2016 Postmortem

however my studies of both statistics and psychology trend my view towards all polls as being very misleading and not always accurate, even the best ones. For example, Silver performed well for a time when he was not actually involved in punditry. Now that he is, he and his team are making mistakes. We have blurred the lines in politics too much between the subjective and the objective.

I tend to look now more at the pendulum swing of the American populace's opinion. It was pretty obvious once I saw Obama's marketing campaign (Hope & Change) in 2008 that he would win after the Bush years even if it was just a well packaged lie. I grew up in a moderate Republican bi-racial household. It was pretty easy after the Reagan/Bush/Bush II years of establishment power to see that a populist movement was developing there. The Tea Party was not surprising - the best of populism with the worst of the bigotry, religious insanity, and Randian egotism.

There is a populist movement growing on the left as well. It is very dissatisfied with the New Dems. It is rejecting neoliberalism economic policies and the leftist version of neo-conservativism in foreign policies. It is striving for a true blending of economic and social justice. And interesting article in a recent newsletter from the Mises Institute said that Sanders and Democratic Socialism are not outliers. This movement is very real, very strong, and growing within the left side of the political spectrum. Their conclusions are not mine, however, I do agree with their observations and assessment.

If Sanders does not take the White House in 2016, I am fairly confident in predicting that progressive Democratic Socialism will continue to rise. The anger and passion are there. 2018 & 2020 will see these candidates winning locally and nationally. I just hope that there is time before a Tea Partier becomes President. At this point I do not see Clinton beating the GOP in 2016.

Just some musings on the subject.