Compare the extremely analytical polling deep dives that Nate Cohn is doing at the New York Times, for instance, to the vibes-based coverage of the Boys on the Bus era. That trend may get even more entrenched as former 538ers form a diaspora that filters out to the rest of the media.

Those who enjoy and thrive on complexity are in charge of designing systems that they make absurdly complex, in ways that happen to benefit people just like them, and we declare the result “efficient” and desirable even as it degrades the experience of the typical family. And then we measure it all with tools themselves designed to equate this efficiency with success, and use the results to denigrate everyone who finds themselves unsatisfied.

It’s genuinely much better for elected officials, donors, and activists to try to prioritize disseminating accurate information rather than trying to snow the public with propaganda — both because honesty is a virtue, and because the instrumental value of propaganda is really easy to overestimate.