Burgess COMMENTARY
Good to see some humor around these recent election results ... which also fits in with one of my continuing concerns related to the increasing use of statistical models to project outcomes. People seem to forget the old GIGO problem that was a big problem with early data processing systems ... garbage in / garbage out. Big data systems massage the data in all sorts of ways, but in the end the underlying data influence the reported results. I did a small amount of door to door canvasing in this election cycle ... and was provided with data about the people I was going to canvas. It did not strike me at the time, but on reflection the data that I was provided looked complete and accurate, (a pretty printout) but in reality it was really poor ... and if this reflects all the data that was being analyzed it does not surprise me at all that the data processors got the outcome so very wrong! I know we can use statistical analysis to do amazing things ... like helping to design aircraft ... but the rigor around the work that engineers do and the rigor used by economists and political scientists are very very different! It would be good if reporters and the news media communicated this more effectively. Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org @truevaluemetric
Peter Burgess

Trump’s Real Bond: We the Fat People The indisputable way to explain the 2016 U.S. presidential election result. Credit: Joseph Sohm Shutterstock.com

Takeaways

• Many voters in the Rust Belt out of a job wanted to believe that the President elect will bring back all the steel mills.

• The majority simply liked what they saw, which is what they see every morning in their mirror: a rotund figure.

A week after the spectacular failure of major polling firms, it is time to look for other perspectives on why the election turned out the way it did.

One can certainly analyze political factors, e.g., the fact that many voters out of a job, sadly, in the Rust Belt, want to believe that the President elect will bring back all the steel mills that closed in the past decades.

One can also conjure up more subconscious factors that sometimes come to the fore. For instance, the mayor from West Virginia who, tired of an “ape in heels” in the White House, rejoices at the thought of having as a First Lady a classy former centerfold of GQ magazine (Hey! no such thing as a stupid job, only stupid people, as they say in France).

The explanation

But instead of attempting to go for a possibly perilous descent into the psyche of the American heartland, why not try a simple explanation.

This explanation is based on the scientific conclusion that any traveler across this great continent can draw every day, i.e.: The girth of the populace is inversely related to the proximity to the coasts. And lo and behold, maps do not lie:

Enlarge Presidential election 2016

Enlarge Fattest states 2015

One could object that the Rocky Mountain States tend to disprove this theory. But I would argue that the density of the population in this area is such that the lack of MacDonald’s significantly alters the parameters of the experiment. Thus these states should be counted out.

Conclusion

On this basis, one can safely come to the conclusion that the majority, on November 8, simply liked what they saw, which is what they see every morning in their mirror: a rotund figure.

This figure might rank only a 2 or 3 on the President-elect’s personal metrics, but is such a welcome return to the golden days of Taft and Cleveland, an invitation to gorge oneself on fast food and carbonated drinks.

What a relief from George W. or Barack and their annoying addiction to the practice of sports and maddening obsession with keeping in shape!

More on this topic

Trump and Palin: Is America Becoming an Oil Kleptocracy? Why I’ll Be Voting for Trump Trump the Terrorist 201 Tags: Donald Trump, Donald Trump administration, latest, United States

About Jean-Francois Boittin

Jean-Francois Boittin is a former French diplomat and Treasury official. He lives in Washington, D.C. and works on various consulting jobs as well as with a Paris economic think tank.

A proud supporter of globalization, Mr. Boittin previously led the French team that negotiated the Uruguay Round, the last, but not least, major success of the GATT-WTO system. He then led the Treasury teams of the French Embassies in Washington, D.C. and in Berlin.

He initially studied to become a scholar of Ancient Greek, but found himself confronted with the iron law of supply and demand early in his life. He thus switched to public service and a job in the French Treasury.

Mr. Boittin is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm, and the École Nationale d’Administration.