Accounting For Errors

On 2020, Errors, And A Twitter Account

So, Saturday night someone decided to make a Twitter account dedicated to shitting on my old election takes, which has led to a round of people litigating my 2020 election opinions, because, well, apparently no one on fucking Twitter has anything better to do. I mostly skipped the conversation, honestly, and I don't really give a shit about the account, but I do think the broader discussion is worth writing about, even if the vast majority of my critics will never engage with my arguments in anything resembling the good faith that I'm writing about this with.

The first thing is, a defence of me does not have to start with the idea I had a good 2020 cycle, because that's not really an argument I've ever made. My 2020 was terrible, I made a series of idiotic miscalculations, from how I believed in stretch Democratic targets in the Senate I shouldn't have to the way I handled what small amounts of pro-Trump data points, to the way my statements that the President could win were blithe, rote nonsense included so I didn't get yelled at. I wrote that you'd need a polling error worse than 2016, in the same direction as 2016, to get the President to win, and then we got that bigger than 2016 polling miss, and Joe Biden barely won. I never seriously engaged with what such a polling miss could look like, because I thought it was about as likely as me suddenly turning straight. Turns out, that assessment was fatally flawed.

If you don't think I know what I'm talking about, that's totally fine, I understand it, even if the Georgia runoffs - and my past history in Canada and the UK - suggests that there is something redeemable in my writing. Clearly there are many who do agree that there is something here, because I can see my traffic numbers and they're, you know, more than a handful of people, which is greatly appreciated, always. But yes, I got 2020 wrong. If that means you don't want to engage with my work, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, I do not care. I'm not forcing people to read my work, I just write because it's what I do. If you used to like my work and 2020 was an error too big, you have my apologies, but you don't have my energy.

Like, the truth is that there is a much broader examination of 2020 that has to be done, from everyone. Nobody had a good cycle, and even those places - namely Crystal Ball - which got 49 states at the Presidential level correct didn't have banner nights down ballot. Nobody - from the local campaigns to the campaign committees to the quant forecasters to the qualitative race raters - had a good feel for the House map. Not a single person did, because even the GOP partisans who just threw shit at the wall didn't even hit the right targets, they just threw a ton of darts and got some of them correct. Nobody with a brain thought the majority would be this narrow, and anyone who claims this after the fact is lying to protect their reputations.

The Senate map was even worse, with Susan Collins not leading a single public poll and then winning comfortably, because sure, that fucking makes sense. Like, there is nothing we can do in a spot like that, nothing. We're all just going to be wrong, and there isn't anything anybody can do about it, and that just sucks. But that conversation gets skipped because it's easier to screenshot tweets that I didn't delete about how I thought Democrats would do very well in the Texas State House, which I did, because I didn't have Biden winning 74 State House districts but Democrats failing to make a single gain, as if that isn't an absurd fucking thing to have happen to a political party.

You can want good public discourse or you can want people to be cowards, but you can't have both. For a political movement so dedicated to fighting cancel culture, shaming me for daring to have committed the crime of being high on Democratic prospects seems to be a high fucking priority, but apparently nobody sees the contradiction there. Shocking how this works.

There's a place for contrarian and bold opinions even if they don't come through, because they can shape the way we think about elections and data. I'm already on the record with my preliminary 2022 predictions, but I'm reading contrary opinions still, because that is a healthy way to go about things. Will I be right about 2022? Fuck if I know. Both in the past and now, my goal is to provide a level of access to my mind that most people don't give in public. I tell my writers what I think as I think it, I work through problems in public, it's what I do. Maybe it's bad, maybe it's not the right thing to do for my reputation, but I don't care. I'm only valuable to my audience if my readers think they're getting something nobody else can give, and that candor is my competitive advantage.

The main emotion I have about all of this right now is a sort of quiet satisfaction. Clearly I've pissed someone off enough to make this worth their energy, which just makes me laugh. The idea of running an entire Twitter account just to troll one specific person is the most loser shit imaginable, but the idea that it would get to me in some way is just hilarious. Mason Mount scored on Saturday for Chelsea, Manchester City beat Leicester, boosting my beloved Manchester United's chances of 2nd in the Premier League massively, Jordan Spieth went -5 in 7 holes, including an absolutely insane birdie on 17 to take a 54 hole lead in San Antonio, my favourite sporting event of the year starts Thursday, and on the day you're reading this, I get to watch United play, watch Spieth try and get his first win in 4 years, and watch Jack Grealish's first game back for Aston Villa. Saturday was a delightful day for me, and Sunday will be again. I don't care if you want to drag me for Blue Texas or Jaime Harrison or whatever. I don't fucking care, so do it, or don't, I'm just not arsed.