The Illusion of Knowledge

~ "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.” --Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

The Illusion of Knowledge

Monthly Archives: November 2014

John Nichols Makes The Case for Scott Walker

07 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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2016 Election, John Nichols, Scott Walker, The Nation

John Nichols Makes The Case for Scott Walker

Over at The Nation, John Nichols is ostensibly very concerned with Republicans’ well-being. He offers his counsel – free of charge – that the Republicans should be wary of putting Scott Walker on the ballot as their candidate in 2016. I can think of no better endorsement. Nichols’ fear of a Walker run should move him right to the top of the 2016 list.

Let’s look at his arguments and consider their merit. Nichols’ lead reason is that a majority of Wisconsinites don’t want Walker to run. Leaving aside that the poll he cites is from May 21st, and thus six months stale, why do the wishes of Wisconsinites (including Democrats) matter more than others when it comes to deciding whether Walker should be on the Republican ticket? It is a national election.

Reason number two, from Nichols, is that Walker hasn’t taken more than 53% of the vote in Wisconsin. But Wisconsin is a purple state, and Walker is fairly conservative. If he can pick up 53% of the vote in a purple state, imagine what he can do across the country.   Furthermore, basic math says that if Walker can consistently win 52% or 53% of the electorate then he will win the Presidency. While I appreciate Nichols’ view that winning a higher percentage is better than winning a lower percentage, America is a fairly evenly divided country, in many respects, and nobody running for President is likely to have a blowout in terms of the overall percentage. It also might behoove Nichols to look up President Obama’s win percentages in the last two presidential elections, in 2008 it was 52.9% and in 2012 it was 51.1%. I’d say Walker is looking pretty good.

Nichols’ third argument is that Wisconsin is a swing state, but not a purple state.  It is a bit of a head scratcher:

There is little reason to doubt that Walker will soon enter the formal hinting stage, go through the “exploratory” stage and start bidding for the Republican presidential nomination. Throughout the process, he will make grand pronouncements about his appeal in a supposedly “blue” state—glossing over the fact that Wisconsin is actually a classic swing state that sends a conservative Republican to the Senate along with a progressive Democrat, that backs Democrats for president but that often elects Republican governors and that polls suggest is more bitterly divided than any in the nation.

Nichols argument may be true, but I fail to see how it makes a difference vis-à-vis Walker as a candidate. If we assume a theoretical voter base of 40% Republican, 40% Democrat and 20% Independent, Walker achieves the same result by getting every Republican and 11% of the Independents as he does by getting 35% of the Republicans, 10% of the Independents and 6% of the Democrats.

Point number four is that Walker has not run and won in a Presidential election year when turnout is higher. Presumably, Nichols is arguing he would have lost had he done so. That may or may not be true, but it seems irrelevant with respect to Walker running for President. His national campaign is going to be affected by numerous factors, of which turnout is jut one.

Finally, having given us the benefit of his wisdom, Nichols leaves us with this:

Indeed, while it is unlikely that Scott Walker will actually be the Republican nominee for president, his selection by the GOP would in all likelihood produce another progressive moment in Wisconsin. Just as Paul Ryan’s addition to the 2012 Republican ticket failed to carry Wisconsin for the GOP, so polls have regularly suggested that a Scott Walker-led ticket would very probably fail to carry the state in the higher turnout presidential election of 2016.

With everything I know about John Nichols’ background and political disposition, I would think, based upon his analysis, that he would be cheering for Republicans to nominate Scott Walker. Clearly, he believes that Walker has no chance, and thus a Democratic victory would be assured if he was the nominee. How can I square this with his advice that “Republicans would be wise to consider the numbers…”?

I suspect John Nichols is not being entirely honest with me.

Sally Kohn Is Not Self-Aware

06 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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2014 Election, Sally Kohn

How do you break reality to someone who is completely unself-aware?  That should be the question on the minds of Sally Kohn’s friends.  She has just penned a column for CNN titled “A plea for sanity in a GOP Congress,” in which she charmingly conflates her worldview with that of America.  Not realizing that she is pretty far on the fringe of her party, she excoriates the Republicans for everything they have done and then gives them advice on how they should conduct themselves going forward.  Here is a little flavor of self-delusion at work:

For six years, Republicans have condemned President Barack Obama and the Democratic agenda. Regardless of how the midterm results panned out due to a handful of races in red and maroon-ish purple states, the fact remains that the Democratic agenda is broadly and strongly supported.

and:

Most Americans support extending unemployment benefits, passing paid sick leave, lowering student loan rates and raising the minimum wage, as was reflected in ballot measure results across the country Tuesday.

I hate to break it to Kohn, but a few ballot measures that passed in different states isn’t exactly smoking gun evidence of her claims.  I believe there were four ballot initiatives that raised the minimum wage.  Four divided by fifty equals 8%.  I wouldn’t stake a claim of “most Americans support” based on an 8% figure.

Further according to Kohn:

Going into this election, while only 23% of Americans have a “very positive” view of Obama and just 12% view the Democratic Party very positively, the favorability percentage for the Republican Party is even lower — just 7%, according to one survey. Not exactly time to spike the football.

A word of advice: using old data to support a claim that has been superseded by new data is not a winning argument.  Kohn quotes a poll taken before the election, but now we have the election results, so we don’t need the poll.  From the election’s results, we can infer that the percentage of people that have a low opinion of the Democratic party’s and Obama’s handling of the country’s affairs is higher than those that have a low opinion of the Republican’s chances to run things better.

The denial continues:

Sure, the American people blame both parties for gridlock. But when asked, they place more blame with Republicans. Now that they have full power in Congress either to compromise or not with the White House, Republicans have no more excuses.

If Kohn is right, then a LOT of people must have made a mistake when they filled out their ballots.  Clearly she is wrong.  I should also note that Kohn cited a poll from July of 2013 to bolster her claim in what I regard as something akin to journalistic malpractice.  Kohn seems to think that if a number has ever been published it can be used to justify a policy argument.  I presume she wouldn’t find it satisfactory if I took a poll from the 1980s regarding views on gay marriage to make some sort of ridiculous claim that America was overwhelmingly against it – nor would it be.

There are a number of other examples of wishful thinking in Kohn’s piece – how the country really is bent towards the Democratic view of the world, and she offers all sorts of intellectually weak arguments to support her theory.  However, reality looks much different.  The proof that she is living in a fantasy are the House elections, Senate elections, governors’ elections and legislatures’ elections.  At every level of government her arguments have been repudiated.  It takes a true idealogue with rose colored glasses to put forth the claims that she makes.  That is not to say that in two years’ time the overall tenor of the country won’t change drastically, but as of today her arguments bear no relation to reality.

Literally, Stupid

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

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Brian Beutler has a horrendous piece in the New Republic today.  I just want to focus briefly on the article’s title because it is so poorly written.  The title is:

Obama Just Lost the Battle for the Senate. It’s Time He Waged War for Real.

Somebody at the New Republic, perhaps Beutler himself, needs a remedial English course that explains metaphors, or else Beutler is calling for a very extreme response to last night’s elections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejZC5r5wS64

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