When winning arguments is prioritized over discovering the truth

A great point and one that is part of a larger pattern. From "In the wake of combative impeachment hearings, those surveyed oppose by 51%-45% a Senate vote to convict Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress." by Ann Althouse.

That's USAToday reporting its new poll — under the headline "Narrow majority opposes removing Trump from office if he is impeached."

It's a "narrow" majority because 51% is only one percentage point above 50%, but it's 6 percentage points above the 45% who support removing Trump. And it's 4 percentage points more than opposition to removal the same survey found back before all the public hearings.

And I'm laughing at the idea that Trump's support is "durable... even in the face of" all that testimony. First off, it didn't just endure. It grew. A lot. And I don't see how the USA Today has a basis for characterizing the growth as something that happened "in the face of" the testimony. It seems just as rational to speculate that it grew because of the testimony. The hearings made impeachment seem like a partisan overreach. Or the hearings made the idea of removing the President seem more real and made people think something like, no, that's not how we behave in the United States. Before that reality set in, perhaps, people were more willing to say yes to removal because it seemed like a way express strong disapproval of the President.

I'm just guessing, of course, but my point is only that the USA Today should work harder on journalistic professionalism. I know it may sound silly. A pipe dream. But I like to say it anyway.

Fair point. But the interesting observation is an addendum:

ADDED: Meade read this post and made a point that I've never heard anyone make and I think is really important and profound. The Constitution requires a supermajority of the Senators — two thirds — in order to remove the President and that expresses the principle that removing the President is something extraordinary. That principle should be applied to the polls. We should look for much more than a mere majority in support of removing the President. Even if the "narrow majority" this poll found were in favor of removal, it should not be enough. To justify the extraordinary action of removal, the polls should show that more than 66% of Americans want it.

It is a little like televised debates in England where they poll the audience on a position before the debate, have the debate, and then poll the audience afterwards to see how effective the debaters were in getting people to change their positions. It focuses attention not on whether the issue is rightly or wrongly decided but on whether the debaters were effective.

In this instance, under our system of government, one of the checks-and-balances is that we make impeachment contingent on a super-majority. It has to be really clear that there is a grave crime and that everyone sees and agrees that it is a crime. We don't want any President hobbled by ankle-biting petty politicians bringing impeachment charges over nonsense issues.

Clearly the requirement for a super-majority is an insufficient barrier to nuisance charges.

But independent of the merits of the argument, how effective was the impeachment performance of Pelosi, Nadler, and Schiff?
Applying the English system, what was the public support for impeachment before the hearings? 46%. The Democrats needed to move that to 66%. They conducted their impeachment hearings and actually turned people away from impeachment. They came nowhere near the 66% public sentiment they needed and indeed shrank to 45%.

The impeachment was not effective to their objective and indeed shrank their position.

Taking this view makes it much clearer that this is just political shenanigans and not a serious effort. To have the moral high-ground for impeachment, if I need to sway 66% of the audience to my position and I can only get 46%, then obviously it should be abandoned. Otherwise, it is obviously kabuki theater at best.

Now, if in the Senate, the sentiment was different from the public, it might make sense to proceed with 46% position if there was a significant faction among insider Republican senators who had been convinced. However, there is no evidence of that. The goal is convince 66% of the public and senators and the impeachment hearings have convinced fewer than half that the charges are warranted.

But Meade's point is larger than this single instance. Meade is pointing out that the measure of performance should be against the target. 51% is not the target, it is 66%. By misstating the goal, the media misleads on the performance.

In general, in our public discourses we suffer this same pattern. Goal measurements are undefined. Performance is not reported against goal. Data provided is not pertinent to the decision to be made. Comparisons and analogies are not relevant to the circumstances. The establishment, the mainstream media, advocacy groups, and academia, are far more focused on winning arguments than on discovering the truth.