His argument is that although Leave won by a small majority, it should have lost by a very large majority (for various reasons, particularly that the status quo has an advantage in these things) and that that is the large difference we should be thinking about.
I’m pretty sure that in Trump vs. Clinton, Clinton would have won by a large majority if Trump didn’t campaign. But it would be silly to say “Trump should have lost by a large majority” on that basis.
Saying “one side should have lost because of X” implies that X has outsized effect on one side compared to the other. But telling political stories is, like campaigning, something that both sides do and which they pretty much have to do to have a reasonable chance at winning.
The point is that saying “they wouldn’t have won if they didn’t do X”, in a context where you are trying to say something useful, implies that X is some special thing that was only done by them, not that X is something that everyone does. Nobody says “Trump would have lost if he had failed to breathe”, because everyone running a campaign needs to breathe and saying that you don’t win if you don’t breathe is obvious, trivial, and tells you nothing special about Trump.
And “the pro-Brexit campaign did special things which the anti-Brexit campaign did not also do” has not been well-supported here.
His argument is that although Leave won by a small majority, it should have lost by a very large majority (for various reasons, particularly that the status quo has an advantage in these things) and that that is the large difference we should be thinking about.
I’m pretty sure that in Trump vs. Clinton, Clinton would have won by a large majority if Trump didn’t campaign. But it would be silly to say “Trump should have lost by a large majority” on that basis.
Saying “one side should have lost because of X” implies that X has outsized effect on one side compared to the other. But telling political stories is, like campaigning, something that both sides do and which they pretty much have to do to have a reasonable chance at winning.
I think the comparison in the case of Cummings and Brexit is to what other pro-leave campaigns would have done, rsther than to no campaign at all.
The point is that saying “they wouldn’t have won if they didn’t do X”, in a context where you are trying to say something useful, implies that X is some special thing that was only done by them, not that X is something that everyone does. Nobody says “Trump would have lost if he had failed to breathe”, because everyone running a campaign needs to breathe and saying that you don’t win if you don’t breathe is obvious, trivial, and tells you nothing special about Trump.
And “the pro-Brexit campaign did special things which the anti-Brexit campaign did not also do” has not been well-supported here.
Well according to the article, he and his team did do special things. Of course you may not believe that, but he presents a plausible narrative.
I wonder what would have happened if Trump had run a very boring, straight-laced campaign though?