
How I Acted Like a Pundit and Screwed Up on Donald Trump - wallflower
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-i-acted-like-a-pundit-and-screwed-up-on-donald-trump/
======
douche
Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) called it months ago[1]

[1] [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/131749156346/the-case-for-a-
tru...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/131749156346/the-case-for-a-trump-
landslide-part-1)

~~~
thedevil
Not only did he call it, he explained and predicted in detail. For example, he
predicted the Megyn Kelly interview.

Edit: He predicted the interview and that it would mark a turning point where
Trump softens his image, destroys Clinton's image, and coasts towards a
landslide victory. The interview happened and the polls are turning now, on
cue.

He also predicted Trump would use the word love and possibly be seen hugging
minorities. Anyone see Trump's Cinco de Mayo tweet?

Unfortunately, Trump is our next president.

Second edit: I highly recommend Scott Adam's blog. He and Trump are both
psychology geniuses and the blog explains it.

~~~
newjersey
Say whatever you will but I will take solace in the fact that no matter how
badly Trump does, it would be worse under Cruz.

~~~
EdSharkey
How do you figure?

~~~
mc32
Not the OP but Cruz was an ideologue (would apparently not compromise) engaged
in risky tactics (shut down government) , was disliked by colleagues and
religion was above all else.

The country does not need a priest or pastor in chief.

~~~
EdSharkey
I get all that. I will note that what you say is phrased like talking points
from Cruz' enemies designed to make him 1-dimensional, but at least you
provided some simple examples to back up some of your statements.

Back to my original question: how does the GP figure that a Cruz presidency
would be worse than a Trump one?

Does Trump have any negatives for you? Can you weigh Trump's policy
statements, demeanor, and history against Cruz'?

~~~
mc32
If one were to take Trump literally, then yes, he would have some very
negative aspects --but so would Bernie.

As far as I can read mr. Trump which isn't to say I'm right, I think he's a
quite an adroit pragmatic populist who when it becomes necessary will adjust
his more extreme positions and bring them in alignment with the average
sentiment of the population.

His having been a business person, I don't think he'd take catastrophic action
on trade in order to satisfy a vague promise. He may seek to curtail illegal
immigration by simply enforcing e-verify for all jobs --that way, you might
stay here, but there is no point if you can't get work. At the same time I
could imagine a guest worker program, to give people who are willing to
comply, an avenue to work here. He may reframe the whole NRA/2nd amendment
rights issue to a less polarized one. I think he's not apt to vilify the LGBTQ
community as a Cruz would likely do.

Cruz was only about his "base". I think Trump has a good chance to expand
beyond his core constituency, disaffected working class and non-ideological
conservatives. He has the personality to pull in blue collar blacks as well as
blue collar Americans of Latin American descent. He may well alienate
undocumented immigrants and people who sympathise with them, but he may risk
that, for the time being.

~~~
EdSharkey
Okay, I think you're projecting in a lot of your assessment of Trump, but
that's just my dumb opinion.

I hear Trump's words and his "Big City boss" approach to governing doesn't
appeal to me, and I don't believe is going to be productive. I take it you
think he will tack to the populist center, but I have no clue what he'd do on
a whole range of issues based just on what he has said. It's like "Hope
America Change Again" should be his slogan.

He's boorish when it comes to women and sexuality. His foreign policy
statements continue to be a hot mess; he's either feigning ignorance or is
actually ignorant on world issues when he shoots from the hip. Demonizing
Mexico/Mexicans and China for show, stoking up hate for votes. The "Rafael
Cruz may have been part of the JFK assassination" antics was a completely
crazy stunt and unnecessary given where the campaigns stood in Indiana.
Alluding to his adequate dick size in a presidential debate. And on and on,
Trump isn't funny or refreshing to me ...

Domestic policy-wise, yes, there might be some bright spots (like his tax
plan). Anywhere he is cagey or ambiguous on his policy statements or has done
an about-face, he is a complete enigma (was for late-term abortion and now is
for punishing mothers for getting abortions should abortion become illegal.)

BTW, I don't blame you for projecting, a lot of people love the guy and want
to see him succeed!

~~~
mc32
With regard to politicians, like artists and many other people of note, I
don't like them because of what their personal character is, but rather what I
think they can accomplish.

If I'm on a boat with a captain and the choice is between a well mannered
gentleman and a gruff captain who can "get shit done" I want the latter to
captain the ship and I'd want the former as company. I'm not electing an
official to be the nicest person, but the person who can see through things
which need to get done. Not saying I'd want a criminal, I just don't need an
idealized for of personal character.

I vote independent, though have probably voted more conservative at the local
level and more liberal at the upstream levels. But really depends on what the
candidate might do politically, rather than personally.

~~~
EdSharkey
> With regard to politicians, like artists and many other people of note, I
> don't like them because of what their personal character is, but rather what
> I think they can accomplish.

I don't think you're so unbiased on personal character. You did say the
country does not need a priest or pastor in chief. The fact that the Cruz
character/persona his campaign put out there was dripping with Christianity
has no bearing on his ability to "get shit done".

I got the sense that Cruz is a sharky lawyer political operator type above
all. Opportunistic, and out to further his own political career. He's not the
greatest human being, but I liked his campaign promises because I thought they
were mostly doable if he got a strong mandate from the voters and the GOP was
still largely in power in Congress.

With Trump my mind keeps returning to the fable about the Scorpion and the
Frog. I just don't trust the guy.

------
Mendenhall
Maxim 20 from the Art of wordly wisdom (A must read book)

"The rarest individuals depend on their age. It is not every one that finds
the age he deserves, and even when he finds it he does not always know how to
utilise it. Some men have been worthy of a better century, for every species
of good does not always triumph. Things have their period; even excellences
are subject to fashion. The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is
not his century many others will be."

This is the age of of the Troll and the response they elicit, Trump read it
and understood it, ahead of most and definately ahead of his competitors. He
understands the age and is taking full advantage of it. Some saw it coming,
and others did not, many who even called themselves experts.

------
Animats
There are no good data sources for politics now. Gallup admits that well over
90% of the people they call for polls won't talk to them. They can't call cell
phones for polls. They can try focus groups, but that gets you people who have
time to waste.

~~~
deweerdt
The newyorker ran an interesting piece along those lines:
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/politics-and-
th...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/politics-and-the-new-
machine)

------
dnautics
"we were basically acting like pundits"

So, basically a giant Bayesian prior fail.

edit: got to the part where nate talks about the bayesian failure in more
detail. It's good.

------
calibraxis
> These fundamentals usually consist of economic indicators and various
> measures of incumbency.

I looked at a couple links, and couldn't quickly find the exact "fundamentals"
he refers to. For instance, do they include campaign financing (corrected by
peculiar things lke Trump's free media coverage, and perhaps whatever unpaid
labor of Sanders' supporters)?

Given that politicians spend enormous time on financing, this is an obvious
indicator. But it may be politically incorrect to use models that imply money
drives the US.

(Chomsky mentioned, "At the moment, the polls indicate an even race. Usually,
US elections can be predicted pretty well by the level of funding,
overwhelmingly from the very wealthy and corporations. In the early stages,
Bush was far in the lead, not a surprise in the light of the enormous gifts
his administration has lavished on a very small wealthy minority and on
corporate power. However, that funding gap has reduced considerably in the
past months, apparently reflecting concern among elite sectors over the
extraordinary incompetence of the Bush planners and the harm they are doing to
core elite interests."
[https://chomsky.info/20041011/](https://chomsky.info/20041011/))

------
panarky
Here's why this post-mortem is so important:

    
    
      The distinguishing feature of the scientific method is not that
      it always gets the answer right, but that it fails forward by
      learning from its mistakes...
    
      I want to think through his nomination while trying to avoid
      the seduction of hindsight bias.
    

Kudos to Nate Silver for meticulously examining how he got it wrong, and
publicly showing his work so we can all get better.

------
mc32
>"...our early estimates of Trump’s chances weren’t based on a statistical
model. Instead, they were what we “subjective odds” — which is to say,
educated guesses"

People of al stripes do this in all kinds of situations. We have a hypothesis
and find data to support that.

In this case both Trump and Bernie were hard to gauge. Trump just had no prior
history (I said to myself) and Bernie was never notable in national politics
outside a small core constituency so the default was to discount both because
on both sides they were more to the extremes (left and right ends) of their
parties.

Also, both Bernie and Trump are the animus the personification of the feelings
of large swaths of the electorate --so it goes beyond what they represent as
isolated individuals ("movement").

most of these analysts will find it hard to discount their "instinct" even if
they want to be data-driven (in a sphere where data can only reveal so much.

------
isidoreSeville
Worth noting that pundit Carl Diggler has not had any trouble predicting
results even without a fancy statistical model

~~~
Jtsummers
> In any race where Silver didn't make a pick — again, he isn't playing the
> pick-every-contest game — Diggler's numbers treat the non-prediction as a
> wrong prediction. So Silver's accuracy rate through May 7, according to
> Diggler, was just 55 percent, while his own was 89 percent.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/05/12/so...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/05/12/sorry-but-that-fake-pundit-isnt-more-accurate-than-nate-
silver/)

So the comparison counts non-predictions by Silver makes your statement
correct.

> even without a fancy statistical model

Remarkably anti-intellectual statement.

~~~
isidoreSeville
I think that you would agree that null is not a correct prediction, so clearly
the Silver model has failed for those votes.

~~~
Jtsummers
Null is neither correct nor incorrect. If I don't play a game of chess today
and you do, I haven't lost anything. I simply haven't played. The world is not
binary.

This claim is tantamount to a schoolyard taunt like, "If you don't fight me,
you're a coward." And claiming victory when your opponent wasn't even at
school that day to hear the taunt.

~~~
isidoreSeville
Right, but if you play chess against a lot of children and crush them 100% of
the time and I play against moderately experienced players and win 90% of the
time, I'm probably better at chess

~~~
Jtsummers
Fine. Fuck the analogies because yours isn't even close to the actual
situation.

At the time of the writing on the article I posted as a rebuttal: Each time
both Silver and Diggler predicted results they agreed except for 8 states.
When they didn't agree, they had an equal number of correct results (and
incorrect results), 4-4. They're effectively tied.

The ones that aren't predicted indicate nothing about Silver's methods other
than a lack of sufficient data to put through his models. Which says something
to his ethos. He doesn't just make wild stabs in the dark like a typical
pundit when he doesn't have the data to back up his prediction.

EDIT: Cleaned up the second paragraph.

EDIT FURTHER: I suppose it's my fault. Chess was the wrong analogy if someone
were to pick an analogy. It's played head-to-head, and comparison to people
that aren't playing against each other requires more complex analysis. The
situation here is two parties participating in an open contest, where everyone
can win, everyone can lose, or something in between can occur.

The point still stands. Someone not participating in a given contest doesn't
equate to losing. They just aren't competing.

------
goodcanadian
Trump's (presumptive) nomination was a big surprise to me. However, in
retrospect, it looks less surprising. Trump was always going to attract a
sizable minority, and there were really no other compelling candidates in the
race. While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not
Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear. At the end,
well, I am not certain that I wouldn't pick Trump over Cruz, for example.

~~~
sverige
> While I'm sure that the majority of Republican voters would prefer "not
> Trump," who that "not Trump" candidate could be was never clear.

Why are you sure of that? He's gotten a record number of votes for a
Republican primary. It's very clear that, in fact, the majority of Republican
voters want Trump, along with a sizable percentage of independents who voted
in some of the primaries.

It's this kind of wishful thinking by non-Republicans that leads to all the
laughable errors of the pundit and pollster class.

~~~
robotresearcher
> in fact, the majority of Republican voters want Trump

He does not have a majority of the primary vote.

------
throwaway_xx9
I don't think 538 gets it even now.

Trump is a celebrity who gets free media coverage and people aspire to. So of
course he was a serious contender from Day One.

The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people.

As one woman said to a news reporter earlier in the campaign, "Well, I could
vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician."

~~~
PantaloonFlames
> The fact that he is not polished for the media is a plus to most people.

He is EXTREMELY polished. He's a professional personality. He's been doing it
for a decade, wooing audiences. He knows how to do it.

What he is not, is a politician.

> Well, I could vote for the other candidate. But he's a politician.

exactly.

People aren't happy, and they'll vote for _anyone_ that isn't "more of the
same". eg Trump and Sanders.

------
WalterBright
I've watched Trump years ago on The Apprentice. What he brought to politics
was business sense and marketing know-how, which has been surprisingly absent
from political campaigns before.

~~~
joshgel
and also racism, sexism and xenophobia, with an authoritarian bent.

~~~
omonra
I think it's actually quite interesting - as a non-insignificant number of
people are probably supporting Trump because they are tired of being told that
holding a particular belief is 'racist' or 'xenophobic' (something they
clearly would disagree with).

~~~
mcphage
So a bunch of racist, xenophobic people are tired of being told that they're
racist and xenophobic? I can believe that. Of course, I thought they also want
a "straight shooter" who "isn't afraid to tell it like it is"... well, I guess
something's gotta give.

~~~
omonra
Is there a benchmark for measuring racism or xenophobia? Ie the terms are so
vague and subject to personal interpretation that I think they pretty much
mean 'Someone's whose views I disagree with'.

