Both sides of the aisle have a love-hate relationship with Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame.
Republicans mostly dislike the numeric prognosticator for his left-leaning tendencies. He is an out-and-proud Democrat, of course, but that’s par for any personality in major media these days. In most instances, Silver is among the less obnoxious of leftist virtual signaling reporters.
Democrats often like Silver, except for the times they don’t. For example, the founder of FiveThirtyEight was calling for a near-certain chance that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency, right up to the point that she didn’t. In other words, they hung on his prediction like it was the Holy Bible of political analysis. It was not and many a Democrat spent election night screaming into their pillow over Silver’s flawed analysis.
That was then, this is now.
Heading into the 2024 election, Democrats have an entirely new reason to hate, or maybe love, Nate Silver, again.
In a recent Substack article, Silver says it’s time for the Biden White House to either put up or shut up:
Personally, I crossed the rubicon in November, concluding that Biden should stand down if he wasn’t going to be able to run a normal reelection campaign — meaning, things like conduct a Super Bowl interview. Yes, it’s a huge risk and, yes, Biden can still win. But he’s losing now and there’s no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong or that voters look at the race differently when they have more time to focus on it. Neither is so implausible and it is likely to be a close race. But even the most optimistic Democrats, if you read between the lines, are really arguing that Democrats could win despite Biden and not because of him. Biden is probably a below-replacement-level candidate at this point because Americans have a lot of extremely rational concerns about the prospect of a Commander-in-Chief who would be 86 years old by the end of his second term. It is entirely reasonable to see this as disqualifying.
It’s circular logic to wonder why Joe Biden is being kept quiet away from interviews and journalist questions. He can’t handle the pressure and stress of it all and it’s causing him to lose support and bottom-out his poll numbers. In that regard, Biden should get out there and do more interviews. But, he can’t. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That is the pattern Joe Biden’s handlers are stuck in.
Silver correctly recognizes that a ship heading for an iceberg must be course-corrected or it will collide with the inevitable. In this case, Biden is such a weak and flawed candidate and the iceberg is Donald Trump. Despite Trump’s shortcomings, Biden is becoming the worse choice of two options many voters aren’t enthused with.
The prescription for this raging fever, according to Silver, is… more media:
Here’s what I’d propose. Over the course of the next several weeks, Biden should do four lengthy sitdown interviews with “non-friendly” sources. “Non-friendly” doesn’t mean hostile: nonpartisan reporters with a track record of asking tough questions would work great. A complete recording of the interviews should be made public. The interviews ought to include a mix of different media (e.g. television and print) and journalistic perspectives.
The point is that if Joe Biden is as awesome as the White House propagandists would have you believe, then let him go be awesome addressing questions and answering to reporters.
That seems like it’s merely another part of the circular logic discussed above. Joe Biden’s handlers cannot send him to speak to the press at length, it would be a disaster.
What happens when the next couple of months go by with no change? When is time to put up or shut up? It doesn’t seem like Joe Biden wants to shut up quietly.
The big problem is that Silver is talking about a ship that already sailed. The view of Biden as incapable and in over his head is baked in. There is nothing to change that now. Not even a media blitz tour as Silver suggests.
It’s too little, too late. Americans know what life is like under Joe Biden.
A softball interview with the Washington Post editorial board isn’t going to move the needle.
