Data-centric pundit Nate Silver got his clock cleaned by U.S. Senator John Fetterman on social media this week. Fetterman, who last week went viral for mocking the GOP impeachment play against President Biden, is trending again today after roasting Silver with a five word response to Silver’s snarky tweet about starting a third political party.
Mocking the people he thought were unduly interested in Fetterman’s apparel choices and Rep. Lauren Boebert‘s embarrassing behavior in public, Silver invited all those who, like him, thought these two stories unimportant to join his new third party.
Fetterman responded with “I dress like you predict” — an indictment of Silver’s ballyhooed but often incorrect prognostications. Fetterman, by his own admission, is a careless dresser.
I dress like you predict https://t.co/TDScsGCi2k
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) September 18, 2023
Fetterman’s skewering response was especially well received by those who thought Boebert’s public groping, vaping, lying about it, and flipping the bird weren’t in the same category as Fetterman’s desire to wear shorts at work. (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer just relaxed the Senate dress code, a move seen as a nod to Fetterman’s preferences, and — to Silver’s lament — this became yet another topic for divisive uproar.)
Rep. Boebert issued a rare public apology for her behavior, saying she was having a hard time after her divorce and “simply fell short of my values.”
Silver explained his tweet and defended what many saw as the false equivalence of putting Fetterman and Boebert together as examples of navel-gazing, unimportant stories, what Silver called “irrelevant controversies that only partisans and prudes could be interested in.”
But many still objected to grouping the two lawmakers together, since Boebert’s story involved lewd, disruptive behavior that got her and her date kicked out of a theater, and Fetterman’s involved wearing a hoodie to the office.
I think they're both stupid and irrelevant controversies that only partisans and prudes could be interested in, that's why I compared them to one another in a tweet. pic.twitter.com/ZAQ6e9Cnhy
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 18, 2023
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