The chasm between the claim and the reality is just a little jarring

Another Great Revealing. How ignorant is our Mandarin Class? Much more so than would be reasonable to think.

First up is Emily Rafi, Democratic candidate for Michigan's 7th District.

Richard Nixon’s public approval rating:

Before impeachment: 67%

After impeachment: 25%

If you don’t believe impeachment is the correct political AND constitutional move right now you simply don’t understand impeachment.

— Emily Rafi (@EmilyRafi2020) May 30, 2019

There is an avalanche of responses pointing out that only two presidents have been impeached, and only one in modern times, Bill Clinton.

In Nixon's case, the House committee recommended impeachment but it was never taken up by the full House. He subsequently resigned, making the issue moot.

This is basic history, well within living memory history. Rafi backtracks, trying to make the case that she was speaking generally, a penumbra of impeachment as it were. She tries to make the distinction that he was in the process of being impeached, not had been impeached. Despite the clear implication in her tweet about before he was impeached and after he was impeached.

It is like trying to make the distinction about someone's popularity before he was found guilty and after he was found guilty without noting that though the person might have been charged, the jury had not convened and he was never found guilty.

Good leadership doesn't require comprehensive knowledge and people make mistakes all the time. But for a lawyer and federal candidate to demonstrate such a high degree of unawareness of history and/or sloppiness with language is not a good leading indicator.

The second instance is from Nicholas Carlson, the Global Editor in Chief of Business Insider, not what I would consider mainstream media, but certainly part of the Mandarin class and part of the Resistance.

Click to enlarge.

Again, people make mistakes. Though this was apparently not a "I knew but I forgot in the moment", but a "I never knew this" instance. No reason for most people to accurately recall some of the arcana from high school civics. But for someone in media, in politics, someone passionately commenting on the state of health of our system, to have never known this seems . . . surprising.

If they were humble people, it would not be noteworthy at all. The ire arises from their positions as in-the-know, and good people, and Mandarin Class experts. The chasm between the claim and the reality is just a little jarring.