60 years, has held one elected office for just twenty-some months as of this writing, and none of the 34 bills he personally sponsored became law. Media-and-politics website mediaite.com labeled Vance the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Senate, “stomping and shouting but getting nothing done.” In his article “Why Trump Chose J.D. Vance,” Time magazine’s Eric Cortelessa suggests that Vance was chosen as “a leading light of the right-wing populist movement spawned by Trump’s rise….” This is at best a nuanced characterization as Vance has an extensive record of critical comments and remarks about Trump, dating back to at least 2016.

In June Vance participated in a Trump fundraiser at the home of David Sacks, who with fellow investors Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk, among others, founded PayPal and went on to form other tech firms. Vance met Thiel in 2011 when Thiel spoke at Yale Law School where Vance was a student. Vance subsequently described Thiel’s talk somewhat obtusely as “the most significant moment of my time.” In 2015 Vance became a partner at venture capital firm Mithril Capital, which Thiel had co-founded. Mithril is the fictional precious metal in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, described as harder than steel and more beautiful than silver. As documented by Disconnect.blog’s Paris Marx, Thiel has named at least nine companies after people, places, and things from Tolkien’s world.

Tolkien’s Middle Earth apparently holds an almost mystical appeal to many Silicon Valley denizens....

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election was released on the Internet, April 18, 2019. The report identified "sweeping and systemic" Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, including a social media "information warfare" campaign favoring the Trump campaign, hacking of databases and release of stolen materials. Russia also targeted election-related databases in several states, and gained access to millions of voter registration records. 

The report produced more than three dozen indictments and seven guilty pleas or convictions. Fourteen other criminal matters were referred to elements of the Justice Department....

"It has never existed," the New York Times' Maggie Haberman wrote in June about the hope being expressed in Washington for an imaginary person who could keep Trump in line. "... [P]eople keep cycling through, looking for ways, in the campaign and now." In June some were hoping the kindergarten-teacher-in-chief would be the First Lady; this month the talk was of retired Marine general John F. Kelly, Trump's new chief of staff. John Kelly Quickly Moves to Impose Military Discipline on White House, the New York Times proclaimed on August 3, only to be answered barely two week later by the Washington Post headline Trump's lack of discipline leaves new chief of staff frustrated and dismayed.

"Who's making the decisions in the White House?" Senator John McCain asked reporters on February 14. "Is it the 31 year old?" he continued, alluding to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. "Is it Mr. Bannon? Is it the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff? I don't know." The "whole environment is one of dysfunction in the Trump administration," McCain said.

"“I’ve consulted many people in town about analogies and comparisons and nobody can come up with any," Bill Galston, former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton, now at the Brookings Institution told the Guardian. "Our seismographs are broken.... We appear to have a president who cannot distinguish chaos from order. There are amateurs doing a job that only professionals can do, and even then often not successfully."