The smug style in American liberalism
This is definitely the preference falsification election.<p>Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: <i>"I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to rethink my views."</i> These folks very rarely post here - they are afraid of social and perhaps professional approbrium (ala Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).<p>Those folks are engaging preference falsification.<p>Off HN there is a similar manufactured consensus, similar social penalties for expressing the wrong ideas, and similar levels of preference falsification. When pollsters call the preference falsification continues.<p>Apparently in the privacy of a voting booth, people are willing to express their true beliefs.<p>Note: I don't support Trump - search my posting history for "open borders" - but I do understand why folks like him. I don't agree with him on basically any policy, but my visceral <i>emotional</i> reaction to his victory is positive: I love the great big "fuck you" to the biased media sneering at him, calling him racist based on "dog whistles" and then writing hit pieces against Ken Bone (let alone the bullying of folks like Tim Hunt, Brendan Eich and Curtis Yarvin).<p>See also Scott Aaronson who explains this in more detail: <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777" rel="nofollow">http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2777</a>