The problem with facts has been well known to science since at least 2006:
> We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in reality. And reality has a well-known liberal bias[1]
That's just dividing the world into "liberal" and "conservative", and both are defined as Americans see them.
But also, let's take it at face value: what does it take to be best buds with "reality" and still lose to people at war with it? A concerted effort of memes, "I'm #1 why try harder" is what I saw. Arrogance, intellectual laziness. "It's fine as long as we're right more often than them" so to speak. But "they" were and never are the standard.
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of that framing. Public opinion is only loosely correlated with the reduction of suffering.
There is an asymmetry for sure, but plenty of liberals also have incorrect beliefs -- liberal and left-wing NIMBYism comes to mind. It's really important to be evidence-driven and curious, and be willing to add complexity to your models as necessary.
Yes, I agree it's crudely framed and flawed. And other plentiful examples of left wing anti-evidence/expertise movements come from the "alternative medicine" arena. I think the problem with this moment in time is that factual accuracy takes expertise to curate. It's not something democratic processes generate. It's certainly not something you achieve with populism. So we've gone from "alternative facts" to.. "facts are what the majority believes to be true"? Bizarre.
> We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in reality. And reality has a well-known liberal bias[1]
[1] https://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/3/stephen_colberts_blist...