Informed Weekend: 10 Links I Learned From This Week (Vol. 21)

Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:

  1. Presidential Election Update
    1. Clinton takes Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut
    2. Bernie wins Rhode Island
    3. Trump takes Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware
    4. Cruz announces Fiorina as his vice-presidential pick
      1. Ted Cruz just threw a Hail Mary named ‘Carly Fiorina’ (The Washington Post)
      2. Can Carly Fiorina Save Ted Cruz’s Candidacy? (FiveThirtyEight)
    5. A Cruz-Kasich alliance?
      1. Cruz and Kasich devise strategy to keep Trump from clinching three primary states (The Washington Post)
      2. Why Cruz-Kasich Deal Has the Potential to Stop Trump (The New York Times)
    6. 9 questions about interest rates you were too embarrassed to ask (Vox)
    7. North Carolina Restroom Law Becomes a Central Election Issue (The New York Times)
    8. The North Carolina case that could decide the future of the voting rights in the US, explained (Vox)
    9. Why the 2016 veepstakes could be the most chaotic in decades (The Washington Post)
    10. Bernie Sanders says Democrats should get rid of closed primaries. Is he right? (Vox)
    11. Why did Ted Cruz send his dad to Puerto Rico? Marco Rubio’s delegates. (The Washington Post)
    12. The single most important fact about American Politics (Vox)

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"Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz" by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

“Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz” by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Informed Weekend: 10 Links I Learned From This Week (Vol. 20)

Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:

  1. Presidential Election Update
    1. Clinton takes New York
    2. Trump wins in New York
    3. 3 winners and 2 losers from the New York primaries (Vox)
    4. Where they stand: Candidate vs. candidate (The Washington Post)
    5. Presidential primaries delegate tracker, 2016 (Vox)
  2. The controversy over Harriet Tubman, Andrew Jackson, and the $20 bill, explained (Vox)
  3. Three state and city officials facing criminal charges in Flint water crisis (The Washington Post)
  4. Trump Doesn’t have a Monopoly On Intolerant Supporters (FiveThirtyEight)
  5. Obama Immigration Plan Seems to Divide Supreme Court (The New York Times)
    1. Further Reading: What you need to know about Monday’s hearing in the Supreme Court immigration case (Vox)
  6. Welch v. US: a surprise Supreme Court decision will let some federal prisoners out early (Vox)
  7. The most important primary is … wait, Indiana? (The New York Times)
  8. 5 huge challenges that self-driving cars still have to overcome (Vox)

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"Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH" by Marc Nozell (CC BY 2.0)

“Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH” by Marc Nozell (CC BY 2.0)

Informed Weekend: 10 Links I Learned From This Week (Vol. 19)

Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:

  1. Presidential Election Update
    1. Clinton and Sanders reach the limits of their patience (The Washington Post)
    2. 2 winners and 3 losers of Thursday’s Democratic primary debate (Vox)
    3. The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet (The Atlantic)
    4. Republicans have a candidate who could take back the White House. They’re just not voting for him (Vox)
  2. Voter anger is mostly about party, not social class (The Washington Post)
    1. Further Reading: American Anger: It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Other Party. (The Upshot)
  3. Zika Causes Birth Defects, C.D.C. Officials Confirm (The New York Times)
    1. Further Reading: CDC confirms that Zika causes microcephaly, other birth defects (The Washington Post)
  4. In 6 graphs, here’s why young Democratic women don’t support Hillary Clinton as much as older women do (The Washington Post)
  5. The Paradox of Finding Motivation Through Fear (The New York Times)
  6. Graphs that will make you gasp: Status of Women in Political Science (American Political Science Association)
  7. The Best – and Worst – States to Avoid Income Taxes (Bloomberg News)

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"Bernie Bros" by Lauren Ratliff

“Bernie Bros” by Lauren Ratliff

Informed Weekend: 10 Links I Learned From This Week (Vol. 18)

Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:

  1. Presidential Election Update
    1. Bernie wins Wisconsin
    2. Cruz wins Wisconsin, beating Trump
  2. These two maps are incredibly revealing about who’s voting for Trump and why (The Washington Post)
  3. Panama Papers? What are those?
    1. The Panama Papers leak, explained with an adorable comic about piggy banks (Vox)
    2. The 8 most important things to read to understand the Panama Papers document leak (Vox)
    3. The Panama Papers are super awkward for Beijing (The Washington Post)
    4. The Panama Papers show something that Bernie Sanders gets right about the economy (Vox)
  4. One Person, One Vote, Eight Justices (The Atlantic)
  5. Why are so many Democrats and Republicans Pretending to Be Independents (The Washington Post)
  6. The Researchers Who Sank a Bogus Canvassing Study Have Replicated Some of its Findings (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

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"Wisconsin Primary" by tadfad (CC BY-NC 2.0)

“Wisconsin Primary” by tadfad (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Frankenstein’s Monster

Written by Jakob Miller

Back in 2012, something weird happened during the presidential primaries. It was quite a bit like the primary season we’re going through now — fewer candidates, but the same jockeying for position. Nothing odd there.

No, the odd thing was who was supporting who. The doves in the Republican party — the anti-war camp, that is — were largely backing John McCain.

John McCain flags down a bus.
Photo by Medill DC. (CC BY 2.0)

Now, if you’re familiar with Senator McCain, you’re probably quite puzzled at hearing that. If you aren’t, then McCain’s position can perhaps best be summed up by the fact that at the time he was criticizing the Pentagon for not asking for enough soldiers. He was going to send more tanks than they even wanted. A gung-ho hawk, in other words.

So why would anti-war folks back a heavily pro-war candidate? It’s not a one-off mistake. Norpoth and Perkins1 point out that when Eugene McCarthy ran for President in 1968, for example, he somehow got the support of those in favor of the Vietnam War — despite being against it himself.

Instead, it all starts to become clear if you think of people like Frankenstein’s Monster.

Yes I know this is actually Herman.
Photo by ICH. (CC BY 2.0)

Frankenstein’s monster can’t form complicated opinions, just an object and a level of satisfaction. So “FIRE…BAD!” is about the limit there.

The American voting public is about the same. “TAXES BAD! FLAG GOOD!” So if you’re a dove in the Republican Party and John McCain starts criticizing the way the war is being run, you’re thinking “WAR BAD” and he’s saying “WAR BAD”. The actual content of his criticism — that the current war is bad because we aren’t sending enough troops — never makes it across.

Imagine the sum total of all those unsophisticated opinions — this is the zombie army version of the Frankenstein’s monster model, if you like. So we take all the demands for conservative policies (“TAX CUTS GOOD, MILITARY CUTS BAD”, etc.) and we get a general sense of the public’s policy mood: the degree to which the hordes of American voters are droning “CONSERVATIVE GOOD” or what have you.

When you change the temperature on your thermostat, you don’t have a complicated opinion either. It’s too hot or too cold, and you give the knob a twist in the appropriate direction and wait to see how you feel. Repeat that pattern until some acceptable temperature is achieved. The public treats voting the same way: Things feel too liberal out there? That making you mad? Throw a Republican into office and see how you feel now!

Now, this style of voting is not exactly the democratic ideal. The public isn’t sitting and weighing the costs and benefits of one candidate’s policy platform against the others. They might not have any idea what either candidate’s position actually is: but that McCain guy’s mad, and I’m mad, and that’s good enough for me!

You can see this in our current voting cycle as well! We currently have two outsider candidates doing far better than anyone predicted.

Two angry men. Photo by Chicago Tribune, used under Fair Use.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are definitely from opposite sides of the aisle – and that’s what makes it odd when voters say things like this:

Daniel Nadeau, 22, of St. Albans, Vt., said of Mr. Trump. “Bernie is my No. 1 choice, and Trump is No. 2. They’re not that different.” New York Times.

They may be bitterly opposed ideologically: but Bernie and the Donald are both angry. They both give voice to pent up political frustrations. And for a lot of Americans, that’s good enough.

Now, if you’re cynical enough that that doesn’t surprise or bother you:

  1. Congratulations on your future career in politics! And..
  2. Consider the implications.

If you’re in an elected office, conventional wisdom would say that you should deliver. If you got in because the public was in the mood for more liberal policy, you had better come up with some liberal reforms if you want to keep your seat.

Buuuuut… If you only got elected because the public was hungry for change, then it’s in your best interest to keep them hungry. If you actually go around delivering on your campaign promises, you’d reduce the public’s demand for liberal policy. All those angry zombies that got you into office would quiet down, and you’d have handed the advantage over to your conservative competitor come reelection time as his zombies get all fired up.2 If the public was paying attention to the details of what you actually did, and rewarding you appropriately, then there wouldn’t be a problem: but Frankenstein Smiley..

America is like a country with a broken thermostat — when we turn the heat up, the furnace has a vested interest in keeping the house cold because of how much it hates the air conditioner. So the next time a politician gets under your skin for not keeping their campaign promises, consider this: would you do any better?

Footnotes

1. Link.
2. Link.

Informed Weekend: 10 Links I Learned From This Week (Vol. 17)

Here are the ten(ish) links I learned from this week:

  1. Presidential Election Update
    1. Sanders wins Washington, Hawaii and Alaska. But will they be enough? (Vox)
    2. The presidential campaign is making Americans like Obama – and that’s good for Dems in November (Vox)
    3. The more people pay attention to the 2016 campaign, the more it bums them out (The Washington Post)
    4. Does Hillary Clinton’s gender hurt her among male voters? Political scientists weigh in. (Vox)
    5. How the candidates’ tax plans will affect you, in 4 charts (Vox)
  2. New data show how liberal Merrick Garland really is (The Washington Post)
  3. Here’s why economists should be more humble, even when they have great ideas (The Washington Post)
  4. Public sector unions just avoided a huge defeat at the Supreme Court (Vox)
  5. Failure is Moving Science Forward (FiveThirtyEight)
  6. How to Manage Your Inner Critic (Lean In)
  7. We’re in a new era of international cooperation against terrorism. Is that good or bad? (The Washington Post)

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Barak Obama by Jose Luis Agapito (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Barak Obama by Jose Luis Agapito (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)