Which do you bring to a war?
Weekend Reading offers some, well, weekend reading from Anat Shenker-Osorio on the slow learners atop the Democratic Party, something I wrote about back in February. Her particular gripe this morning is pollingism. That is, the idea that their party wins office and governs by what tests well in polling, and that what polls well actually predicts real-world voting behavior. Because voters are rational actors, dontcha know? This framework continues to fail yet is never reexamined.
The trouble with this is that data aren’t conjured but rather solicited and analyzed according to the assumptions of data collectors. In other words, you only get answers to the questions you ask. And you only get reactions to the ads you produce. And you only assess impacts in the artificial environments you construct. And you only apply findings according to your theory of how humans come to judgments.
An alternate framework she calls magnetism. It’s related to something she wrote eight years ago, “Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.”
Magnetism is the notion that if you want people to come to your cause, you must be attractive. This, of course, requires having a cause to which to draw people. And, like any magnet, it also means having a polarity that distinguishes you from your opposition. For Magnetism to work, you meet people at the place of their broadly shared values, not their podcast-promoted prejudices, and bring them with you toward your desired policies and the candidates who will enact them.
People are social creatures, not calculators. Pollingism misses that.
“Politics is a shouting match, not a soliloquy.” The crew with the loudest choir wins (in a free and fair election anyway). Democrats moderate their message down to one their base won’t sing. “While Democrats are brandishing thermometers, Republicans power up flamethrowers.”
It is indeed a long piece, weekend reading. For those of you who are not slow learners and thank God you are not.
Just to reprise:
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Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:
In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.
Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.