On campus, I continue to be on the look out for political things to post on. There is still quite a bit, most of it leftover from the November 6th election. However, I am not terribly optimistic about new stuff being put up soon, or perhaps even for a while. On campus (and I'm sure in schools, workplaces and homes across the country) people are on the whole just happy to be done with the election, happy to move on and stop concentrating on politics. So I doubt many people will have much motivation to put new stuff up around campus, or at least not stuff directly related with election politics. And even for stuff that is up, I question the political motivation for people to post themselves or do anything to things that I post (other than perhaps take them down in a "OMG i'm so done with politics" kind of way). However, I will continue to check in here for the blog on a week by week basis in case anything significant happens.
Meanwhile, on the national scene, political memes have slowed down quite a bit, mostly, if I had to guess, due to the same relief that the election is over that I mentioned above. Indeed, now that all of the elections have passed, it seems that the only political things I see on social media are people talking about how happy they are not to see politics online anymore.
That being said, I would like to bring your attention to three narratives that have emerged from the election or have followed the election. Though these have perhaps, in the least, only started to emerge in imagery, I wonder if we will start to see more of them, especially as they start to get distributed more by the news and late-night talks shows.
1. Nate Silver. The young statistician has become something of a Generation Y folk hero, à la Mark Zuckerburg, after he and his FiveThirtyEight blog accurately predicted the outcome of all 50 states in the 2012 election, and maintained that Obama would win fairly handily despite many polls calling for a closer race. He's seen as something of a legend amongst many, especially those of the internet age who believe that data from computer savvy whiz-kids never lie and are likely to question the numbers being fed to them by the older (usually more conservative) media sources that supply most polling data. So, like any good phenomenon, Silver started to get worked over online. There was the infamous #drunknatesilver, on Twitter, in which people went online and falsely reported incidents about Nate drunkly walking around and predicting things about everyday people like when they'll die. Then there was also the hilarious isnatesilverawitch.com, which finally came to conclusion that he must be endowed with supernatural powers to be so accurate.
All of this is coupled with the fact that Silver makes conservatives uncomfortable. Many were quick to criticize him and his model in the weeks leading up to the election, drawing from a seemingly never ending list of claims of things that the 538 didn't take into account. And since the election has passed, many have reflected on his predictions while wondering how Republicans will have to choose their approach to future elections due to changing demographics.
Twitter celeb that makes Democrats happy and conservatives nervous? Sounds like a formula for a future images to me! My guess is that liberals start to use him and his graph more to try claim that their party will dominate future elections, making the trend seem inevitable and logical.
All of this is coupled with the fact that Silver makes conservatives uncomfortable. Many were quick to criticize him and his model in the weeks leading up to the election, drawing from a seemingly never ending list of claims of things that the 538 didn't take into account. And since the election has passed, many have reflected on his predictions while wondering how Republicans will have to choose their approach to future elections due to changing demographics.
Twitter celeb that makes Democrats happy and conservatives nervous? Sounds like a formula for a future images to me! My guess is that liberals start to use him and his graph more to try claim that their party will dominate future elections, making the trend seem inevitable and logical.
One of Nate Silver's famous graphs. I believe they will start to become an even stronger symbol of reason in political projections in future election, regardless of these elections outcomes.
2. Karl Rove. The Republican strategist and SuperPAC power player has come under fire after the elction from the right and left. First, for spending so much money and guaranteeing a Republican victory to so many people in what ended up being a failed campaign. And second, for the awkward situation he created on Fox News during their election coverage, after he neglected to accept their prognosis that Obama had won Ohio and therefore the election, which went so far that Megyn Kelly, on air questioned him about his analysis, asking "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?" In this way, Rove seems to portray the opposite of Nate Silver, in that he is beginning to represent the faulty mindset of those who ignore reliable polling while forecasting and trying to sway elections. I believe that 2012 was a watershed year for PAC spending and those associated with them, and there failure could lead to a change in political dialogue. I believe that Rove's image and the way he organized during the 2012 campaign will be a large part of that dialogue.
3. The General Petraeus and Paula Broadwell Affair. I'ma put this up here. Call it a gut feeling. A story this bizarre and out of the blue, where all the perceptions of the CIA, military, and journalism ethics break down...the media storm has only just begun. For one thing, I think we're just beginning to experience questions about the timing of this announcement. All of this being announced right after the election? A coincidence? Not everyone is going to agree with that. People are going to politicize this, and the lure of a (steamy?) high-profile affair is just too good for this not to hit the internet full force. Images like this one are going start to get traction
I mean, c'mon, the book Broadwell wrote is called "All In." This stuff is just going to be too easy.
Some other stuff that has hit the web, but probably doesn't have specific political implications:
One of the more comical things that emerged since November 6th was the belief that Diane Sawyer was drunk during ABC's election coverage. Check that out here.
And something that has a little more meaning behind it, disappearingromney.com. This is a real-time graph of Mitt Romney's "likes" on Facebook decreasing. Though not to scale by any means, it is a telling indication of the fleeting meaning of social media and politics, or at least the suspicion that we are over-exagertating its importance. (Or maybe it's just saying that people on Facebook didn't actually like Mitt Romney. Take it as you will).
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