Nate Silver believes that voters in West Virginia actually wanna get price gouged
for pharmaceutical drugs, and they actually enjoy not having the safety and
security of things like paid family leave.
In fact, in a tweet, the questionable statistician said this.
If you believe statements such as polls show Build Back Better is super
popular in West Virginia, then I have a bridge to sell you.
BBB polls just barely better than break even nationally.
It is not going to be popular in a state Biden lost by 39 points.
Now it's true that West Virginia did not favor Biden, but
they're not being asked to support Biden.
They're being asked to support legislation that has very specific provisions which by
the way, wow, shocking have been pulled and they don't barely break even.
So I wanna get to those details in a moment.
But before I do, I just want to note that Nate Silver is the exact
type of person who not only gets a lot of polls wrong himself by the way, but
seems to really wanna preserve the status quo.
So for instance, organized workers in West Virginia actually love the legislation.
Coal Miner's union urges Manchin to reconsider opposition to Biden plan.
Who is against the build back better agenda?
West Virginia Chamber of Commerce supports Manchin's rejection of Build Back Better.
Wow, what a shocker.
So I wanna go to one pole, but we have a few that we can give you data from.
This one is from data for progress, it's the one that we have cited before and
it shows how West Virginians feel in regard to Build Back Better and,
wow, what a shocker.
So even with all those Republican voters in West Virginia,
57% of likely voters support the legislation.
>> Including 43% of Republicans, which is a big number among Republicans.
And especially in a given the context,
they're telling them it's their democratic plan.
Now, as we're gonna show you when you get into the specific provisions,
it is far, far more popular.
And if you're wondering, hey, I don't get it, how could the provisions in the bill
be really popular and then the overall bill is slightly less popular, okay?
Well, there's a good reason for that.
It's called marketing.
And so the Republicans say, it's terrible, I can't believe, it is the worst.
Than Manchin and Cinema and other corporate Democrats come and go, it's
too expensive, it's just gonna create the deficit, inflation, it's terrible, right?
And then mainstream media comes and goes, it's too big, how you gonna pay for that?
How you gonna pay?
It's way too big, way too big.
It's terrible, right?
And then Right-Wing Media, of course, bashes the living crap out of it.
And then Democratic leadership comes in and says nothing, nothing at all, right?
Like every once in a while these pundits right there,
I can't believe how little they know about politics.
They're like, I don't get it man, the provisions are so popular.
I'm not just talking about Build Back Better, this happens in almost every bill.
But when you say Obamacare, it becomes less popular.
Isn't that weird?
No, it's not weird, it's marketing.
People don't know the details of each bill.
When you ask them the details, they love it.
When you say it's a terrible, awful bill and both parties and
all the mainstream media agree then they go, I guess it's a terrible bill, right?
And even so it's still popular in west Virginia.
Do you do any polling at all, any at all?
Or is your job to manipulate the polling to try to support the status quo?
>> Well, we'll get to Nate Silver's political instincts in just a moment.
But I wanna stick to the polls for now and give you the popularity of
the specific provisions that are included in the legislation.
Well, some of which were previously included in the legislation, but
were later stripped out because of Joe Manchin.
So when it came to paid family and medical leave, wow, real popular.
So this is obviously pulling both Democrats and Republicans and
with both parties included,
70% of likely voters in West Virginia support paid family and medical leave.
That's shocking.
I thought that West Virginians were just so different from every other human being.
I thought that they loved the idea of not having that protection if they had a new
baby in the family, or
needed to take some time off because someone was sick in the family.
But, wow, it turns out that they're just like us, West Virginia is just like us.
Let's give you more.
Childcare, 66% of likely West Virginia voters favor
that provision, financial help with childcare.
I wanna go to expanded child tax credits.
What a shocker.
61% of likely voters are also in support of that, as our 59% of voters in
favor of the Universal pre K that is part of the Build Back Better agenda as well.
Now let's go back to the child tax credit,
because that is real popular all throughout the country.
But also of course with West Virginia voters, this is a different poll, okay?
So I found a separate poll that asked voters about that particular provision,
here's what they found.
This is from parents together action,
they represent 2.5 million families across the country.
Parents overwhelmingly,
86% reported that the monthly payments have made a huge difference for
their families, and 88% said they made them less anxious about their finances.
Less than 4% of respondents said the payments don't make much of a difference.
Again, this is West Virginia, specifically.
And here's what the respondents said would likely happen if
the child tax credit program ended.
And by the way, the last payment was made last week,
it's done unless Build Back Better passes with this provision.
The child tax credit is over.
30% said that they would no longer be able to afford their rent/mortgage.
27% said that they would need to start spending their savings just to
meet their families most basic needs.
And 26% said they wouldn't be able to buy enough food.
But Nate Silver believes that since West Virginia didn't support Biden in
the general election, they must love not having any support
from the Federal government that would materially improve their lives,
because that's the big brain action happening at 5:38.
>> So there's a lot of people who do polling.
You could wonder, hey, how did Nate Silver get famous in the first place?
Now you can say, hey listen, he did a better job than the rest of the mainstream
media in polling past elections like 2012, right?
And there's some truth to that, we've covered that in the past.
But the other reason why Nate Silver was picked out of
the obscurity of all the different pollsters,
is because he fit a narrative that mainstream media liked, okay?
So hey, take each pole and tell everyone how progressive positions
are unpopular despite what the polling say, okay?
Ignore nine out of ten polls that say one thing like, hey, for example,
in this case, not a policy position but a candidate, Bernie Sanders.
Tons of poles in 2016 had him performing better against Donald Trump than
Hillary Clinton did.
And Nate Silver would take one where he didn't and go, that's the one.
And then he would be brought on to morning Joe and celebrated and etc.
And in his sense, paid to ignore polls he doesn't like and
the mainstream media doesn't like and corporate rule doesn't like.
So in this case though, it's deeply embarrassing,
almost all of the polling is against them.
And then they go around saying, well, I mean, paid family leave only pulls at 70%
in West Virginia how could we possibly pressure Manchin into it?
>> Barely breaks even, barely breaks even.
>> [LAUGH] And he says, he's got a bridge to sell us.
Are you insane?
Do you do any actual data at all anymore?
Or is it just, wow, I mean, Republicans and corporate Democrats are all awesome,
who cares about the goddamn polling.
That's what Nate Silver has devolved into.
I'll give you one more that Anna didn't give you.
So negotiating drug prices through Medicare polls at 83% in Virginia.
What part of that is unpopular?
So, all right, give me the goddamn bridge Nate.
Give me the goddamn bridge.
Those are the polls.
You on the other hand, what was his tweet.
If you believe statements such as the polls show BBB is super popular in
West Virginia that has a bridge over the river to sell you with no.
Actually, no quote of any polls.
No sighting of any polls at all.
Like I just don't agree with corporate rules [LAUGH].
Well, where's the goddamn numbers Nate, nah.
No, it's just okay.
He's totally lying.
>> He's conflating the lack of popularity that voters in West Virginia feel for
Joe Biden with how they feel about the various provisions that are included in
the Build Back Better agenda.
But I'm not done with Nate Silver in regard to his political instincts.
I think that's worth discussing briefly as well.
So I just wanna remind you all that Nate Silver actually reminds me a lot
of the head of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign Robby Mook.
Because Robbie made a lot of mistakes cuz he was obsessed with doing.
He made all of his decisions based on data.
He was like the science guy.
Made a lot of bad choices, made a lot of mistakes.
And when I read into Nate Silver's previous predictions and
what really drives him, he just reminds me of him, of Robby Mook.
Now in 2016, remember Nate Silver put Trump's
chances of winning the presidential election at 29%.
So how did that work out for you?
But let me give you more.
>> And by the way, Anna can I just say a real quick on that.
They give him credit for that cuz they say, well,
he did better than other idiot mainstream media pundits who loved Hillary Clinton so
much, they thought she had a 200% chance of winning, right?
That's damning with faint praise.
Aaron on the other hand, went on ABC this week and said Trump was gonna win, okay?
Who was right and who was wrong?
So and I hate Trump, but
I don't let my bias get in the way of actually reading data, whereas Nate Silver
can't read any data apparently without going to the status quo is great.
This confirms the mainstream and establishment politicians
are all awesome because why, he's cherry picking if it is agenda.
So the New Republic had a pretty great piece on Nate Silver and
his political instincts and Aaron TIMS writes this.
As he recounts in the signal and the noise, his interest in it or
interest in politics was the result of frustration rather
than any affection for the political process.
He only began paying attention when politics threatened
his economic self interest.
In 2006, Congress banned online poker from which Silver had by that
stage made $400,000, and his political awakening was assured, okay?
>> By the way, that's actually the one thing that gives me respect
for Nate [LAUGH].
>> Really, he's like worried about his online,
I don't care about online gambling, but I love how he's like, regulations.
I mean, think about what drove him, right?
His financial interests and regulations.
>> And you're gonna see why he loves corporate rules so much in a second but
Nate, I'm also happy to take you on in poker.
>> Though, he later dressed it up as a noble transparency initiative,
Silver initially saw data-driven political forecasting as a business opportunity, and
nothing about that transactional view of politics has left him in the year since.
This is why, for example, Silver has characterized the financial crisis
as a failure of prediction [LAUGH] rather than a failure of policy.
>> Absurd.
>> Big brains, big brains.
Let me give you one more.
>> Because you know what leads to actual events in the real world, predictions.
Not policy, policy does not affect anything.
It just floats on a cloud.
But once you make a prediction, that makes things come true.
Really, can anybody be that dense?
>> And it is why FiveThirtyEight which Silver conceived in 2008
while drunk on Cajun Martinis waiting for a flight out of New Orleans,
remains to this day a political website with no politics or
rather no politics beyond a mute approval of the status quo.
>> So Anna, that's interesting you pick those quotes,
cuz I thought the most interesting part of the New Republic piece was
Nate Silver saying that he was somewhere between, and this is curious.
I don't know what he meant.
Somewhere between a liberal and libertarian, first of all,
libertarian red flag, okay?
That means I hate regulation, Republicans are right about everything.
Okay, and corporations are right about everything, deregulate them, okay, and
give them tax cuts.
Okay, but then he went on to say that he was somewhere between Gary Johnson and
Mitt Romney.
>> Yeah, makes sense, it makes sense.
>> Where is the liberal part?
I mean, even if you take liberal as the pejorative,
I still don't see one [LAUGH] in there, right?
So, no, it turns out you're between a libertarian and
a corporate Republican which by the way, actually explains everything.
And so that's why he cherry picks the data that always supports the establishment,
instead of actually looking at the real numbers.
So that's why I wanna play poker with him.
I don't even know if he's telling the truth or exaggerating and
doing more marketing with about $400,000 game in poker, right?
But if he cherry picks like this, no, no,
my data indicates that my jacks are better than your aces.
Does it?
[LAUGH] Kid, it's not how the real world works.
And that's apparently he has great trouble reading numbers.
But guys, I just wanna say it's not just about Nate Silver,
mainstream media is amazing.
Jonathan Chit wrote and he's super respected in Washington circles.
Wrote that Manchin's feelings were hurt through this whole process,
and that's why he voted against the Build Back Better or killed it.
They didn't get to vote yet.
And he views that as perfectly normal.
Even if it was true, the feelings of someone in the elite is way more important
than what all of his voters want.
30% of them can't pay the rent or mortgage.
Who cares the feelings of an elite have been violated in temple's basement?
Okay, that's another reference.
[LAUGH] Anyway, so guys think about how absurd that is.
And then you know what his suggestion was to fix it.
He said Biden should apologize to me.
>> I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.
I wish you hadn't told me that.