‘Take the L’: Well-known CNN face torches historian who ‘blamed’ his wrong election prediction on disinformation, bigotry

Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza criticized historian Allan Lichtman on Monday for how he justified his incorrect prediction that Vice President Kamala Harris would defeat President-elect Donald Trump.

Lichtman, on CNN’s “Laura Coates Live” and his YouTube channel, largely blamed the failure of his “13 Keys to the White House” forecasting system on “disinformation” and bigotry. Cillizza ranted on his own YouTube channel about why Lichtman’s explanation angered him, asserting that it contradicted the entire premise of his prediction system.

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“This is the thing that really got me riled up … how Lichtman has explained being wrong. Clearly wrong, ’cause Trump’s gonna win the popular vote and the Electoral College, so there’s no way to kind of wiggle out of this one … In the wake of [Harris losing], he said, ‘I’m going to take a few days and analyze what went wrong with the keys.’ I mean, I can tell you what went wrong with the keys: it’s subjective, just like lots of things,” Cillizza said before referencing Lichtman’s “Laura Coates Live” appearance.

“I just pulled a few quotes from that interview. So these are the things that Lichtman is saying this is why the keys were wrong. Quote: ‘The keys depend upon a rational, pragmatic electorate….’ He blamed it on ‘disinformation’ and Elon Musk. He also blamed it on ‘misogyny, racism and xenophobia.’ Again, the keys are supposed to not have anything to do with that,” Cillizza asserted. “That’s the whole point of the keys, right? The entire justification of the keys is: the campaign doesn’t matter, right? This idea that, ‘Oh, well, the electorate wasn’t rational and pragmatic,’ that’s not the point. The point is they’re objective, in theory, though they’re not. So again, like, sometimes in life — and I’ve learned this myself — you gotta just take the L.”

Lichtman had accurately forecast nine of the 10 last elections before incorrectly predicting Harris would be victorious, according to USA Today. The historian, on “Laura Coates Live” and his YouTube channel, also asserted the Democratic Party publicly attacking President Joe Biden when he was still campaigning for reelection could have affected his incorrect prediction.

He claimed on his YouTube channel that “the incredible explosion of disinformation” had led Americans to believe falsehoods about the state of the American economy, “mak[ing] it very difficult for a rational, pragmatic electorate to operate.”

“We have seen, just as Trump and his allies have brought misogyny and xenophobia to a new level, he’s also brought blatant racism to a new level … So we see then the explosion of disinformation and these three dark trends from American history, and that calls into question the whole premise behind the keys of rationality and pragmatism,” the historian added.

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God and CNN’s Van Jones have both argued against solely blaming the election outcome on “racism” and “sexism.”

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