24

For the first time in a long time, yesterday's top 4 most active threads did not include any threads that I've already discussed. However, the top threads were heavily weighted towards the political forum, with 3 of the top 4 being posted there. The first of those was titled, "Who do you think is going to win and why?" and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. As you would expect, this thread mostly consists of posters responding with the name of the candidate they expect to win and, in most cases, some commentary supporting their answer. I've only skimmed this thread, but what I noticed is the very different attitudes generally reflected by Democrats and Republicans. For reasons that I've never understood, nearly the entire Democratic Party turns into Woody Allen during campaigns. Democrats in this thread are anxiety-ridden, pessimistic, and practically ready to concede before a single vote has been counted. Republicans, on the other hand, are euphoric and, opposite the Democrats, prepared to claim victory before a single vote has been counted. I suspect that both parties are being affected by the same Republican-led efforts. For weeks, Republican-leaning "polling firms" — I put that in quotes because these firms are really activist organizations pursing political agendas rather than authentic polling companies — have flooded the zone with garbage polls that show former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump easily winning the election. These polls have been used to convince Trump's cult followers that he is leading. One impact of this manufactured expectation is increased enthusiasm among MAGAs, but I suspect that the more important goal is to make eventual claims that the election was stolen more believable. If Trump loses, which I expect, he will say that the Democrats cheated and the proof is that he has been leading the polls. The near total conviction with which MAGAs have been predicting Trump's victory has rubbed off on others, including some Democrats. Democrats, predisposed to being disappointed in the first place, have generally been timid in pushing back on the Republican irrational exuberance. I've long understood that I could hardly act with the authority and alleged subject matter expertise that I do here in many places outside the DCUM sandbox. But that phenomenon is often even more extreme for our anonymous posters who are free to represent themselves any way that they would like. Based on some of the responses in this thread, our forum is filled with a number of Nate Silver and Nate Cohn wannabes. They crunch some numbers, provide some intelligent sounding analysis, and make their predictions. They sound like they know what they are talking about, but do they? Time will tell. I recently saw a warning on one of my social media feeds that professional campaigns have a lot of detailed data about voters and voting trends, going down to the block level. As such, they can make sense of information such as early voting numbers in ways that us mere mortals can't. Therefore, it is probably not wise to put too much emphasis on the data that is coming out now about early voting, mail-in ballots and such. Those who really know are probably not telling. My own prediction, based on little more than my gut and the analysis of pundits that I trust, is that Vice President Kamala Harris will edge out a comfortable victory. I have one caveat, however, which I will discuss later in this post.