All posts by Dr. ESP

Whoa Is Me No More!

After mending my wounded ego, it’s time to get back on the horse.  What I realized during this recovery period is that everyone’s speculation about the 2024 election, including mine, proved worthless.  And nothing has changed since November 5, except I have decided to get out of the speculation game.  Those who remain on the speculation playing field are producing little, if anything, of value.

The question was, if I wanted to continue blogging, how can I create value.  And the answer came, as it always seems to, from two totally unrelated incidents yesterday.  The first was a phone call with a friend who said he missed getting the occasional blog.  When I told him what I just shared with you (above), he said he understood but reminded me that entries unrelated to politics (e.g. sports, culture) were equally entertaining and often provided a distraction from the news of the day.  We laughed and agreed that distractions are certainly in order for the next four years.

The second was an appearance by Neil DeGrasse Tyson on last night’s edition of “The Daily Show.”  Host Ronny Chieng asked Tyson if he thought he could stand above the political fray, especially if the new administration takes a hostile position toward science, scientists and academic research.  Tyson said he gets that question all the time from media organizations trying to pull him into a give and take by quoting this or that nominee and asking, “What do you have to say to that?”  Tyson did not hesitate.  “I don’t respond to people.  I respond to ideas.”  This morning I looked back at some of my most recent entries and found that when I responded about an idea (e.g. the August 31 entry Civics Advocate, Heal Thyself) the content was still relevant regardless of who was in the White House or Secretary of Education.

Tyson gave his own wonderful example.  Discouraging immigration, regardless who promotes it, is a bad idea.  To make his point, he reminded viewers that more than one third of all Nobel prizes won my Americans went to immigrants.  If they cannot come here, they will take that knowledge and innovation somewhere else until someone realizes the U.S. is no longer the leader in new Nobel laureates.

So if not “mission accomplished,”  my new mission statement is.  Focus on ideas.  Remind readers that there are other interesting things that can distract them, if and when, a chaotic world makes us think we are living in the “upside-down.”  Finally, one new thing I plan on sharing through the blog is my fascination with cinema.  Some of you know I co-host a monthly program at our local bookstore called, “Cinema and Conversation.”  While doing the research for the conversation part of the evening, it is very similar to my experience writing the JFK book.  Just when I think I have uncovered everything I need to know, there is always one more unknown fact that piques my curiosity.  And when I start following that bread crumb, it opens up a whole different perspective on the film I chose to screen.

Two more things I want to share before I close.  First, I am thinking of moving Deprogramming101 from WordPress to Substack.  I have three months to figure that out before my current contract for the site runs out.  If it happens, you will still get the MailChimp notifications with a link to the Substack site.  But will also have the option of subscribing to my content and be notified by Substack when a new article is posted.  And as always, it will still be ad free with no subscription fee.

Second, even on the most serious of topics, I have tried to sprinkle it with a little humor.  So don’t be surprised if you find articles like “Top Things I Am Still Thankful for on Thanksgiving.”  At the top of list would have been, “The sense of unparalleled schadenfreude watching Aaron Rogers lose seven games in a row.”

Thanks for your patience.  I look forward to riding away from (as opposed to into) the sunset.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Gut Check

There was a lot of talk about gut feelings in the last days of this presidential election.  Some people, i.e., Nate Silver, said he had a gut feeling about a Trump victory.  But it was based on what he always does.  He used the data and his methodology to determine the probability of a GOP win was the most likely outcome.  James Carville had a gut feeling we were going to see the first female president, which exposes the inconvenient truth about relying on one’s innards for answers.  Gut feelings, above all, are what you want to happen, not what will happen.  They are personal.  And most helpful when the person for whom a decision is most consequential is relying on his/her internal decision-maker.  Example:  Will I be happier attending a small liberal arts college or a big state university?  Since you know yourself better than anyone else on earth, how you “feel” about that choice is all that matters.

Trusting your gut to tell you how 150 million people are going to vote is an entirely different matter.  Yesterday morning, 51 percent of voters would tell you their gut feeling that Donald Trump would become the 47th president of the United States was correct.  But the truth is each one of those people simply believe that Trump was the better choice.  And a majority of voters had the same individual gut feeling. That is how majority coalitions emerge.  There is no collective decision.  Individuals, acting on their own instincts, reach the same conclusion based on their observations, experience, and yes, biases.

This morning’s New York Times editorial page was filled with explanations for the Trump’s “shock” victory.  They run from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Most are based on gut feelings, things the writer wanted to be be true.  It was about the economy, stupid.  No, it was a revolt against the elites.  If only the Biden administration played a stronger role in ending the Israel/Gaza conflict.  Maximizing the number of Republicans in the Harris coalition cost more votes than gained among progressives in the Democratic base.  The one thing I know is that each of these columnists, based on their pre-election columns, used Tuesday’s outcome to tell their readers, “I told you so.”  It does not matter what they told you was of no importance, some importance or great importance to your ultimate choice of candidates.

I started this blog nine years and 916 entries ago to promote the value of counter-intuitive thinking.  The path to an alternative view (versus alternative facts) of the world begins with accepting the possibility everything you think you know about a situation is wrong.  So, buckle your seatbelts as I take you on a winding a trip to Dr. ESP land.

  • Assumption #1: the outcome would have been different if the Democrats had an open primary to pick their nominee.
  • Assumption #2: this was a “turnout” election.
  • Assumption #3: putting Donald Trump back in the White House goes against 250 years of American history and tradition.
  • Assumption #4: the election is won or lost in the battleground states.

A counter-intuitive explanation of the outcome must then be based on the following.  The nomination process and eventual nominee was irrelevant.  For a so-called “turn-out” election, both parties did a piss-poor job of energizing their bases.  History was the best indicator of the potential outcome.  Battleground states are not special, they are just more competitive.

Allow me to work backwards.  There are said to be six battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  For this reason, candidates spend a disproportional amount of their time and resources in these jurisdictions.  However, in most wars, you win some battles and you lose others.  Seldom does one side come out on top in every engagement.  More unlikely is that one combatant sweeps the battles, and in the reenactment, the other combatant does the same thing. But that is exactly what happened.  Not just two times, but in the last three election cycles.  Trump carried all six states in 2016.  Biden reversed that outcome in 2020.  And they all fell into Trump’s column again on Tuesday.  Instead of driving the outcome of a presidential election, there is a real possibility, though more competitive, swing states are now merely reflections of the national mood.  Nothing more. Nothing less.

When it comes to Assumption #3, it is ALL about history.  Though I hold three degrees in political science from UVA and Johns Hopkins, I must confess historians should be better predictors of electoral outcome than political scholars.  Only, however, if they base their predictions on the totality of history and not single events.  That is how the likes of John Meachum, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss failed us this year.  Each focused on one or two historic election cycles they felt mirrored the 2024 contest.  Consider the following.

With the exception George W. Bush (5’11”) versus John Kerry (6’4″), the presidential candidate with a significant height advantage over his opponent (more than three inches) has won every election since 1900.  This may sound like a sick joke, but it suggests if we ever expect a woman to be win the presidency, perhaps we need to add growth hormones to girls’ diets.  No, it is not rational, but voting choices seldom are.  Donald Trump (either 6’3″ or 6’1″ depending on who is doing the measuring) towered over his two female opponents: Hillary Clinton (5’5″) and Kamala Harris (5’4.5″).

What may be more relevant from a historic perspective is the fact Harris was a sitting vice president.  In the nation’s history only 13 former vice presidents have become president.  Eight ascended to the presidency due to the death or resignation of the president.  And Richard Nixon did not win as a sitting vice president.  His success came eight years after the Eisenhower administration in which he served.  As trivial as it may seem in what was called “the most consequential election in our lifetime,” the shorter, sitting vice president was fighting a strong, down stream current from day one.

Assumption #2 exposes “the big lie” of the 2024 election, enthusiasm and a superior ground game would carry Harris to victory.  Pundits pointed to three proxies for enthusiasm in the Harris campaign:  rally crowd size, number of volunteers and doors knocked.  What we learned Tuesday night is that this “enthusiasm” did not translate into votes.  When all votes are counted, Harris will fall 10-12 million votes short of Biden’s national total in 2020.  Nor did Trump add to his 2020 total.  The only conclusion a Harris supporter can take away from this experience is that enthusiasm may have been deep, but it was not as broad as the prognosticators assumed.

Which brings me to Assumption #1.  None of this mattered.  Biden was handed a bucket of shit on January 20, 2021.  U.S. recovery from the pandemic was the envy of free world.  His administration did what every economist said was unprecedented, taming inflation without a recession.  It did not matter when he was in the race.  And it did not carry over when he stepped down.  Biden’s accomplishments were NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  And while there is a consensus that the Harris campaign, with a few minor hiccups, out-performed all expectations for an enterprise that launched just 110 days ago, that too was NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

One explanation is that Americans are consumed by irrational expectations.  Incremental improvements are never fast enough and seen as shortfalls.  Perfection is the standard.  Some people are still struggling.  But, as conservative financial analyst Steve Rattner constantly reminds us, “Even in the best of economic times, some people will struggle.”  And when Americans expect an unrealistic standard they are susceptible to disinformation which affirms their predisposition that the incumbent administration has failed.

Which leads to the most likely explanation why the glass ceiling in the Oval Office remains intact.  It was never going to be about the candidate.  Nor the quality of the campaign.  It is the timing in which female nominees get the chance to shatter that barrier.  In the case of both Clinton and Harris, they were perceived by many voters as an extension of the administrations in which they served.  A position akin to a football team that goes into the game restricted to playing offense in only one quarter.  Most of the game they are forced by voters and the media to play defense.

As strange as this may sound, Trump’s second term gives the Democratic Party the best opportunity to ensure the next president is a woman.  In 2028, as was the case in 2020, the Democratic nominee can play offense the whole game.  She can remind voters what the incumbent administration did wrong, what she would have done differently and given a mandate, what she will do in the next four years.  Democrats have a strong female bench, especially among the nation’s governors.  Surely, one can overcome both the gender bias and, minus growth hormones, the height bias.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Oasis in the Desert

There are no consolation prizes in electoral politics.  And if the sun still came up this morning, we did not see it.  It is gray and raining on Amelia Island, Florida, the only appropriate weather to match what so many of us are feeling.  So, I know there is nothing I can say that will stem your disappointment and fear of the future.  Nor am I going to point fingers or, for the 14th million time, wonder, “How can people keep voting against their own self-interest?”  Perhaps former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill best summed it up this morning. “Donald Trump understood the American people better than we did.”

My message this morning is actually quite positive.  Regular readers know I often opine about the challenges of living in Nassau County, Florida where Republican voters outnumber Democrats 3:1.  This year, however, with the help of my wife, a long-time friend and a couple of newer ones, we decided not to let our minority status keep us from doing whatever we could for the cause.  The five of us put up the front money to run a full-page ad in our local papers.  The message was simple.  Democrats in statewide races are not going to carry Nassau County, but we can do our part.  Within 48 hours of sharing this strategy with kindred spirits, we doubled our resources and made a commitment for a series of three ads.

I am pleased to report that this loosely organized collection of county residents, whom we call “a cabal of good troublemakers,” to honor Congressman John Lewis’ memory, WE DID IT.  With 99 percent of Florida votes tabulated, Kamala Harris received 633,000 FEWER statewide votes than Joe Biden in 2020.  However, in Nassau County, Harris’ total votes INCREASED to 17,101 compared to Biden’s total of 15,564 four years ago.  In other words, voters in our ruby red jurisdiction dramatically outperformed the state average.

However, as a trained behavioral social scientist, I would be foolish to equate correlation with causation.  A major factor in this success story was another ad hoc group of individuals who heeded Michelle Obama’s call “to do something.”  The Amelia Island Postcard Writers, a group of overwhelmingly female volunteers, sent more than 21,000 handwritten postcards to Nassau County voters.  Their first target audience were registered Democrats who had not voted in either 2020 or 2022.  That wise strategic decision surely contributed to this cycle’s higher Democratic turnout.

If that were not enough, the brightest ray of light on a otherwise dark day was the success of two challengers who defeated incumbent city commissioners, including one who is a member of the most prominent political family in northeast Florida.  In what, by law, is supposed to be a non-partisan local election, the two incumbents received the majority of their funding from a Republican PAC based in Tallahassee.  In addition, the PAC covered the printing and mailing of materials replete with disinformation about the incumbents’ opponents.  Fortunately, a writer for the local on-line newspaper, immediately exposed the connection between the incumbents and their dark money source.

Joyce Tuten (@joycetutencampaign) • Instagram photos and videosTo be honest, when my friend announced she was taking on the incumbent mayor, the latest acorn to fall from the oak that overshadows local politics, I did not think she had a “snowball’s chance in hell.” But from day one, when she reached out to the community not only for support, but also for advice, you had no choice but to jump on  the bandwagon.  Equally important, she did not let the questionable tactics of her opponent faze her.  She stayed on message, showed up everywhere and insisted she could win.  And by George, she did.

What do these three rays of light have in common?  None were initiated or managed by an official arm of an “organized” political party.  Each effort organically emerged among a small group of individuals who did not wait to be told what to do or how to do it.  For lack of a better term, one might call it “political entrepreneurship.”  Just as Skype disrupted the telephone industry, this non-traditional, innovative approach to politics fits the classical definition of entrepreneurship, “creative destruction.”  Maybe it’s time to bring in a few more wrecking balls.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Iowa Deports Trump

The Drudge Report called Saturday’s final Des Moines Register poll in Iowa a shocking development.  I must disagree.  The only thing shocking about this reversal of fortune for Donald Trump is the fact people are shocked.  Iowa is ground zero for the perfect storm for Trump’s economic agenda.  It can be summed up in four words:  tariffs and mass deportations.

Iowa farmers already know what tariffs mean to the agriculture industry.  Choice Magazine assessed the impact on American farmers from Trump’s 2018 tariffs on steel and aluminum.

In total, over 800 U.S. agricultural exports worth nearly $30 billion in 2017—including grains, livestock, dairy, horticulture, specialty crops, processed foods, beverages, tobacco and cotton—were hit by retaliatory tariffs in China, Canada, Mexico, the EU, Turkey, and most recently, India (June 2019).

In case you forgot, the cost of this ill-conceived trade policy was 19 billion taxpayers dollars to ameliorate the negative impact on farmers and food processors.

If Iowa farmers had not suffered enough, Trump’s proposal for mass deportations will further stifle two of the state’s major industries.  The absence of migrant workers will force farmers to reduce acreage or, in some instances, choose to forego some produce items.  But Iowans are not the only victims.  American consumers in every state will feel the inflationary impact of a scarcity of U.S. grown produce.

Mass deportation is also a double whammy for the meat processing industry, a second staple of the Iowa economy.  Facilities associated with meat preparation and packing operate 24 hours a day.  Two shifts are devoted to the core business.  The late shift involves the nightly clean-up and sanitation required by USDA.  Both aspects of the production cycle are largely staffed by documented immigrants and temporary workers.  Again, this would result in a major disruption of the supply chain, scarcity, and higher prices.

Due to its unique system of party caucuses, Iowans tend to be more politically astute than the average American.  This better grasp of  issues that affect them personally explains the possibility they have looked at Trump policies and decided to tell Trump “go back where you came from.”  The remaining question is whether other largely rural Plains States look at the Des Moines Register poll and wonder, “Are they seeing something we have not?”  We’ll know the answer some time in the next few days.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

A Ledge with a View

Random observations with two days to go.

When the Choir Doesn’t Pay Attention

Last Tuesday I had a conversation with a strong Harris supporter who raised two concerns about the election outcome.  This 100 percent Harris voter was distressed that the Harris campaign had run an ineffective campaign.  Then said Harris had spent all her time running against Trump without telling us what she’s for.  My response?  Have you watched any of the rallies?  Have you looked at the analysis of her program versus Trump’s by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget?  Do you think these Zoom calls with Republicans for Harris, evangelicals for Harris, etc. which draw 40,000 to 70,000 participants happen by accident?

Yesterday, I was at a local festival and ran into a friend who is an environmental activist.  I assumed she was voting for both Harris and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democrat running for Senate against Rick Scott.  She did not know who Mucarsel-Powell was.  Someone is not doing their job, but that is not going to be resolved between now and 7:00pm on Tuesday.

So, it is up to each of us to fill this gap in the next two days.  The next time someone tells you watching another Harris rally is preaching to the choir, the reply should be, “I know you think you have heard it before, but were you listening?”  And never assume the outreach includes down-ballot Democratic candidates.

The Light in a Dark Red County

When you live in a deep red jurisdiction such as Nassau County, Florida, odds are pretty good at some time you will buy products from or be served by someone who is a MAGA supporter.  It is what it is.  What I do not understand is why any business owners or employees would post political messages in their facilities or on their commercial vehicles.  In downtown Fernandina Beach there are stores with Trump propaganda. My auto mechanic posted a “Make America Great Again” at their checkout counter.  I need not tell you how often I now patronize these establishments.

Which is why, on Friday morning, I was so pleasantly surprised when an employee of a local home equipment company pulled into our driveway which is surrounded by Harris and down-ballot Democratic candidate signs.  After we introduced ourselves, he asked, “Has anyone stolen your  yard signs?”  When I said no, he told me that he and his wife have been the victims twice of someone removing their signs.  When we agreed he would come back on November 8 to finish the job, he made the point that hopefully we would know if Harris was president-elect by then.

I know, this is just one person.  But it is the demographic who is the target of Trump’s populist message.  And at least in this case, another four years of hate, grievance and chaos may be as unattractive to a broader audience than we might assume.

The 361

Forget 538, the total number of electoral votes and the election prediction site founded and formally run by Nate Silver.  The number that explains disbelief on both sides of the aisle that the outcome could possibly be so close is 361, the number of polling organizations trying to gauge the pulse of the electorate.  With that many players there are bound to be differences in methodology.  Consider the following

  • Embarrassed by their missed calls before the 2022 midterms, several pollsters readjusted their sampling which they already adjusted when they under-sampled Trump supporters in 2016.
  • Many pollsters base their sample on the historic turnout by different population cohorts, e.g., older voters.  Twenty million Gen-Z voters have been added to the rolls since 2020.   Polling of this demographic suggests they are breaking for Harris 2:1.
  • Women are making up the larger present of new registrants, first-time voters and early voters.  Perhaps they are being under-sampled.
  • As I blogged last week, maybe there is a silent, scared majority who are keeping their preference to themselves.

Elections are not won or lost by looking at national averages of all voters.  The best preview of what could happen Tuesday night is the Des Moines Register poll conducted by Selzer & Co., headed by its president J. Ann Selzer, recognized as one of the most reliable pollsters in the business.  At 4:00 pm Saturday,  the Register released its final tabulation of likely Iowa voters in which Harris held a shocking three point statewide lead over Trump.  To put this in context, the same poll had Trump leading Joe Biden in June by 18 points.

Throughout this election cycle, I have said, “If Harris can carry the women’s vote 60-40, nothing else matters.”  The Iowa poll gives Harris a 56-36 edge among female voters.  Other subsets of the poll show Trump with a five point lead in enthusiasm, a 14 point lead among men, a whopping 53 point lead among evangelicals and an eight point lead in the 35-54 age category. 

It doesn’t matter.  Women, in the post-Dobbs era, understand they are the only ones who can protect themselves, whether Donald Trump likes it or not.

Signs of the Times

Speaking of voter enthusiasm, this morning when I was walking our rescue dog, I made two observations why this year appears to be different from 2016 and 2020.  In a middle-income neighborhood made up of duplexes, which had its share of Trump/Pence yard signs in the last two elections, this year there were four Harris/Walz signs and NO Trump signs.  (below)

In an upper-middle class neighborhood, I came across a Trump sign from 2020 on which the homeowner had covered Pence’s name with duct tape.  At best, you cannot tell me a high-enthusiasm MAGA voter could not find the time and energy to replace their old sign with the updated one.  At worst, maybe they think reminding voters Pence is no longer on the MAGA ticket is preferential to reminding them who replaced the former vice president.

Epilogue

So keep your powder dry.  Don’t be rattled by the polls. But take nothing for granted.  Then get inspired for the election day push by watching Monday night’s live stream “get out the vote” extravaganza linking rallies in all seven battleground states.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP