In line with his practice of reductive, demographic categorization (shall I call it an “ism”?) Nate Silver has coined “Heather Cox Richardsonism” and compared it to the late, unlamented Tea Party. He offers the linked post as a defense of his comparison against its critics.

Part of his defense is to pick out an error he claims Richardson made and question her footnoting practice. Well, even if so, It is true that daily journalistic commentary, with its very different demands from slow-paced scholarship, may produce some different, more frequent weakness in the product.

But this is irrelevant to and a distraction from the analogy.

In defense of the analogy, Silver writes,

So when I write about “the Democratic equivalent of the Tea Party…” this analogy implies similarities as well as differences, differences shaped by the contours of the respective demographics of Democrats and Republicans, their relationship with various institutions and their formative political experiences. [Emphasis added]

Now, this is not so. An analogy does not “imply” differences. It allows for them. Theoretically, the analogy, except for context, could be exact. (If not except for context, we would have an identity — the same thing — not analogy.)

In reality, analogies are never exact, and all depending, in many cases, on the degree of difference, the quality and usefulness of the analogy rises and falls. In some cases, a very clearly and narrowly applied analogy, even with many differences, may still be useful.

However, in addition to whatever implication an analogy may carry, it also carries the less logical entailment of connotation. Logical implication is like (analogy!) natural cause and effect. It follows like the sun in the morning. Connotation is a sly devil that sneaks into your ear while you sleep.

Analogizing Heather Cox Richardson (and her many readers, who Silver categorically reduces to older, educated women) to the Tea Party serves not at all accurately or productively to imply any differences between them but rather very usefully, to Mr. Silver — who acknowledges his antagonism toward Trump resister, institutional Democrats (whew! Venn diagram, please!) to connote some very nasty similarities between the two.

Which I rather think was the aim.