LOL What? Nate Silver Pushes Conspiracy Theory About Biden's DNC Speech Timing.
LOL What? Nate Silver Pushes Conspiracy Theory About Biden's DNC Speech Timing.
PLUS: Some more thoughts on fact-checking.
By the time President Joe Biden took the stage to deliver the keynote speech Monday at the Opening Night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, it was nearly 10:30 p.m. local time. The night’s programming had run long (so much so that singer-songwriter James Taylor’s planned performance was bumped for time), but there’s nothing particularly shocking about that — conventions and awards shows often run late. Still, 10:30 p.m. local time (11:30 p.m. Eastern) is historically late for a sitting president speaking at his party’s convention.
Most people probably thought nothing (or little) of the late start. , on the other hand… well, he saw something more sinister at play.
Silver took to Twitter to express his suspicions, despite lacking… well… any evidence to support his claims:
“The media is very East Coast focused though, you’ve gotta be pretty naive to think the prolonged DNC tonight is for any reason other than diminishing Biden’s visibility,” Silver tweeted. “This is not a close call give me a break. Like how pilled do you have to be to think it’s just a coincidence that the President of the United States doesn’t speak until so late.”
He continued the following day:
"I've been to literally hundreds of conferences and conventions, some of which are incredibly logistically complicated, and if you have an incentive to make them run on time, they run on time or at least pretty close. DNC had the opposite incentive," he wrote on Tuesday. "Speaker took longer than their allotted slot time? Yeah no shit. This is 100% predictable and 100% preventable if you care about preventing it."
Silver added, "Apart from wanting to knock Biden way out of prime time, conventions generally don't mind a going a little long since that means more overall TV hours. So the equibrium is that the official schedule is obvious BS, but the networks start their coverage pretty late."
These tweets present Silver's conspiracy theorization as fact, despite the lack of substantiating evidence beyond his personal interpretation of the event's timing.
This sort of baseless conspiracy-mongering is funny coming from Silver, a man who once prided himself on data-driven political analysis. The contrast between these tweets and his former reputation for measured commentary is almost comical.
What makes this Twitter rant even more bizarre is its timing. In the middle of peddling this unfounded theory, on August 20th, the New York Times published an op-ed by Silver titled "I Have Been Studying Poker for Years. Kamala Harris Isn't Bluffing." In this piece, Silver presents an analysis of the 2024 presidential race through the risk management lens. If you know you have a big piece going up at the Times, why would you spend the hours before and after publication floating theories? It’s weird.
In his Times piece, Silver presents himself as a poker-savvy analyst, coolly assessing the political landscape. Meanwhile, on Twitter, he's tossing around terms like "pilled" and making declarations based on vibes. It's as if he's playing intellectual hopscotch.
This isn't so much a cautionary tale as it is a reminder that even the most supposedly level-headed analysts — though I’m not sure how much that describes Silver these days — aren't immune to the siren song of hot takes and light conspiracy-mongering. It's almost endearing, in a "Dad discovers Internet forums" kind of way.
What the fact? DNC “fact-checking” is starting to get a bit absurd.
In yesterday’s newsletter, I wrote about one of the more ridiculous attempts at “fact-checking” the Democratic National Convention speeches.
And in the past, I’ve written about how Snopes and PolitiFact often miss the mark on fact checks in ham-fisted attempts to appear “balanced.”
But today, I want to share some posts by others about fact-checking. Enjoy!
“Let’s fact-check some historic speeches” (The Washington Post, Alexandra Petri, 8/21/24)
The Post’s resident satirist pokes fun at some of the absurd “fact-checks” we’ve seen this week — even those from her own paper.
Ah, the cherished morning ritual of reading the fact-checks of the speeches delivered the night before! I have been reading the fact-checks of Democratic National Convention speeches, and I thought, “What would have happened if fact-checkers had been around centuries — or even millennia — ago?” Probably something like this.
“Give me liberty, or give me death.” — Patrick Henry
Check: No one person can give you liberty; liberty is a process made up over time by many people! Death can be administered to you by anyone. It is not feasible for someone to give you liberty.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first inaugural address
Check: We also have to fear the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler. On a more local scale, we have to fear being unable to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, and some people are afraid of cramped spaces (this is called claustrophobia) or large ones (agoraphobia) or the number 13 (triskaidekaphobia).
“The fact-checking industrial complex” (, , 8/21/24)
Trump has little regard for accuracy, so Kessler included many other clear examples of Trump peddling lies.
But the Washington Post and other major media outlets do not view fact-checking only as a vehicle to scrutinize false claims. They also view it as an opportunity to demonstrate that they are unbiased and treat both sides — Republicans and Democrats — equally. This is where the trouble starts.
Last night, President Joe Biden and many other speakers addressed the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Without a doubt, Biden and other Democrats said some misleading things. For example, Biden claimed that he was "removing every lead pipe from schools and homes so every child can drink clean water." Biden did secure $15 billion for that task through the Inflation Reduction Act, but removing all lead pipes will likely cost a total of $45 billion.
But, from a factual standpoint, there is no comparison between Trump and Biden's speeches. Trump is completely unmoored from the facts. Biden gets things wrong but much less frequently than Trump.
Nevertheless, the fact-checking industry has attempted to prove its objectivity by producing similar pieces for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This requires some sleight of hand. Kessler's fact check on the night Trump spoke to the RNC was limited exclusively to Trump. Other noted fabulists on the agenda, including Tucker Carlson, Franklin Graham, Alina Habba, and Eric Trump, were ignored. Kessler's fact check of Biden's speech to the DNC included all other speakers on Monday evening.
“Save Us From the Tyranny of the Fact Checking Dorks” (, , 8/20/24)
Think back to your time in elementary school. Now try and remember the worst, most obnoxious, most anal-retentive kid in your class: the one who insisted on being right, no matter how annoying it made them. The sort of second grader who would leap out of their seat to tell the teacher that “ACTUALLY tomatoes are a FRUIT not a VEGETABLE” (oh my god shut up who cares?) and then wait for a round of applause that never comes. I’m sure you know the type of kid I’m talking about. Hell, maybe you were the type of kid I’m talking about — if so, consider buying a few extra Discourse subscriptions to gift to your elementary school classmates as penance for being such a pain in the ass back then.
What you are not, however (at least I hope not), is the inevitable developmental endpoint of that sort of insufferably pedantic personality type: the professional fact checker. Because, if you were a professional fact checker, odds are pretty good that you’d be out there fucking this entire election cycle up, instead of reading this silly little blog about how much you’re f*cking this entire election cycle up.
"How pilled do you have to be to think it's just a coincidence..." is an incredibly pilled thing to say
Seems like an outbreak of JK Rowling Syndrome, you stake out a position online and then CANNOT BACK DOWN NO MATTER WHAT. Then defending your position becomes your whole identity, then it becomes your whole reason for being.