Pundits' Guide

OK, that's a wrap from me from the Sasha Issenberg talk. The bar is open, so I'm outta here.

Issenberg: US elxn was perfect storm for fake news. Q. Is the crisis of the competing echo chambers over? A. I don't want FBeditors deciding

Issenberg: Facebook's algorithm claims not to make news judgements, and hides the origins (eg kid in Macedonia), and makes it harder.

Issenberg: The fake news in this election rose to a level of attention not seen before, but same phenomenon has always existed as a concern.

Q. Fake news? A. New content phenomenon that wasn't clever enough to be parody, or sophisticated enough to be propaganda.

Issenberg: Most candidates are more risk averse than what Trump needed to be. So, if you want to copy him by going halfway, prob won't work.

Issenberg: Those lack of long-term goals in politics (eg, credibility, reputation) are what allowed Donald Trump to be recklessly outrageous

Q. Cdn reality TV star parallels? A. Don't overlearn so-called lessons of Trump. He responded to short-term factors, unlike most politicos.

Issenberg: If you wanted someone to mess w/ politicians and politics as usual, Trump spent 16 months showing just how he would do that.

Q. "Authenticity"? A. You can tell a lot about how a candidate would govern, by how they run their campaigns.

Issenberg: What wld have been catalyst for GOP voters to come home, if not Comey? Clinton camp never did manage email issue well for a year.

Issenberg: Clinton folks have not been terribly self-reflective in the immediate aftermath, and are rather singularly blaming Comey.

Q. Comey? Russians? A. Comey letter coincided with tribal Republican voters coming home to Trump, and probably reinforced it.

E.G., Issenberg notes that Vladimir Putin's approval ratings in the US have hiked in the past few weeks. Go figure.

Issenberg: Also nowadays, ppl's opinions are defined by what team they're on, as opposed to the time when it worked the opposite way.

A. So, apart from some racial variables, whether or not you have a college degree was single-best predictor of Clinton vs Trump voting.

A. Assumption was always that income was the best way to sort people into "class"es. Not true w/so much middle-class wage stagnation now.

Q. Also, did Trump steal the "change" narrative from Clinton. A. Well, not "steal". Clintons haven't had a change narrative working for ages

Q. Seems that it was not income that drove vote, but educational attainment? ("Barista vs Construction Worker" conundrum) True?