IMHO, Silver was rattled by the 2016 election and has been slowly sliding ever since, like a kicker who missed a field goal to end his team’s season and each year gets less and less reliable now that that original seed of doubt has taken root. I remember reading his first few pieces after that night and thinking how much they sounded like the smart kid on the debate team getting proven wrong on something.
Even in this piece there’s a lot of him making an assertion, and rather than backing it up with any evidence, he follows with, essentially, “XYZ is the truth, and it’s the truth because I said so and I’m a Very Smart Person™ and I’ve been saying this long before anyone else was saying it…and I knew it was true that long ago because I’m so smart.”
IMHO, Silver was rattled by the 2016 election and has been slowly sliding ever since, like a kicker who missed a field goal to end his team’s season and each year gets less and less reliable now that that original seed of doubt has taken root. I remember reading his first few pieces after that night and thinking how much they sounded like the smart kid on the debate team getting proven wrong on something.
Even in this piece there’s a lot of him making an assertion, and rather than backing it up with any evidence, he follows with, essentially, “XYZ is the truth, and it’s the truth because I said so and I’m a Very Smart Person™ and I’ve been saying this long before anyone else was saying it…and I knew it was true that long ago because I’m so smart.”