The firehosing and resilience targeting continue. Though not always strictly disinformation, the barrage of sometimes contradictory news and announcements about changes to government services and regulations that people rely on has comparable effects. If you haven’t read disinformation researcher Brooke Binkowski’s series on How to Fight Disinformation do yourself a favor and set aside some time to read it. It was written between 2020 and 2022 and its focus is primarily climate-change related, but many of the players and certainly the same techniques make an appearance, and the parallels to the current situation are extensive.

One reason I mention firehosing and resilience targeting is that it is a challenge to choose a topic to focus on in the current information environment. This week the events that probably received the most media attention (news, social, etc.) were the machinations in Congress surrounding the budget.

As the first post after Trump II inauguration this will be a little different from our recent articles. It’s a bit of patchwork rather than a true narrative thread – partly because of the firehose of executive actions and other activities, which were intended to be disorienting (and were). First we address the disinformation that there is no resistance to the administration’s anti-democratic behavior. In fact, resistance has taken the form of virtual and in-person rallies, communications to Congress, numerous lawsuits, etc. Then we recap some recommendations for coping with these “Tryin’ Times.”

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....

Trump and Beyond

The 2016 Republican primary featured 17 candidates. Pop data analysis website fivethirtyeight.com has an analysis of each failed candidate’s arc titled “How the Republican Field Dwindled From 17 To Donald Trump.” The reasons are varied, from Ted Cruz being too extreme and disliked, to Marco Rubio lacking a base, to Republicans liking Ben Carson, but not enough to vote for him.

"W" to the Tea Party

“Poppy” Bush's son, George W. Bush (aka “W”), worked with campaign manager Lee Atwater during Bush senior’s presidential campaign. In W’s 1994 campaign for Governor of Texas his master of disinformation was political operative and self-described “nerd,” Karl Rove. Rove remained a key advisor to Bush until 2007.

Ford to Gingrich

Gerald Ford had been appointed Vice President under the terms of the 25th Amendment in December 1973 following Spiro Agnew’s resignation. When Ford assumed the presidency in August 1974 following Nixon’s resignation, and chose Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President some saw it as a resurgence of the moderate wing of the Republican party.

Hoover to Nixon

In 1928 the Democratic candidate for president was Alfred E. Smith, a Roman Catholic and opponent of prohibition. Republican Herbert Hoover defeated him as Republicans carried the former Confederate states for the first time since Reconstruction. Republicans resisted government intervention in the economy in response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression.