Right Facing New Unskewing Crisis?
JOSH MARSHALL – JANUARY 3, 2014, 1:52 PM EST
As you'll remember, in the last couple months of the 2012 presidential election, a growing body of opinion on right decided that if you took the available public polls (which pointed to an Obama victory) and shifted them several points in Romney's direction, suddenly they started saying Romney was the likely victor. Thus was born the great unskewing movement of 2012. Of course, it didn't turn out well.
It wasn't just ranters on Twitter who were fooled. The candidate himself, Mitt Romney, was shocked on news of his defeat because the unskewing movement had permeated into his own polling operation.
Of course, the greater problem was the conservative misinformation bubble, something that constitutes a powerful weapon is sustaining focus and esprit de corps but causes persistent problems maintaining touch with reality.
We now see something similar emerging with Obamacare, which is showing early signs of being on its way to become a relative success in policy. It is difficult to capture the full depth of paranoia, conspiracy-thinking and derp that has been pervasive on the right in recent years. Just one minor example: Here's Politifact, little over a month ago, feeling compelled to evaluate conservative claims that Obamacare would mandate beheadings in the US. Politifact rated it "pants on fire."
more:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/right-facing-new-deskewing-crisis
= new reply since forum marked as read
told the story. Life in the bubble meets rude awakening. T'was a thing of beauty.
