The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 20, 2017, 10:17:48 am ---But mainly I guess I think those articles would still be interesting because I think they show how The New Yorker, like all the rest of the liberal media, misjudged the country.
--- End quote ---
Well, the New Yorker is unabashedly part of the liberal media, but I hope you're not using that term to include the mainstream media -- like the New York Times, for example -- or you're doing what Trump supporters/Fox News viewers do. However, the mainstream media misjudged the polls, too.
Which is not completely crazy, because let's remember that Hillary did win the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Given that, and the fact that half the eligible voters didn't vote at all, hardly seems to qualify as having "misjudged the country." They certainly misjudged the electoral college, I guess.
My son, though a left-leaning Bernie/Hillary supporter, is somehow really knowledgeable about the alt-right (and politics in general). He says a lot of those people who planned to vote for Trump were counseled to tell pollsters they weren't, so that might be another part of the problem.
In any case, I'm sick of hearing about how all the prognosticators misprognosticated. Because in the end, the election result seems to come down not to "Hilllary should have done X, Y and Z differently" -- or even Comey's ill-advised email letter -- but that a substantial portion of our fellow Americans simply are not as smart as we (at least I) gave them credit for. If that seems too harsh a way to refer to Trump voters, I'm sorry, but as I said in another thread, many didin't know the difference between the ACA and Obamacare. Beyond that, they fell for an obnoxious, racist, loose-cannon rabble-rouser who has never at any point -- up to and including the present, now that he's actual taken office -- proposed any ideas of substance.
Not worth slogging through a "duty" article to be reminded of that.
Off-topic on the ItNY thread, but I came across this article today that seems a really intelligent (if non-reassuring) analysis of the problem:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/01/trump_sold_america_a_miracle_cure_it_will_fail_he_ll_get_off_for_free.html
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 24, 2017, 01:16:09 am ---Off-topic on the ItNY thread, but I came across this article today that seems a really intelligent (if non-reassuring) analysis of the problem:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/01/trump_sold_america_a_miracle_cure_it_will_fail_he_ll_get_off_for_free.html
--- End quote ---
Of course. Snake-oil salesmen usually do, somehow.
Front-Ranger:
Good article, Kathryn. The proposed solution is education. But, look who's putting a public education enemy in charge of education?!?!
Jeff Wrangler:
Seems to me "misjudging the country" includes misjudging the stupidity--or maybe just the gullibility--or maybe they're the same thing--of a lot of voters. Just sayin'.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 23, 2017, 08:49:02 pm ---I'm reading the Seabrook article now, and at the point where I am in the text, I'm quite enjoying it because Seabrook grew up in my region of the country. All those things he mentions, Seabrook Farms, the Devon Horse Show, Brandywine Creek, are familiar to me. It's like reading a Longmire novel where the action occurs some place in Wyoming that I have visited.
I'm also interested in what I'm learning about Seabrook himself. He's a year younger than me. He "comes from money," which doesn't surprise me in someone who ends up writing for The New Yorker.
--- End quote ---
Well, I guess I'm just not a perceptive, or even intelligent, reader. I finished the Seabrook over dinner this evening, and I liked it and saw no problems with it.
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