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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32057 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Might arguing with opposing alter egos of yourself make for rhetorically compelling reading for issues relating to the culture war or otherwise?

Nate Silver, of the political analysis publication 538, recently posted two articles ahead of the US midterms:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-for-a-republican-sweep-on-election-night/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-for-a-democratic-surprise-on-election-night/

The articles were formatted as transcripts of imaginary conversations between the author and "Nate Redd", his Republican alter ego, and then the author and "Nate Bleu", the Democratic version. Both alter egos suffer from prejudiced priors in favor of their political leanings, whereas the author, a Silver (which coincidentally might approximate gray?!) tribe spokesman, is presumed rational.

I'm sure partisans can pick apart plenty of issues big and small from their preferred versions, and I personally thought the Democratic version was substantially better written, and you can decipher what that might reveal about Silver's social circles and private beliefs (or mine, especially if you disagree with my take). Still, on the whole, I found the rhetorical exercise to be a productive deconstruction and rendition of how the average politically engaged reader thinks. The conversational format makes it easier to digest for the masses. It also has the bonus of being funnier, in particular in the Dem version where Silver took plenty of shots in poking fun of Mr. Bleu.

Back to my original question. Should more nonpartisan or rational bloggers/essayists/substack writers attempt something akin to this format every so often as they try to advance sophisticated takes on controversial subjects?

Disappointed by the ending of the dialogue with Mr redd. Nate should have proposed a bet at 2:1 odds. Given their stated beliefs that should have satisfied them both.

Feels like Nate is a bit allergic to actually putting money down on his model's predictions since that might actually put him at risk.

I think Nate Silver is effectively betting on his predictions, since the only reason his website gets any attention (and therefore makes money) is if his predictions are well calibrated. This isn't always perfect (he got a lot of flak for 2016, based on the mistakes of other people that he deliberately avoided, for example) but I think it's reasonably close.

Yes but the political events are sufficiently spaced & he's now got sufficient capture of the audience that there's no real advantage to him in putting his status to any real test.

Add on the fact that he gets maximum attention in closely contested elections, which is to say the ones that are toss ups, and it is pretty easy to nudge your model to make a race look more like a tossup than it actually is, and pretty easy, afterwards, to argue that the outcome was "always in doubt." If he doesn't stand to lose money on the outcome, then he can get away with this indefinitely.

It begins to look like he's not necessarily adding much clarity to the world despite getting much so much attention.

There is the Galileo's famous Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which unlike Mr. Silver, displays the author's loyalties more openly by naming the person advocating Geocentricism, "Simplicio".

It also has the bonus of being funnier, in particular in the Dem version where Silver took plenty of shots in poking fun of Mr. Bleu.

Humour directed at the comedians in-group, is less likely to be mean-spirited, but more likely to feel tan-suity (mocking superficial and minor errors, while keeping quiet about big ones). But I admit the jibe at lockdown-philia gave me a chuckle.

In hindsight, calling the Pope a simpleton and then doubling down on that wasn’t the best career move, especially when the available evidence at the time was against Galileo.

If one has followed Nate on Twitter, particularly this year, they would probably have noticed that Nate, after some hedging in 2021, came down pretty hard against mask mandates, school closures and various other Covid measures, earning him the ire of a lot followers and fans.

Simplicio was meant to be a caricature of Galileo’s opponents, though.

For Nate Redd, Silver is "Have you talked to any of your female friends about abortion?"

Insert eyeroll from me. Because of course every single woman is pro-abortion, of course a Republican-voting guy is not going to know any women who might be pro-life, of course no woman picked at random in the USA is going to be "I think the Supreme Court decision was great".

It is clear which side Silver is naturally on, but I suppose credit for at least trying, even feebly, to imagine what the bad horrible people might think.

Insert eyeroll from me. Because of course every single woman is pro-abortion, of course a Republican-voting guy is not going to know any women who might be pro-life, of course no woman picked at random in the USA is going to be "I think the Supreme Court decision was great".

Sure there are, just like there are blacks who are against BLM and pro-police funding and Latinos who want tougher immigration controls. But probabilistically, you can predict (a) whether most of them are pro or anti (b) whether it's the pro or antis who will be most strongly motivated to come out and vote on that issue.

Abortion is absolutely a losing issue with women voters. That does not mean 0% of women voters are anti-abortion.

(Personally, however, I suspect that just as there are "shy MAGAs" in blue circles, there are a not-insignificant number of "shy pro-choicers" in red circles, people who will vote differently than they'll admit to their friends.)

Silver may be biased, but this "conversation" is basically summarizing the issues that will actually affect the vote, and I don't think the fictional Silvers are wrong that abortion is going to weigh more negatively than positively for the Republicans.

Yeah, but Redd is meant to be different to Bleu, who lives in the kind of bubble where naturally all the women he knows are signed up to Emily's List or whatever. Redd is meant to be from the bubble that is red, and women in red areas may be more inclined to be pro-life.

If I take this Gallup poll, where do you think the women who are the 33% pro-life identified are more likely to be found: in Redd's circle, or in Bleu's?

How about if the assumption was made that Bleu and his husband were swingers, because gay men are notoriously promiscuous? I think you'd be hastening to assure me that "not all gay men". I'm trying to do the same about "not all women". Silver (in the dialogue) is making the assumption that "100% of women want abortion". He's not qualifying it with "You might be surprised at the views a lot of the women around you hold", it's "if you ask any woman you know, she will be pro-choice".

Silver should be putting the same question to Bleu - "you might be surprised at the views some women around you hold".

There's a sourpuss article from 2017 about how dare conservative women hold views of their own, that means they are not real women:

Through their activist efforts, conservative women make it more difficult for feminists and other liberals to criticize conservatives for not caring about women.

Abortion had been banned in Texas for a year prior to the roe reversal, and Republican’s political fortunes did about as well there as they had prior. Limited data set, but it doesn’t look like there are that many shy pro-choicers in any strong way- there are certain women in Republican social circles who support more legal abortion than they let on, but they think it’s for harlots and not something that respectable women should have to worry about.

Well, Texas is Texas. I wouldn't expect a blue wave there no matter what.

You may well be right that the sort of Republican women who think abortion should be legalized are the sort of women who think only sluts gets abortions. (I suspect they are also the sort of women who will get one for themselves or their daughters but tell themselves that their situation is different.)

However, if what so many people are insisting, that the pro-choice vote, and particularly the angry woman pro-choice vote, isn't that significant, then why was there so much outrage and concern at the Dobbs leak? I certainly remember a lot of people here insisting that it was meant to tank the Republicans' chances in November.

The Dobbs leak is concerning for all sorts of ostensibly non-political reasons, like Supreme Court integrity. And for the record I think it was for a confluence of individual motives that don’t add up to affecting the midterms, and that the affecting the midterms explanation for the leak doesn’t make any sense because the actual ruling would’ve been released by then anyways.

I do think blue tribers have a generally poor mental model of why people vote GOP, and that this is a major effect on their reaction to news like that.

However, if what so many people are insisting, that the pro-choice vote, and particularly the angry woman pro-choice vote, isn't that significant, then why was there so much outrage and concern at the Dobbs leak?

Because the outrage and concern was manufactured at DNC headquarters and passed along through the New York Times, Washington Post, et al. Not that there isn't an angry pro-choice woman vote... but it's mostly in blue states where there's no real chance of abortion restrictions anyway. And they're not swing voters; they're going to vote Democratic anyway, and as long as neither a national abortion ban nor an abortion ban for their state is in the cards, they won't be much more motivated to vote than they would anyway.

I am not talking about the outrage over what was leaked (that Roe vs. Wade would be overturned). I am talking about the outrage that the leak happened. If you don't think an angry pro-choice woman vote is likely to tip any elections, then you don't care if pro-choice women got angry. But conservatives thought the leak was not only intended to be damaging to their side but that it definitely would be.

Because those kinds of leaks, for political purposes (or whatever the purpose was, and until the leaker is identified then their motives can't be known) are bad for the judicial process. The two branches of the legislature and the judiciary are supposed to be separate. If leaking is going to be one more tool of political campaigning and partisanship, then the judicial system is further weakened.

If you don't want activist judges ruling according to the will of their political parties, then don't permit the likes of this to happen (and if you do want activist judges, well guys this is what happens when the activists of the other side get elected. At least a semblance of voting on the law and neutrality is necessary).

Your response is like many here, that the anger was over unfairness and judicial process and the "other side" playing dirty, etc. (We still don't know who the leaker actually was and I've seen arguments for clerks from either side being responsible.)

I don't doubt many people felt that way, but what I saw predominantly in conservative circles was not "This is a violation of the integrity of the Supreme Court" but "This is meant to hurt us in the midterms."

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I believe a lot of the conservative outrage at the leak was simply indignation that "they cheated again" (and this would be stronger in DC where again, the journalists are). If conservatives thought the leak was damaging I think they were in error -- it mean the outrage ginned up at the decision was spent early.

There have been leaks of private information from the Supreme Court before Dobbs; what made Dobbs unusual was that it was a full draft leak, not just a reported outcome, and crucially that it was well before Dobbs was announced, which meant that the leak and public reaction could have plausibly changed the outcome.

Oh, and there was an assassination attempt against Brett Kavanaugh. Because of the Dobbs leak. So yes, conservatives thought the leak could be damaging against their side, given that the senior members of the Democratic Party were pulling their best "will no one rid me of these meddlesome Justices" act.

Some conservatives thought that it was a cudgel to try to force the court to change its positions before releasing the final decision.

Abortion is absolutely a losing issue with women voters.

I don't believe this at all. There are far too many conservative women (who are, almost to a woman, going to be pro-life) for this to be a plausible statement in my eyes.

Pew and Gallup both come up with women being pro-choice almost 2:1

Fair enough, I trust Pew enough that if they say that's what the data is then that's what it is.

I don't believe this at all. There are far too many conservative women (who are, almost to a woman, going to be pro-life) for this to be a plausible statement in my eyes.

It's baffling when people see a statement like "|X| > |not-X|" and object that this cannot be true because |not-X| > 0.

Now if you actually have evidence that pro-life women voters outnumber pro-choice women voters, I'd be interested to see it.

Men and women don't differ that much in their views on abortion. Some stats from Pew:

You're somewhat underselling it there. It's not (not-X) > 0, it's (not-X) is massively > 0. The way people talk about abortion, you would get the idea that women who are pro-life are a rounding error. But in reality, there are a shit ton of pro-life women.

Sure, but what percentage of women voters (especially those who are actually going to go out and vote after the SC decision) are pro-life?

I agree there is a frequent assumption in the Blue Tribe that basically every woman is pro-abortion if not angrily so. But angry pro-choice women voters do outnumber pro-life women voters.

There is the disagreement over relative numbers, and then there is the disagreement as @FarNearEverywhere presented it, where pollsters who think abortion represents a minus in the Republican column are unaware that prolife women exist.

How many angry pro-choice women voters are there, though? A lot of the protesting is by young women, and the young famously do not go out and vote.

Maybe they will this time, if they do think abortion rights are that important. But it's not as slam-dunk as I think some are assuming, and there are many more issues that the electorate are concerned about when it comes to who they'll vote for.

If there was a national vote on abortion alone, you might be right. But the mid-terms are not a vote on abortion alone, they're a vote on gas prices and the economy and China and a heap of other things.

This Brookings piece is inclined to the view that women voting about abortion will make a big difference in the elections. But my word of caution is this: the reliable Democratic vote is the black vote, and while black women may turn out in force to vote for Democrats (including abortion as a concern) - will it be enough? It wasn't enough for Hillary, when part of the fall-out was black feminists blaming white women for not voting in sufficient numbers.

What may decide it is the white college-educated cohort of women, and that gets us back to the angriest are the youngest, and the youngest don't vote. We'll know one way or the other after Tuesday.

I think abortion just ultimately doesn’t weigh all that much. It's not a hard, critical line for many people either way, and almost all of them are dedicated partisans to begin with.

The framing of abortion as an issue of men controlling women always struck me as odd. In my own circles at least, the strongest pro-choice and pro-life people I know are all women. Most men I know have opinions on it, but they are rarely as firm or hardline as the women in my life. When discussing abortion with another man, there is room for nuance and whatever our opinions on the subject are, we can agree that the issue is uncommonly complex and difficult to find common ground on. I think both sides are correct in their own way so trying to untangle the mess that is the abortion debate is maddening.

I tread lightly if it comes up with women because it's always personal and it's always touchy. There isn't much room for disagreement, so I avoid saying too much if that's the case. Even if we agree on policy, any attempts by me to add nuance or explain the feelings of the other side don't go over well. I don't say this to condemn women or say men are better, but the energy in the debate reads to me as one driven by women. That being said, this is my personal experience, so I'd like to hear if this is the case for others here.

Because of course every single woman is pro-abortion, of course a Republican-voting guy is not going to know any women who might be pro-life, of course no woman picked at random in the USA is going to be "I think the Supreme Court decision was great".

Are you reading the same article as me?

Redd: And by the way, I do talk to my female friends about abortion. Abortion is a problem for Republicans. That’s why I’m not sure if we’re going to win small or win big. But pretty much everything else lines up on our side.

"Abortion is a problem for Republicans" sounds as if Redd is agreeing with Silver - well yeah, women are going to vote Democrat on this issue because you're correct, every woman is 100% pro-choice. We'll win small if Republican women vote for abortion which is a Democrat winner.

That sounds extremely blue tribe, like a speaker who doesn’t realize that women who support the GOP consider abortion restrictions either desirable or a cost of doing business.

90% of the country really doesn’t believe the handmaids tale scenario is going to happen, with abortion or without it. The idea that abortion is some kind of albatross around the GOP’s neck is certainly defensible, but it has to actually be defended, which it isn’t.

As a red triber working in a blue city, it doesn't feel very descriptive of my situation, all of my female friends save one are pro life to the point of donating time and/or money to life focused crisis pregnancy centers. Many of the women I work with are I assume pro choice, but I avoid politics at work as much as possible. So I basically never speak to a woman who isn't pro life, generally more stridently than me.

As a red triber working in a blue city, it doesn't feel very descriptive of my situation, all of my female friends save one are pro life to the point of donating time and/or money to life focused crisis pregnancy centers

This is extremely the opposite of my experience as a red triber working in a very-blue city. I think it would be difficult to find any of my female friends who would mention being pro-life. People get fired for admitting that they are pro-life; I expect I would lose some friends if I made my opinions about this subject clear to them.

That does nothing to dispute the claim that supporting pro life policies are costing republican votes. Ditto for basically everyone in the parent comment tree. I don't understand how so many motteposters are conflating "There's lots of pro-life people" (true) with "Being pro-life will make it easier to win elections" (do you believe this?)

"Being pro-life will make it easier to win elections"

Not what I said. I said Silver is acting as if Redd is unaware that women are pro-abortion, which is going to cost his side votes. I'm pointing out that you can't say 100% of women are pro-abortion, and the pro-life women are likelier to be on Redd's side of the fence, not Bleu's side.

I wasn't trying to dispute that claim, I was adding to FarNearEverywhere's point that Nate Redd fails the ideological turing test pretty hard.

None of my friends male or female have ever expressed anything like the thought you quoted from Redd. For most of us, it's horrifying enough that they've only expressed opinions along the line of preferring to die on that hill and lose election after reflection than compromise to expand the electoral tent.

Then you've missed the point of the article entirely? It's an election prediction site. Trying to put forward a case for a Republican electoral victory. It would be very odd and partisan to portray Redd as an anti-strategist that doesn't care about the outcome and "prefers to die on that hill and lose election".

How the dynamics shake out isn’t totally captured by the polls- the idea that there’s an if-not-large-then-at-least-noticeable fraction of Republican women who are at least uncomfortable with their party’s stance on abortion isn’t inherently unreasonable.

Of course actually dealing with red tribers would have disabused him of this notion. But just on a level of blue tribe priors+polling data, that’s where he’s going to end up.

Because of course every single woman is pro-abortion

And this is a nationally famous polling expert.

Media hegemony is a powerful thing.

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