
The forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse - bootload
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/the-forces-that-drove-this-elections-media-failure-are-likely-to-get-worse
======
mrlatinos
Just thought I'd share a tidbit that I haven't been able to elsewhere. I work
for a large market research firm that does polls for a large news network. On
Sunday, we ran a poll for them that put Trump at 8 points ahead. They decided
against publishing it.

~~~
pcunite
Thank you for sharing. From my two months of non-professional research, it
looked like Trump was going to win by a big margin. The major media outlets
were looking outright deceptive from my perspective.

~~~
sshumaker
pcunite - we've discussed in another thread, but the election was actually
quite close. HRC had more of the popular vote, and a 1% shift from Trump to
Clinton would have resulted in her victory.

Here's an excellent analysis from five-thirty-eight:
[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-perc...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-percentage-points-makes/)

~~~
fixxer
Sure, but the polls being published and "marketed" had her with an
insurmountable lead. Silver had her at 70% and that was generous to Trump
compared to many. This isn't about the polls being wrong because the race was
tight. Many misrepresented likely turnout (because many are incompetent and
thought the 2016 electorate was going to be the 2012 electorate) and the media
pumped up those same HRC favorable polls while the pundits attacked the
validity of what turned out to be better polls (LA Times). It sure looked like
a propaganda machine to me, but I'm just one of those deplorables.

~~~
grzm
Some honest questions: Do you think it's worth polling at all? Do you think
it's possible they made honest mistakes in their models? If you're voting in
the election, you're going to have an opinion. Is it possible to work on
polling honestly while being an eligible voter?

Personally, I think polling is worthwhile. I think it's possible they made
honest (and sometimes incompetent, but not malicious) mistakes, and
acknowledge that attempting to predict the outcome of a future event is
inherently difficult. I think it is possible to do honest work while still
voting.

~~~
fixxer
Polls are useful for the campaign as part of media optimization and field
strategy. In terms of value to the electorate, I think polls are anti-value:
they are presented to generate response, be it entertainment or motivation.
The electorate needs to held accountable for turnout, not tricked into it. I
don't believe in requiring voting, but I despise the methods used to GOTV.
Either you possess civic engagement or you don't

~~~
grzm
The connection you make between polls and GOTV is interesting. I hadn't
thought of it that way. So, as I understand it, the campaign is the candidate
and the people working to get the candidate elected. The campaign can
legitimately use polls to decide where to allocate resources (e.g., money for
ad buys, themes for ads, on-the-ground person-to-person outreach). However,
it's not legitimate for a campaign to publicize the poll numbers, as voters
should be motivated by the campaign's message rather than by fear of being
behind in the polls.

Is this a fair representation of what you're saying? I don't feel I've
captured it quite right, as I can't figure out how to tie in the entertainment
aspect of polls. Also, I'm not happy with my choice of the word "fear" as the
driving aspect of motivation.

Acknowledging that I may not have captured your argument correctly, I'm going
to move forward, fully willing to abandon it if it ends up relying on parts
that I've misunderstood.

For one, I'm not sure where to draw the line of who is involved in a campaign,
and therefore who should know about poll results. There are people who are
paid to work on the campaign, so it seems clear they are part of the campaign.
And there are people who spend a lot of time volunteering, so I think it's
fair to consider them as part of the campaign. There are people who volunteer
less, for example donating a few evenings working for phone banks, or perhaps
working in IT or data management, or working on the polls themselves. Then
there are people who aren't directly working for the campaign, but are
passionate about their candidate (or perhaps passionately opposed to another),
and either work on their own or self-organize. Maybe the line is that only
people who are involved in decisions that require polling data should know the
results? What justifies "needs to know"?

Another question I have is about GOTV in general. The numbers I've seen show
that over 40% of eligible voters didn't vote in the 2016 election. I think we
agree that more people should vote. Some GOTV methods I've seen are general,
non-partisan "Please vote" campaigns. Partisan ads often include admonishments
to vote. There are also programs to help people get to the polls (for example,
rides). Some of these are non-partisan, some partisan. Are these legitimate
GOTV efforts? If the electorate is to be accountable for turnout, what other
methods can they use? Should partisan ride-providing efforts have access to
poll data to best allocate their resources? How about non-partisan groups, as
polls may show which areas are expected to have lower turnout?

As I said, I've responded to what I interpreted as your position before
confirming that my interpretation is correct. I've done this in the interest
of expediency, not to build a straw man. So please let me know how my
interpretation can be improved if it's not correct.

Thanks!

~~~
fixxer
Thoughtful and great questions. I think you probably have a bias (I do too),
but I appreciate your framing of the problem and I want to give you a reply
that does your questions justice.

So...

Internal polls are not generally released. Nor are they shared to PACs. This
is one benefit of public polling. It helps coordinate between the campaign and
the PAC side.

Re entertainment, I think watching polls is as entertaining as watching any
sport for a lot of people. (I think that is pretty obvious actually - just my
observation, though I worked with people in the political consulting industry,
so perhaps my circle is wonkier than most).

Now, the big crux and where we will disagree... People should vote because
they are civicly minded and want to participate in the process. That requires
education and sophistication, which is something both side lack en masse. The
only thing worse than people not voting, IMO, are dumb people voting for the
wrong reasons. The latter is mob rule and is why we're where we're at. Stupid
is a bipartisan quality.

As for access to voting, I think we could benefit from electronic or more
mail-in. I don't want to suppress the right to vote; I just don't want to see
sides manipulate the idiots of the electorate into voting. If you ever see how
a GOTV strategy is put together, they look for people who are "persuadable",
which is just another way of saying dumb. (Those analysts will admit it too if
you put enough drink in their belly)

~~~
grzm
Ah. For some reason I had it in my mind that you thought that there shouldn't
be public polling. That was incorrect. That's not the case, is it?

I completely agree that people should vote because they're civically minded
and want to participate, and ideally make their decisions based on a well-
educated understanding of the issues (and all they entail). What does this
mean practically? What level of education is adequate? What are the wrong
reasons? Single-issue voting? Being inspired by a leader? We're human, not
perfectly (nearly?) rational, imperfect in general. What level of
sophistication is necessary? I'm asking these questions of myself as much as
of you.

I have similar questions when it comes to persuasion. One person's education
is another's persuasion is yet another's malicious manipulation. How do we
convince people to be civically minded without persuading them that it's the
right thing to do? What's the distinction between appealing to people who are
likely to be amenable to your position and looking for those that are
persuadable? How do you educate people who are, as you put it, "dumb"?

Like I said earlier, these are questions I pose to myself as well. I'm asking
here because I want to get other's opinions. Thanks again for taking the time
to consider them. Discourse can be an important part of reaching
understanding.

------
msravi
I don't understand how thick headed the mainstream media (MSM) seems to be in
not getting it. This "upset" win of Trump (upset in the sense that it didn't
play by the MSM's wishes) was not an isolated incident - it's happened in
India (2014), it happened in UK (Brexit), and it has been repeated in the US.

The fundamental driver for all three instances has been the removal of all
filters on social media. The problem was that for too long the MSM used their
power to filter content to its readers/viewers, and the filter was tuned by a
group that wanted to script reality in a form that they wished to see come to
fruition, even if their stand was hypocritical.

So for example, you'd see a huge hue and cry in the MSM about how freedom of
expression was being harmed because a right wing outfit threatened someone for
speaking out against a majority religion, and yet, when someone spoke out
against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM
would just go silent. It is this blatant hypocrisy that finally got them.

And now, with social media, for the first time people have access to
unfiltered news and can form their own opinions. And for better or worse, the
hypocrisy of the MSM is glaringly obvious for people who have access to
multiple viewpoints on an incident - not just a filtered viewpoint. With the
hypocrisy bare, it's basically been a revolt against the established media.

And unless the established media takes it upon themselves to be more honest in
whatever stand they take, this is going to repeat, because, people aren't
fools you know.

~~~
reader5000
Established media is obsolete.

Old media model: a couple thousand Harvard graduates produce and filter the
content for billions of people (English speaking world) by monopoly control on
the 2-3 television channels, 4-5 major newspapers/zines.

New media model: a media consumer can read the opinions and thoughts of 1000s
of other people across the globe, and participate in the formulation of their
own opinions, and receive feedback from others.

The one-to-many top-down elitist control of opinion formation and transfer is
dead. For better or for worse. Probably better. Especially when it appears to
be the case that the main opinion media elitists care about is that people
acknowledge them as elite..

The only criticism of the new media model I've seen is the filter bubble, but
I feel that is overblown.

~~~
trendia
The real filter bubble is not one that's imposed by Facebook, but one that's
imposed by an individual.

That is, people join subreddits or Tumblr groups and they filter out opposing
views. Then they approach the "center" of that group, which itself is way
outside mainstream.

Eventually, they self-impose a sort of filter that limits the access to
moderating opinions.

~~~
ahartman00
Exactly. This isnt new either. I remember back in high school, my friends and
I would sit around in a circle, in meat space.

"War is wrong"

And we would go around the circle: "yup", "absolutely", etc

"Some other liberal talking point"

yup, of course, so true....

------
pcunite
>> Huffington Post told its readers Clinton had a 98 percent chance of being
elected;

>> build a better environment for news

I agree. They can start by not telling me what to think. Focus on reporting. I
got so sick of the media putting spin on what Hillary thinks (they know what
she thinks?) or what someone else was saying about Donald trump (without
vetting) from _30 years ago_ and on and on.

I have stopped believing them. The news agencies are opinion shows as far as
I'm concerned. They are propaganda, bought and paid for by interests that are
not American.

------
probably_wrong
I take this post as an example of the media looking for anyone to blame,
except themselves. The closest that the post comes to a mea culpa is this:

> And of those who [sought information in journalism], not enough of them
> trusted it to inform their political decisions.

Of course they didn't. We know, for instance, that media after the Gulf War
will not allow pictures that show war as anything but spotless. We know that,
for every single topic, they'll present a stupid counterpoint and claim that a
50/50 balance is needed, even if the counterbalance is nonsense. They barely
call people out on their (obvious, documented) lies. And don't get me started
on sponsored content.

I think people turned to Facebook news because, ultimately, they trust their
friends and relatives more than the media. And why shouldn't they? The media
has done everything in their power to shape public discourse as they see fit,
and now they are surprised that people don't trust them anymore.

------
_greim_
I can't really see Facebook censoring, fact-checking, or otherwise adjusting
their algorithms to expose people to opposing views in any significant way.
They're the McDonalds of the internet. Their entire business model depends on
satisfying the addictive cravings of their users. It would be like McDonalds
discontinuing fries and replacing them with kale and tofu bites.

~~~
jsymolon
Better off using the trending now to support a pro/con opinion fact checked
section.

Spend some of that money to support a newsroom.

------
anotheryou
The main bubble that burst was that of the people who thought trump was a
joke, no?

Are fed up people really the medias failure? Bernie Sanders also had
surprising support for similar reasons to Trump: they both where going against
the system.

Just for some discussion: maybe the classic media finally lost control and
people regained some freedom of choice? Every big media house was against
trump and he still won.

And let's not forget that a lot of people really had to jump their shadow to
vote for Hillary as the lesser evil.

~~~
anotheryou
That being said: fact avoiding filter bubbles are still scary as fuck.

------
ern
_I know that getting Mark Zuckerberg to care about the problem is absolutely
key to the health of our information ecosystem._

Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying it's "crazy" to think that fake news on
FB could have influenced the election. OP says that a fake news story about
the Pope endorsing Trump got 868,000 shares on FB. Something doesn't add up
here.

[http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/10/technology/facebook-mark-
zuc...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/10/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-
fake-news/)

~~~
bbctol
God, what an insane deflection on his part. If Facebook can't manipulate
people's behavior, why should advertisers pay them?

~~~
hga
Heh, you've got a point, but simple brand recognition, or even making me aware
of a product could be sufficient (I don't exactly buy into _The Hidden
Persuaders_ thesis, read about half of it back in the '70s and ... wasn't
persuaded ^_^).

How many "X company is shutting down" HN items have you seen where you've
never heard of the company in the first place?

------
Angostura
I the forces that drove this election's media failure centre almost entirely
around the problems with polling data, not a inherent problem with journalism.

The journalists were working with the best data that they had available. If a
journalist is told that there is only a small chance of a candidate being
elected, it is not surprising that they don't necessarily take his chances
seriously.

Credit to 538 though, for putting Clinton's chances sub-70% in the final week
(returning to to 70% on the final day) and for repeatedly warning of the lack
of certainty given the lack of good quality polls.

~~~
prasadjoglekar
I disagree. The problem was that all journalists (Fox News included) used the
polling as an excuse to not actually get out and do journalism. Polls should
have been but one input. Instead, because most polls said what all of them
wanted to believe, the effects of anchoring and confirmation biases were
amplified. Anything to the contrary was dismissed as nonsense.

------
Fricken
In the old days our echo chambers were defined by geographical constraints,
and by the society we kept. Our misinformation came from one or a handful of
media sources.

Now we have thousands of sources of misinformation to choose from, and our
echo chambers have taken on new life online.

But then, as now, the truth is like poetry. And people fucking hate poetry.

It can seem like we're living in an idiocracy, but the average person hasn't
gotten any stupider. The world has become too complex for anyone to
understand.

~~~
ahartman00
"The world has become too complex for anyone to understand"

This is why I am excited to see free college tuition enter the debate. What I
would love though is two extra mandatory years of high school. Teach
government(so people dont think the president is a dictator), law(so people
dont get taken advantage of), teach more about other cultures(so people can
find out what they have in common, hopefully breaking the echo chamber), teach
logic and rhetoric, and some more computer skills, maybe a basic programming
class.

While I agree the world is too complex for any one person to understand
everything(hence the specialization of labor). I do believe we can do better
though, all is not lost :)

~~~
douche
I'd prefer that more efficient use was made of the four years of high school
they've already got people locked in for. Everything listed could be done, in
addition to what (little) is already learned in those four years. It might be
necessary to reform teachers unions to shake out the deadwood and find budget
to double salaries, to raise the average level in the talent pool though.

------
andrewclunn
Made a pro Trump post here once. It got down voted into oblivion. Not on
Facebook anymore, but when I was my aunt defriended me over politics. What
this author doesn't understand is that the right isn't in an echo chamber.
We're very much aware of left wing media and are exposed to it all the time.
It's just lost all its persuasive power over us because it's founded on straw
men. Now the answer presented is basically to justify political censorship
under the guise of fact checking? Good to know that the left has learned
nothing. Get ready to keep on losing.

~~~
scrollaway
Yes, keep making insulting sweeping statements and demonizing the other side.
After all, that's worked so well for everybody involved.

God, this election really has brought out the worst in people. I'm sorry for
your Aunt.

~~~
calsy
Not you though, you're a ray of sunshine way up there on your pedestal.

~~~
scrollaway
GP edited their post since I replied to make it less arrogant. Maybe you
should edit yours too.

Edit: Oh and I'm sick of being denounced as a moderate. Seriously, the
highlight of the entire election has been attacks and demonization on the
other side. Fuck me for trying to point out shitty behaviour, right?

~~~
calsy
My original comment is appropriate. The fact you feel it's appropriate to
comment on his relationship with a family member and say you're sorry for his
Aunt and then pass judgement about the general public's behaviour during an
election is quite arrogant.

~~~
scrollaway
What on earth is arrogant about passing judgement on the pathetic average
behaviour of the american public during this election?

~~~
calsy
No one nominated you the judge of good behaviour, just yourself. Thus, you are
the dictionary definition of arrogant.

~~~
scrollaway
I don't think there's anything I regret more the past month than engaging with
you. Here I am complaining about demonization, and here you are focusing so
hard on attacking me.

Since you're such a fan, there's an email on my profile; feel free to send all
your personality feedback and concerns there.

~~~
calsy
Bit dramatic, im sure there are plenty more things you regret doing this
month. I enjoyed our conversation and Im glad you learned a thing or 2 about
being humble.

------
throw2016
The last 30 years have seen a distinct change in economic policies that
rewards the privileged and leave others struggling in the name of efficiency
and capitalism.

Yet when things go southward and things like the banking crisis happens these
principles are swiftly jettisoned and privileged interests indiscriminately
bailed out with the media and 'experts' stepping in to gloss over the rank
hypocrisy.

The poor are harassed and incarcerated for every small trangression while the
rich and connected like the bankers, Shrekeli, Holmes routinely get way with
fraud and worse.

These inconsistences are not forgotten. All that economic power is then
inevitably used in a self serving way to further increase their own share of
rewards like quasi feudalism.

Wars are being fought to benefit financial interests that leave millions in
other countries in disarray, billion dollar surveillance industries are built
that fundamentally shift the balance of power from the people to the state.

HN itself is guilty of celebrating wealth and gloating over the irrelevance of
people with automation and AI. Why the gloating? Where is the sensitivity to
the impact of these technologies on society and the unprivileged. There is so
much disrespect and general nastiness to people here who are not perceived to
be successful with no notion of adversity or privilege. This kind of
disrespect and dehumanization is bound to rankle. Cmon these are your own
people. What do you think these people are going to do? They will listen and
vote in demagogues.

~~~
jsymolon
> economic policies that rewards the privileged

As shown as the cabinet is "old guard" republican ideology.

Regulations! Bad! ... etc.

~~~
throw2016
I think people are fed up of the establishment and their apologists. People
are fed up of this flawed narrative that apparently can't be controlled and
only delivers more disparity and suffering to the unprivileged and more riches
to the privileged. And this is some auto pilot that is beyond control?

People feeling powerless and craving control makes them susceptible to any
demogogue. Anyone who can exploit this disenchantment will win, like Trump
did. But Trump is establishment, his team reaching out to Dimon on day one
makes a complete mockery of 'anti-establishment expectations from his
supporters'.

~~~
hga
_and his team reaching out to Dimon on day one makes a complete mockery of
'anti-establishment expectations from his supporters_

You don't suppose that might be a lie designed to sabotage him starting out
the gates, or that Dimon's name somehow got on _a_ list but is going to be
removed in the normal process?

You don't suppose there are factions fighting, through leaks in this case, was
is often _the_ single most important battle in a US presidential election, for
"people are policy"? Much of the awfulness of George W Bush's administration
is from the people chosen for these positions, and that can be in part traced
back to his lack of courage when Team Gore stopped/truncated his transition
process by yelling about the election not being decided yet. (More is from
Bush's weird loyalty patterns, e.g. he should have told Norman Mineta, "I'm
sorry, but I need a war time Secretary of Transportation, and you were not
selected with that criteria in mind" and replaced him immediately after 9/11.)

We will, of course see in due course, but it's a _little_ early to be so
dispositive. Perhaps we can wait until we hear his nominations officially??

------
Shivetya
Many always love to poo poo the idea that there is strong media bias to one
side yet each election simply demonstrates it. Where is the correction? Where
are those press people from the sixties and seventies that dogged all
politicians regardless of party.

the problem is they operate in an echo chamber. they truly do think they are
better than those they present the news too and therefor beyond criticism.
this alone keeps them from acknowledging any criticism, whether deserved or
not.

the press needs to keep the bias to the editorial pages. newspapers should not
be endorsing candidates, instead they need to list the claimed views of
candidates with their current and past actions. report, not distort

------
jbmorgado
I find it appalling that suddenly Hilary was portrayed as some kind of saviour
by the media just because she is not as bad as Trump.

Well, sorry for believing that elections are about choosing the _good_
candidate, not voting against the _bad_ candidate.

If there is one single person to blame for these elections outcome, that
person is Hilary Clinton, she put America and the World in danger when she
used her grip on the DNC to push Bernie Sanders aside during the primaries,
although it was clear that the people desperately wanted _change_. That was
the key moment in these elections that got Donald Trump elected.

------
seventytwo
I'd love to see something that works to reverse this trend. Maybe some kind of
option on facebook that allows you to modify the feed a bit, or some kind of
demographic-based version of Omegle. Maybe a browser plugin that can learn
about you (and the echo chamber you are in) and start suggesting things that
are challenging to your world view.

~~~
pg314
The people that would most benefit from that plugin wouldn't be the ones to
use it. If you are aware of your media bubble, you probably have the cognitive
tools to do something about it.

If it isn't solved at the root, i.e. at the Facebook level, it won't be
solved. However, since Facebook's commercial interests are aligned against it,
I am pessimistic it will be solved. Maybe Facebook's successor can solve it.

------
phkahler
The problem with facebook is the SHARE button. If I want to read Fox news or
Huggington Post, I'll go to those sites and read. If I want to watch Cat
videos I'll go to YouTube myself. The problem is that it's way too easy for my
"friends" on facebook to click to promote whatever stirs their interest. One
would hope most of the content shared on facebook is user-generated, not user
shared. But there is no money in that so they have simplified the process of
sharing monetized crap to a single click.

~~~
douche
There is some irony in condemning this use-case of Facebook on HackerNews,
where user-shared content and comments about it are pretty much the entire
_raison d 'etre_

------
cowardlydragon
The media normalized mainstream expressions of hate, giving them hourly
implicit approval and mainstream normalcy, because it was giving them ratings
and ads.

Every historian I know sees frightening parallels between Trump and various
fascist regime rises. Virtually no coverage of this.

If news is unable to provide historical context, apply moral judgement, or do
any investigative journalism of the ample skeletons in Trump's closet, then
they are truly a shell.

------
b1daly
As much as I find his persona to be ridiculously self aggrandizing and smug,
Scott Adams made some pretty on point calls on this election, predicting Trump
would win over a year ago. He's got some metaphorical construct he calls the
"persuasion filter", with various notions about its components.
[http://blog.dilbert.com](http://blog.dilbert.com)

He claims he recognized Trump as a "master persuader", which once he started
running. I confess I didn't take it too seriously, but in his view "master
persuaders" take advantage of various cognitive and emotional bias we have,
often appealing to emotion.

In his view, when it comes to something like pursuading voters, appeals based
on facts fail. Appeals based on tapping into the right emotions succeed.

Non of this theory is particularly novel, propaganda has been a major
component of governing since time immemorial.

But he did hone in on Trumps ability to tap into these emotional motivational
centers in a striking way.

I've been rather depressed about the election, with some passing moments of
"maybe it won't be to bad."

Two days after, some of the shock has worn off. But I've never been quite so
distressed by the outcome of an election. Which has prompted some self
reflection: how much of my distress is based on the fact that my team lost,
that Trump was successfully painted as a thug by Clinton campaign, who
manipulated me similar to how Trump did his supporters?

I'm not sure how I'll see things tomorrow, next week, next year. But as of
tonight, I think the root of my distress is that Trump abandoned all pretense
of a fact base campaign. His lies were total, said with impunity, no sense of
shame whatsoever.

He comes closest to a sort of "impressionistic truth" in his ability to intuit
people's weak spots, their fear, their hypocrisy, their aspirations. Hence, he
is a masterful bully, because his insults hone in on an emotional truth.

The downside to this ability, aside from the fact that he uses it to hurt
others, is that he has no sense of irony, no insight to his own projection, no
humility, and is easily baited. Small slights seem to rattle him almost more
than big ones.

IMO, Hillary retains a strong comittment to living in a fact based reality.
That's one reason she lacks political charisma. Her attempts to elide a
challenging issue, to convince an unsympathetic audience, her pre-planned
"zingers", her lies, are all so transparent, and she comes off as a phony,
practicing on off putting brand of persuasion based around pandering, instead
of convincing.

I think this is at least part of my alarm with what Trump has done, because
there is simply no way to refute anything he says. He simply doesn't care.
His, statements are often vague, lacking specifics, nouns, big on pronouns,
verbs, and meaningless superlatives.

When I hear this kind of rhetoric, I tend to get an uneasy feeling. I'm very
sensitive to arguments that don't make sense. I can feel it, and sometimes if
I want to figure out what is wrong with the argument, I have to actively work
through it.

I wasn't immune to the entertainment value of watching this master bomb
thrower destroy his bewildered primary opponents . Especially because his
technique undermines the skills of a professional politician. Once Trump
pulled back the curtain on his opponents clunky rhetorical machinery, they
were powerless to get it back.

So I liked it, because watching professional politicians do their professional
politician speaking is freaking annoying. The art of political language is to
not provide any "attack surface" to your opponents. Trump just bypassed all
that, because he is hyper agressive, and cares about winning far more than
about how he "looks."

Once that phase of the election was through, I found no appeal in Trumps
meandering, stream of conscious boasting and hucksterism.

I guess I'm not the target audience. But watching people eat it up was
disturbing, in light of the wildly inaccurate "facts" occasionally peperred in
to his speeches. His campaign launched with a big one, characterizing most
Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug addicts. I mean, that is demagoguery at
its worst, shameful.

The sort of CW about what his supporters liked was that he "told it like it
was!" To me, that indicates that that many of his supporters took his
unabashed bullying as license to feel good about their own assholishness.

Political correctness gets a bad rap, but at its root it's an attempt to
manage difficult social dynamics and power structures, and is intended to
protect groups that have been abused and marginalized by a dominant
mainstream.

If you give up on the intention of political correctness, which is to help
excluded individuals and groups become part of the mainstream, you are indeed
being racist, ableist, intolerant, etc...

Everybody has strains of intolerance and prejudice, we're all capable of hate,
we're all filled with fears and biases. That doesn't make us "racist" in
pejorative sense it's used.

What does make someone a "whateverist," is giving up trying to make
marginalized groups part of the main stream, giving up the pretence to
political correctness, of attempting to at least make the modicum of effort
involved do demonstrate to an outsider that you are aware of their existence,
and intend to create space for them. It depends on context. Making fun of
someone or some group in private is different than in public.

So politically correct speech is disenguous, that's how it works. Trump flouts
these current norms in public! On purpose! His followers se that as him
telling it like it is, because he is! He's telling him about the inside parts
of his psyche that are not nice, that don't care, that want to put others
down. Since we all have these elements inside us to some degree, his listeners
feel affirmed for the negative parts of their psyche.

Instead of having to take the uncomfortable steps involved in trying to
overcome one's prejudices, of fighting against the negative aspects of the
self, which are brought out when we have to try and get along with people
different than ourself, Trump followers feel liberated to be their "true
selves".

This type of socializing only works well in homogenious social groups. The
social bonds in such groups are easily reinforced by designating another set
of individuals as "other." Unfortunately, this type of scapegoating allows for
socially sanctioned oppression and discrimination to occur.

A "demagogue" takes advantage of this psychology by helping define who is "in
the group", "who is out", and normalizing these destructive, instinctual human
behaviors.

There is a phenomena at play here in the "red state/blue state" divide that is
ironic. Blue staters, being just as human as red staters, are not immune to
practicing a similar form of socially sanctioned discrimination and
denigration of their own "other": namely the red staters. This comes off as
smugness, condescension, and is obvious to anyone on the receiving end of it.
Hence, the awareness of this hypocrisy on the part of the blue stater, by the
red stater, coupled with the a blue staters lack of insight of their own
hypocrisy, or worse, the lack of attempt at even trying control and minimize
their own "scapegoating" behavior, leads to an apparent moral equivalence of
the two sides. The blue stater is taking advantage of the psychological balm
of feeling superior to some one else.

The fact of the matter is that a Social Justice Warrior careening around,
throwing bombs, and labeling people as racist can indeed be engaged in the
same psychological Mia-behavior as a self-righteous born again Christian who
justifies hating gays based on the bible.

If you have two, or more, groups of cultural rivals engaged in political
battle, the fact that both sides engage in similar dysfunctional and
antogonist behavior, doesn't mean that core ideas or issues that drive each
group are morally equivalent, or equally true.

A simple example might be illustrated by the truckers who like to "roll coal"
and deliberately thumb their nose at the insufferable goody two shoes
environmental "activists" trying to impose their concept of "good behavior" on
others.

In this case, I find it easy to empathize with the coal rollers, but that
doesn't mean they are correct on what is needed to protect the environment.

This is a rather long winded response to the OP. The article is discussing the
decreases power of the media to prevent group think from being reinforced by
the filtering feedback loops of social media.

Trump has shown that for many voters, this is a quaint notion. In Trump they
have found a leader who ignores facts in his rhetoric, and appeals purely on
the level of emotions and psychological behaviors.

At core, this is what is so disturbing to me. Trumps indifference to facts,
his exaltation of power and dominance will not lead to effective governing,
and reflect almost a complete abdication of the responsibilities of a leader.

My guess is that motley crew of sociopathic right wing has-beens he has
surrounding him will quickly move to take advantage of Trumps indifference to
facts to exploit there positions in the new administration for their own ends.

Guliani, Gingrich, and Christie are the true "deplorable" here. Ruthless,
amoral men with grudges to settle. These three have shown themselves to be
completely indifferent to the needs of others. The lot of them have an
appalling record of anti-social behavior. Unlike Trump, they they seem to
operate in the fact based world. So when they lie, it's at a very conscious
level, calculated to increase their own power. Just looking at their
collective record of behavior in their personal lives shows they have no
regard for anyone but themselves.

~~~
koverstreet
Any discussion of why Trump won and why Hillary lost has to acknowledge the
fact that Hillary is genuinely corrupt and well known for taking large sacks
of cash from Goldman Sachs, and a large segment of the voting population finds
the idea of rewarding that kind of behavior with the presidency infuriating
beyond all belief.

Is electing Trump instead stupid and spiteful? Yes, but it's completely
understandable.

~~~
b1daly
I'm not sure if you'll get this, but I did want to respond.

I agree there are valid criticisms to make of Hillary. My main concern is that
she is so entrenched within the elite power structure, so captured, that her
ability to steer US policy in better direction would be limited. If she could
even perceive what that might be.

The bottom line is that money talks in the US. She needs money to run a
campaign, and she wants to make money for herself, like most people.

She's friends with the elite, the Wall St. elite. Well, that's because she
lives in the "real world", and the elite in US, both in position and income,
hold disproportionate power.

These people are not all bad. They are citizens too. We all rely upon the
complex, and fragile, economic system we live in. I don't have an issue with
Hillary taking big bucks for speeches.

I listen to what she says, and what she has done. Some of it I agreed with,
some of it I don't. That's life.

Hillary is not any more corrupt than her peers. Probably less, as I think she
still has some integrity.

Obviously a large portion of the population hate her, so she lost. That
doesn't mean she's corrupt. The right wing propaganda machine attacked her
constantly. Considering how much she has been investigated, she's absurdly
clean.

------
nikofeyn
adam curtis' documentary "hypernormalization" also covers how we got here.

------
oldmanjay
I began believing trump had a legitimate shot to win the election over a year
ago, when his candidacy was mainly taken as a joke. I noted to people who
didn't believe me that the essential dishonesty of the media was a key element
in what they assured me could not happen. Most assurances were driven by
media-fed opinions I tried to warn them not to trust.

I also learned pretty early on that saying I believed he had a shot would
anger people, and often lead to accusations of many, many PC sins such as
racism on my part. This did not convince me I was wrong.

I have some measure of hope that people are going to learn the right lessons
this time. People are still too deep in the grief process for me to judge it
clearly, but hope is enough for now.

~~~
ilolu
After seeing this video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkPadFK34o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkPadFK34o)
(posted on reddit), I really believe no one took Trump Presidency possibility
seriously. Everyone believed their bubble. Now when their bubble burst, they
are just blaming everyone else.

~~~
shoover
That video is what most of us were thinking, yes, but I now see that there
were people who called it, they just couldn't say it loudly or repeatedly
enough to be taken seriously because they would be shouted down and
ostracized, exactly as happened in the video. The parent just said it. Scott
Adams was working his persuasion theory (ok, he is one who wasn't afraid to
say it loudly or repeatedly). There were others in quiet little corners of the
internet who believed that Trump supporters existed en masse but had retreated
into the woodwork and would come out to prove the polls wrong.

~~~
douche
And Adams has taken a hit in the pocketbook for what he's pointed out, besides
being branded as an out-to-lunch loon. Good for notoriety, I supposed, but not
so much for the feel-good motivational speaking gigs that he used to rake in.

