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Monday, January 6, 2020

The Accepted Wisdom

It's never too often to remind people that in politics you can't just look at the accepted wisdom of the crowd.  Let me illustrate:

Six months ago, the betting odds as to who would be the Democrat nominee for president in 2020 put Elizabeth Warren at roughly 20%.  By three months ago, that number had soared to the point where the bettors gave her a 55% chance of being the nominee.  On that basis, the accepted wisdom was that Warren was extremely likely to be the nominee.  As of today, however, those same bettors have Warren down to only a 15% chance of winning the nomination.  So the accepted wisdom of the crowd was that six months ago Warren had a small chance, three months ago she was almost a shoo-in and now her chances are extremely small.

On his show, Tucker Carlson always says that he is the enemy of "group think".  That's just another way of saying that he won't abide by the accepted wisdom of the crowd.  It would be great if the rest of the media tried to follow that rule as well, but all too often just the opposite is true.  One reporter writes about what another has said and the story is repeated and repeated.  It doesn't become any more accurate, but it still gets wide credence.  Think for example of the Russian collusion tale that places like CNN and MSNBC pushed and pushed along with the rest of the mainstream media.  Trump colluded with Russia was like a mantra that they chanted.  Except, as it turned out, the whole story just was not true.

Don't listen to the crowd.  Investigate for yourself and THINK for yourself.

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