I find the whole Jonathan Gruber flap - hes the MIT economist and former Obamacare architect who was recently caught on record stating that American voters are stupid and this is part of how Obamacare got passed - to be very grimdark-amusing. My best guess is that every journalist writing about Gruber also believes that American voters are stupid, but knows that youre not supposed to say so openly. All the politicians trying to exploit the gaffe also believe, in unison, that Gruber was right and voters are stupid and his mistake was being too honest. Furthermore, voters *know* that politicians believe voters are stupid - the voters have seen _House of Cards_ or similar movies or TV shows, they gave Congress a 13% approval rating, theyre not completely naive about what politicians are like. The less recursion-wise journalists and politicians, I expect, are modeling voters as children indignant at the suggestion that theyre stupid and being unable to take criticism, whose anger can now be exploited. I suspect the truth is more like voters being in on the conspiracy and knowing that there is a pretense that politicians are supposed to maintain in public, whatever the voters know perfectly well that politicians are saying in private. And everyone, including the voters, knows that what happens next is that Gruber gets crucified for being too honest. The Democratic politicians are facepalming over Grubers stupidity in saying what everyone knows you shouldnt say out loud. The Republican politicians are rubbing their hands over the mistake Gruber made, which they now get to exploit in front of all the voters... who *know* that everyone in Washington believes what Gruber just said, but everyones universal expectation that its now time for Gruber to be crucified *makes* the crucifixion something that wins Republicans points. Basically just because the rules *say* that now the Republicans get points; and the voters are also in on the plot. So now the crucifixion is carried out, to formalize the Democratic face lost, more or less. Remember, as the crucifixion is carried out, the journalists writing about Gruber *also* think that voters are stupid. The voters reading the pundits being indignant about Jonathan Gruber *know* that voters are stupid is what everyone in Washington secretly believes. They *know* the pundit thinks that Grubers real stupidity was in getting caught. Im not sure whether the pundits know the voters know that, since I model pundits as perhaps not being able handle much recursion. Remember that, each time you read some pundit being indignant about how terribly, terribly awful Gruber is for saying voters are stupid. And I predict that no newspaper and probably not even any blog outside this Facebook wall has said what is really going on. Its not that nobody knows, but that everyone believes that voters cant handle recursion. #gruber #grubergate #ProfessorQuirrellLaughing
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 01:56:31 +0000