48 Comments
May 2·edited May 2Liked by William M Briggs

The results of the 2020 election were statistically preposterous, in about 100 ways. So if his model "predicted" a D win in 2020, it's utter garbage - unless it takes cheating into account, in which case maybe it's genius. And that would explain his prediction of a D win this time.

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The Briggs model predicted a Biden win in 2020 at about the same probability as 538 predicted a Trump victory in 2016. 25-30% probability events are not uncommon, they happen all the time. The future is not predictable.

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May 2·edited May 2Liked by William M Briggs

All jocularity aside, in addition to suffering from advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome, this Lichtman guy is a poster child for a certain type who have benefited tremendously from living in the United States but are nevertheless also passionate advocates for prominent organizations and groups seeking to harm everything that made the country great in the first place. Particularly by inflaming racial tensions. From Wikipedia: “Outside of the classroom, Lichtman has testified as an expert witness on civil rights in more than 70 cases for the U.S. Department of Justice and for civil rights groups such as the NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He assisted the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigation into voting irregularities in Florida during the 2000 election, submitting his statistical analysis of balloting problems. Lichtman concluded ‘there were major racial disparities in ballot rejection rates’.” Most curious obviously is how alarmed he was about alleged voting irregularities in 2000 … but can’t find any mention of him addressing “possible” irregularities in 2020. He is a stereotype of a stereotype.

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

"You can have any colour you like, as long as it's black."

--Henry Ford.

"You can have any president you like, as long as he's an Israel Firster."

--The War Party.

Does the expert lucky forecaster have any word on why elections that are swayed by these important causal factors don't make any difference at all?

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Yep. And Trump got all buddy buddy with Mike Johnson to make sure the Ukraine aid passed.

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Go with Joe Biden, the true Man of Steal. Fortified steal, you might say.

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

By the time of the debate, if there's a debate.. more than 60% of the votes will have been "harvested". Do I think this is new..... Yes.

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In order to be harvested in time, they need to planted early.

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May 2·edited May 2Liked by William M Briggs

He's correct. As long as there are rigged elections with voting machines calibrated to swipe votes from opponents, mail-in ballots, and no voter ID, then yes, the feckless, mumbling, stumbling, pedophile will stay in office or, come August, during the DemonRat National Convention they will do a candidate switch a roo and substitute the Pedo for Gavin "Gruesome" Newsom for POTUS and appoint "Big Mike" Michele Obama for Vice President to lock up D.C. for the next sixteen years which I don't see this country last that long based on the current and future leadership!

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But any prediction model is going to struggle when conditions are far from stationary! Several huge megatrends are in play:

1. Roe v. Wade has been overturned. This mobilized the pro choice on abortion voters bigly.

2. America is going post-Christian.

3. The Great Migration is reversing. This will turn Dixie either Purple or Blue unless we can get conservative Blacks to vote Republican. The Sailer Strategy of making the Republican Party the party of White people is suicidal.

4. The public schools stopped teaching patriotism. The Constitution is not a trump card argument for the younger generations.

We have much work to do outside of electioneering.

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

Is this one of those ... whaddaya call em ... zen koans? "Both models make the same prediction for 2024, so if you’re trying to choose which one to use, there is no choice." Who knew "models" could be so side-splitting. Hail Briggs! We who salute you demand you launch a side gig in standup comedy!

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

Simplicity is sublime: "For instance, it’s usually true summer is hotter than winter. An excellent model, that." 🤣

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

A wise man (Niels Bohr) once said "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future".

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It's almost equally difficult about things in the past that are unknown.

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May 2·edited May 2Liked by William M Briggs

The model is utter rubbish if that's the 'prediction' it spat out.

The next US administration is Donald Trump (that one is an absolute certainty) and Tucker Carlson as his VP (that one is high probability but not certainty as Tulsi Gabbard remains a wildcard and is clearly keen on the job).

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Simple incumbent modifier: is the incumbent at odds with his own party? JFK and Carter were well to the right of the Democrat party. Bush to the left. Trump was really a Reform Party candidate running as a Republican.

The Republican Party apparatus has been adjusting to being a populist party, so we can expect better party support for Trump this go around.

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

In my opinion, the US corporation (and half of the world) has been run by spies since, at least, January 1953.

Biden is easier to manage than Trump, so Biden will win. In 2016, Trump was easier to manage than Killery, so Trump won.

The managers may choose Trump over Biden if they think it's going to be better for their management. But they have only 183 days or so to invent something, a war or a scandal or a financial crash or an invasion by literal demons entering this realm from below UC Berkeley, to cause people to vote for Trump.

I predict they will not do anything to change course.

Of course, Biden could die. I wouldn't be surprised if a literal cadaver is elected president, and I think millions of people wouldn't be surprised either. On the other hand, if Trump dies, he would be the best cadaver candidate ever, we all know that.

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May 2·edited May 2

Of course Trump is a huge Israel supporter and he was buddying up with Mike Johnson to get the Ukraine aid package passed. He may be chosen/elected to keep conservatives in the regime. But I do think that 2016 was a genuine surprise for a lot of people; the media’s reaction to Trump being elected was over the top. I don’t think he really had a chance of making any major changes even if he wanted to, which is debatable.

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This is depressingly plausible.

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Yes about that "Bush senior’s curious win"...

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Move along. Nothing to see here.

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May 2Liked by William M Briggs

So in the legacy media an ‘Expert’ predicts the result of election, an ‘Expert’ with a 100% record of successful predictions. This puts off a number of voters for shirts not skins, changing the result. When do the alphabet agencies descend and right this wrong of election interference? When do the Congressional hearings start?

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May 3Liked by William M Briggs

This puts me in mind of a book I read decades ago, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel. He shows how a large population of stock-pickers each making random investment choices will contain a very small number who are always right, and that those few are then deemed "experts." Hence, choosing one "expert" to take advice from is essentially fruitless, and one would do just as well investing in what came to be an "index fund." (He was writing in the 1970s before that became a thing.)

I was pretty impressed with his insights at the time, but later I realized that, like any other investment strategy, his advice would only work if not everyone was doing it. Obviously, if everyone buys stocks while paying no attention to individual company performance, the market's discounting mechanism is destroyed and there is nothing left to move prices.

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What a fascinating essay! Brilliant. The key to understanding why Lichtman is wrong is to follow the links to Lichtman's Thirteen Keys. On 5. and 6. even the inventor of GDP stated in emphatic terms that GDP was a terrible metric for judging economic success. Detractors may argue to the contrary, but voters remember 2019. Two-thirds of them believe that the economy was better under Trump and very likely believe it will be better under him again, if elected.

Besides, whatever people may think about Trump, Trump is not normal. He has a record of defying predictions.

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