We Are Consuming This Election in the Worst Possible Way

At exactly 11:28 p.m. ET on Election Night, I, after drinking too much bourbon and answering too many anguished texts from terrified friends having Jacob’s Ladder-esque Election Night 2016 flashbacks, sent out this Tweet.

I had no specific expertise to make this judgment. I had just seen former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs on MSNBC reacting to Fox News’ election analysts calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden — a call that remains in dispute two days later, as it turns out — and that led me to playing around with the FiveThirtyEight Scenario Generator long enough that I realized Biden winning Arizona would gave him a very clear path as long as he hung on to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. (Apparently the Trump campaign felt the same way.) Gibbs looked confident, and I was a little drunk, and I was on social media, and that combination led me to make my (heavily caveated, incredibly cautious) prediction.

People reacted to my Tweet as if they were starving in the desert — as if I knew anything at all. Because my prediction appears to be coming true…