It's Not About Policy

 Matthew Yglesias coined the term Pundit's Fallacy to capture the idea that pundits tend to think that the reason something happened is because it aligns perfectly with what they've been saying all along. In his case, Harris lost because of zoning restrictions that make housing too expensive.

I think the corollary to this is something I've been saying for a while now: Policy does not move votes. The decades long war of the Republican Party on the idea that government can actually do things has worked to degrade the idea that when you vote for a person or party that you will be "rewarded" with policies you like. My eldest son say "everyone is corrupt" which is true in the sense that the political system is awash in money, but the actual workings of government - especially the federal government - are largely free of corruption. This, of course, is going to change in three weeks.

Paul Campos looks at the impact of Dobbs on the 2024 election, and it's striking. You have a remarkable shift in people's behaviors because of Dobbs, namely vasectomies and tubal ligations among men and women under the age of 35. That's a holy shit moment. Fertility rates are dropping perhaps because of the new landscape in women's reproductive health.

However, when you look at the actual voting patterns of young women - comparing 2020 and 2024 - what you see is just baffling, if you believe that policy moves votes. Here's the comparision:

Among women over 65, Harris improved over Biden by one point.
Among women 45-64, Harris did seven points worse and did not reach a majority.
Among women 30-44, Harris did the same as Biden.
Among women 18-29, Harris did six points worse, though still winning 61%.

So, young women of child bearing age did not vote for Harris in the numbers that they did for Biden, all the while dramatically curtailing their actual ability to have children through tubal ligation.

If your explanation for voting behavior is that people vote for their interests and the assumption that if their side wins, those interests will be rewarded with policies, this makes zero sense.

If your explanation for voting behavior is that people hold inchoate and irrational beliefs about all sorts of shit and they don't actually expect the winning side to really address their concerns, it makes perfect sense.

I await an explanation of how Harris going on Joe Rogan would solve this.