Political Analysts, It's not the polls, It's You

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The reaction in the last few days has been nearly uniform. They are stunned, gobsmacked, they never believed it would happen. I was not Jacoby or Michael Moore who were certain from the beginning. When Trump announced back in the summer of 2015 I thought it was joke or a way to market his brand also. But even before the first primary I thought he had a realistic chance at the nomination and sometime in the spring I came to believe he had a realistic chance to win the presidency. I guess this is another moment at realizing how different I do think because the things I will write below seems obvious to me.

Let's discuss the polls. The final predictions were a Clinton win by 3 or 4 points and the final tally looks basically even. Either right at or just beyond the margin of error. Poor performance but not the calamity bieng portrayed. The polls are tool, it was the analysts who forgot the polls are a tool, or just used them incorrectly based on the assumption that Trump could never win.

A lot are saying I woke up in a different America November 9. No they did not. As many of the analysts admitted they have never met a Trump supporter. They should have done that, and if that was not possible read and conservative and alt right media, and not just to make a funny joke at their next party or to make a witty remark in a comments section but to actually understand the people they are analyzing because that is part of the job.

Another part of the political analysts job is to spot emerging trends and patterns. Charismatic demagogues knowing how appeal to peoples fears by telling them how great they are and some enemy is the cause of their real woes is not an emerging trend but has been going on throughout human history. Last time I checked Americans are human

At some point throughout this long process as Trump again and again and again and again did and said things that would have sunk any other campaign but remained in contention they would have figured out this time "he really went to far" was a non starter. Nationalist/populist movements are emergent in Britain, France, Germany etc. Pretty recognizable pattern to me. But I am just just one autistic sitting at his computer, what the f**k do I know?