Jamelle Bouie: Why the “October Surprise” Is Dead

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/why_the_weiner_emails_won_t_matter.html


Oct. 28 2016 5:14 PM
Why the “October Surprise” Is Dead

Whatever they reveal, the new Weiner emails probably won’t hurt Clinton. Tribalism reigns.
By Jamelle Bouie

snip//

At this stage, we have no idea how this development will shape the last 11 days of the presidential race. Tens of millions of Americans have already voted in battleground states like North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Nevada. Given the effect of past email news, it’s possible this will turn off independent or undecided voters from Clinton. It’s also possible that her negatives are already baked in and won’t budge. And it’s possible, perhaps likely, that it won’t matter at all.

Everyone agrees that American politics is more partisan and more polarized than it’s ever been. But not everyone grasps why that’s important. It’s not just Congress and the ability of our institutions to make progress and accomplish their goals. It’s also our elections.

This polarization is so strong, in fact, that it renders the gaffes of recent elections almost irrelevant.

The folk theory of American democracy is that citizens deliberate on the issues and choose a candidate. That is false. The truth, as political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels describe in Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, is that voters are tribalistic. Their political allegiances come first, and their positions and beliefs follow. We’ve seen this with Donald Trump. Support for free trade is a longstanding belief within the GOP, but Trump is a major opponent, slamming most of the trade deals of the past 30 years. You would think that this would depress his support among Republican voters. It didn’t. Instead, those voters changed their views of trade. Their beliefs followed their affiliations, not the other way around.

When it comes to elections—or at least, presidential elections—this leads to an important conclusion: What a candidate believes is less important to voters than his or her partisan affiliation. Trump has passionate supporters who believe in his message of ethnonationalism and racial exclusion. But the reason he’s a stone’s throw from the White House isn’t because he’s convinced 50 million Americans that he’s right. The reason Trump is relatively close is that he’s the Republican presidential nominee, and in a partisan, highly polarized country, that’s enough. In the past four presidential elections, major party nominees have won the vast majority of co-partisans—upward of 90 percent. Simply having the nomination is sufficient to put anyone in firing distance of becoming president, regardless of larger circumstances or events or personality deficiencies.

[Mme. Defarge]

1. So, my simplistic take on things was right -

it's a team thing?

[babylonsister]

2. I live in FL; I think

it's a party thing for many people. As long as there is an (r) after someone's name, that's who will get their vote regardless of how revolting that person is. So yes, that's a team thing imo.

[Mme. Defarge]

3. Occam's Razor!