Raphael and Trump

If you have been following the National Hurricane Center’s coverage of Raphael for the last couple of days, you can see how difficult it is to predict the future. A storm that was originally ‘predicted’ to possibly hit the Southeast coast of Louisiana this weekend, now looks to be headed to the Bay of Campeche. This morning, the NHC noted:

“This steering evolution would cause Rafael to turn more southward, and this is shown by the dynamical model consensus track prediction.  The new official forecast is adjusted to the left of the previous NHC track but is not as far south as the consensus.  The motion is likely to be quite slow during the latter part of the forecast period.  There remains significant uncertainty [emphasis added] in the future track of Rafael over the Gulf of Mexico and additional adjustments to subsequent official track forecasts are likely.”

The National Hurricane Center has gotten much better with its forecasts of the last couple of years, but forecasting is still less than an exact science. They look at a complex mix of atmospheric and oceanic forces, try to determine what interactions are going to have what effect, and then make a seven day prediction of the future. The important thing, however, is that once the prediction is published, they start all over working on the next one.

The people on the central Gulf Coast have been watching Raphael with trepidation, but as the track has shifted, they have become less concerned about the possible future effects of the storm. But, the more experienced know that hurricane prediction is fraught with complexities, and know that they will have to keep an eye on Raphael until it dissipates. And meanwhile watch out for the potential storm that may be forming further to the East.

Political forecasting has many of the same problems. There are a wide variety of elements that go into political forecasting, and the interaction of those elements changes daily, and frequently more often. To make matters worse, most of those elements track changes in their environment and make decisions that further change over time. Anyone that tells you that they know what is going to happen in the future is fooling themselves. The most any of us can do is look at the past and present and make some level of educated guess about what people are going to do tomorrow. And watch what changes on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis and make revisions as necessary.

A lot of people are disappointed, and even fearful about what happened on November 5^th. There are a lot of dire predictions about what the political future will bring. All of those predictions are based on past statements and actions, all of which have probative value. But the future is more complex than the past. People are going to react in different ways based upon their judgements of past and present actions. All of that is going to have an effect (positive and negative) on the future. And those effects are going to have further effects down the line.

Take a deep breath, hold and exhale through your mouth. Make the best judgments that you can but be prepared to revise as the situation changes over time. Remember, nothing is constant except change.