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Top Pundits of 2016?

Top Pundits of 2016?

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NeverTrump

NeverTrump

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What are the top news personalities that shaped the 2016 discussion?

Mine would include: Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders, Sean Hannity, Michael Smerconish, Conan O'Brien and the various nevertrumpers who fought for my voice!
 
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None.
 
Erm -- where's the #1 talk radio host?
 
Josie said:
Erm -- where's the #1 talk radio host?
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Rush Limbaugh? He didn't make enough of an impact for me to include him on this list. Others were much more visible and he was kinda late to the game.
 
In addition to the ones I voted for above:

*Ana Navarro
*Max Boot
*David Frum
*Gary Kasparov
*Michael Gerson
*Mona Charen
*E.J. Dionne
*Mitt Romney (it was his public speeches and newspaper columns that were most important)
*Nate Silver (mostly regarding polling methodology, under or over-estimating Trump's chances)
*Eliot Cohen
*Henry Olsen
 
ModerateGOP said:
Rush Limbaugh? He didn't make enough of an impact for me to include him on this list. Others were much more visible and he was kinda late to the game.
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Late to the game? The guy is on the air every weekday for 3 hours.
 
Josie said:
Late to the game? The guy is on the air every weekday for 3 hours.
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As in he seemed to be on the sidelines this year until the very last moment when he started cheerleading for Trump. I did enjoy his interview with Trump but that wasn't nearly as powerful as what Hannity did all year for the man. Hannity was this year's Chris Matthews
 
Fiddytree said:
In addition to the ones I voted for above:

*Ana Navarro
*Max Boot
*David Frum
*Gary Kasparov
*Michael Gerson
*Mona Charen
*E.J. Dionne
*Mitt Romney (it was his public speeches and newspaper columns that were most important)
*Nate Silver (mostly regarding polling methodology, under or over-estimating Trump's chances)
*Eliot Cohen
*Henry Olsen
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Yeah Ana was great, Romney was late too, and Nate Silver was very controversial, but I don't consider him to be a pundit necessarily. Just an analyst.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Yeah Ana was great, Romney was late too, and Nate Silver was very controversial, but I don't consider him to be a pundit necessarily. Just an analyst.
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I only included Silver because his work became part of the story about the election.
 
Fiddytree said:
I only included Silver because his work became part of the story about the election.
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I see what you mean, people talked about Silver but I don't think he wants that, necessarily. He'd rather have them look at his data to form their own opinions about stuff and then talk about that not him! He looked very awkward when he was on Colbert like not comfortable in front of cameras type of nerd.

Pundits generally do everything they can to get people to talk about THEM!
 
ModerateGOP said:
What are the top news personalities that shaped the 2016 discussion?

Mine would include: Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders, Sean Hannity, Michael Smerconish, Conan O'Brien and the various nevertrumpers who fought for my voice!
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Megyn certainly is the flashiest on your list but she lost me during 2016 with her unbridled obsession with trashing Trump and she lost all objectivity in the process.

As for the others on your list, I am familiar with all of them but do not seek out any of them for information.

There are some that I do listen to that I give props for good scholarship and ability to be objective: Laura Ingraham, Dana Perino, Greta Van Sustern, John Stossel, Watters, O'Reilly and, for some basic solid observations amidst the satire and insults for effect, Ann Coulter, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell. On the more left side of the ledger, I used to read William Raspberry religiously and hated when he retired, Michael Kinsley, Camille Paglia, Maureen Dowd.
 
ModerateGOP said:
I see what you mean, people talked about Silver but I don't think he wants that, necessarily. He'd rather have them look at his data to form their own opinions about stuff and then talk about that not him! He looked very awkward when he was on Colbert like not comfortable in front of cameras type of nerd.
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Sure that's the thing. But basically everyone was looking to his touch having a keen insight on the primary and general election. In the process it was his methodology that became part of a bigger meta-discussion about not only whether he was right or not, but the entire enterprise of public opinion polling.

*Did he underestimate Trump's chances in the primary? Like most, yes.
*Did he underestimate Trump's chances in the general election? -Liberals before election night said no, he over-estimated his chances. When the NYT and Huffington thought that Trump had a <10% chance, he stuck between 35-45%. Trump supporters thought he underestimated the chances, despite Silver's insistence that a small error in state polling can skew the aggregates (and despite Trump being in the 2% popular vote loss column, as predicted).

Because of this, Silver's work became a big story and started to be used for or against the public polling industry as a whole, largely because Trump and his supporters brought an unusual love/hate relationship with that industry.
 
Fiddytree said:
Sure that's the thing. But basically everyone was looking to his touch having a keen insight on the primary and general election. In the process it was his methodology that became part of a bigger meta-discussion about not only whether he was right or not, but the entire enterprise of public opinion polling.

*Did he underestimate Trump's chances in the primary? Like most, yes.
*Did he underestimate Trump's chances in the general election? -Liberals before election night said no, he over-estimated his chances. When the NYT and Huffington thought that Trump had a <10% chance, he stuck between 35-45%. Trump supporters thought he underestimated the chances, despite Silver's insistence that a small error in state polling can skew the aggregates (and despite Trump being in the 2% popular vote loss column, as predicted).

Because of this, Silver's work became a big story and started to be used for or against the public polling industry as a whole, largely because Trump and his supporters brought an unusual love/hate relationship with that industry.
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Yeah though I see he's more of an overall 2016 fail which could be a different poll! Not just related to politics, but the entire idea of polling in general is now in question to some. He is a victim of post-trump america for sure.
 
ModerateGOP said:
Yeah Ana was great, Romney was late too, and Nate Silver was very controversial, but I don't consider him to be a pundit necessarily. Just an analyst.
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I always found it strange that Mittens sat on the sidelines this year after taking a pro-active role in criticizing the "CONFEDERATE FLAG". I personally hate the man but I think if he had actually gotten into the primaries instead of the sidelines throwing spitballs he may have actually beat Trump. Instead his dithering and antagonizing made me like him much much less.
 
I found that during the election season, Hannity was the least talented talking head of all the media personalities, but he was the best cheerleader for my team. Most of my media consumption was from a very broad menu of partisan bias, so I got used to many. I got a kick out of Van Jones, and I always enjoy Rachael Maddow, but when I was feeling lazy and just wanted to watch warm and comforting news that satisfied my confirmation bias, Hannity was perfect. The repeated granny over the cliff thing, the repeated list of how Muslims treat women, oh yes. Chicken soup stuff...
 
IIRC it was Ann Coulter who first said that Trump had the best chance of winning and people at the event where she said that laughed loudly. Yet she nailed it-much to the chagrin of the Hate Coulter Crowd. I really didn't listen to many of these "pundits" -I have satellite radio in my car and instead of listening to talking heads as I drive, I pretty much stick to Grateful Dead Radio or "Deep Tracks"
 
ModerateGOP said:
What are the top news personalities that shaped the 2016 discussion?

Mine would include: Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders, Sean Hannity, Michael Smerconish, Conan O'Brien and the various nevertrumpers who fought for my voice!
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Only the ones who supported trump

Which includes only a couple on your list
 
I'd say Milo and the rest of the Breitbart crew were very influential this election season.
 
ModerateGOP said:
What are the top news personalities that shaped the 2016 discussion?

Mine would include: Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders, Sean Hannity, Michael Smerconish, Conan O'Brien and the various nevertrumpers who fought for my voice!
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Absolutely no one in the poll, that's for sure.
 
ModerateGOP said:
What are the top news personalities that shaped the 2016 discussion?

Mine would include: Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders, Sean Hannity, Michael Smerconish, Conan O'Brien and the various nevertrumpers who fought for my voice!
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Political talk shows hosts, none really interest me as all you are going to get is political propaganda from them, left, right or center. I paid much more attention to the prognosticators and the reasons why they gave for what they had to say or predict. Granted none from Charlie Cook, Stuart Rothenberg, Larry Sabato, even Nate Silver and a few others predicted a Trump win. Although a couple listed Pennsylvania and Michigan as tossups.

But as far as hannity, beck, maddow, mathews, shultz etc, about the only ones I know who listens to them or watches them are the die hards of either party who know those so called pundits will tell them exactly what they want to hear.
 
Fiddytree said:
In addition to the ones I voted for above:




*Gary Kasparov
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I'll never forget Gary commenting on Facebook about watching Vladimir Putin taking a ride in a small sub; he said: "there goes Putin down in that sub seeing if he can find Russia's economy." Boy did I laugh. :lamo
 
For actual political debate/discussions I pick Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin

For comedy: Milo, Steven Crowder, John Oliver, Bill Mahr
 
None more influential than El Rushbo. Who did more to help get Trump elected?

rush1.webp
 
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