Looks like it's time to wrap things up on the election. We have a few threads with some posts still sitting in the scheduled or draft folders. There's definitely more to say about what's going on at the New York Times and about Elon's misadventures as a political operative, though that's really more a part of our ongoing Musk megathread.
Most of our election blogging over the past year or so has been anecdotes and snapshots, Gathering data in case we want to do a bigger picture retrospective once the dust has settled. I had something like that in mind for 2016 but the outcome of that election was so shocking that I never had the heart to get around to it. This time, regardless of what happens, I am not going to be surprised.
As for the models, N = 0
This is an unprecedented election along numerous dimensions. We have never had one of the two major parties openly embraced fascism. We've never had an issue like Dobbs, though Brown v. Board of Education does come close. We've never had a race with this many upheavals or a press this dysfunctional. We've never had a gap this large between perception and reality in terms of public policy. This is only a partial list.
Add to that the growing concerns over the state of political polling and the number of anomalies we have already witnessed. We don't know where we stand and if we did, we still wouldn't know how things might change at the last minute. (And, yes, experts will tell you that voters don't change their minds at the last minute. They know this because voters haven't done so in previous elections. See the previous paragraph.)
The blog will also be on revisionism watch. No matter how events unfold over the next few days, there will be a great number of famous and highly paid people who will do their best to make us forget how wrong they got things. We are going to do our best to make that difficult for them.
So, if you haven't already, vote then turn off the news (it will only raise your blood pressure) and watch a good movie. Here's a suggestion.
Sherlock Jr - 1924
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