Evening Must-Read: Ezra Klein: Area Pundit Tom Frank Angry at Political Science for Proving Him Wrong

Ezra Klein: Area Pundit Tom Frank Angry at Political Science for Proving Him Wrong: “Watching congressional Democrats who were more conservative than Republicans become Republicans…

…is not a story that tracks very well with [Tom] Frank’s story of a populist electorate being turned off by Clinton’s triangulations. Indeed, Clinton was much more liberal than many of the congressional Democrats who lost their seats in 1994. But Frank wants to see the Democratic Party move leftward, and so this isn’t an analysis of the period that he finds very helpful…. I rely on political science research… because politics, in my experience, is thick with the ‘allow me to drop a single, disturbing data point’ approach to analysis. Skilled writers can make anything sound convincing in 24 column inches….

Political science has its problems, but… is more than capable of weeding out this kind of nonsense. It forces a much higher evidentiary standard…. The biggest problem any of us face trying to learn about American politics is the natural tendency to believe arguments we like and dismiss the ones we don’t. Poli-sci research is, for me, a helpful check…. I need to ground my political commentary in something beyond my own opinions. Political science research isn’t perfect or infallible, but it’s a start. So yes, Frank is right: politics is full of experts who don’t deserve the trust they’re given and retain prominence even after their theories are shredded. The problem is he’s one of them.