Does prospect theory explain Trump and Brexit votes?

After crying and being distraught for an hour or two, a glimmer of hope arose - after-hours and international stock market was down. And suddenly their demeanor changed, there was a chance again of a tiny victory. They were predicting disaster with the same certainty as they predicted Hillary winning. There was talk of everyone's accounts being wiped out, a lot of "we told you" and so on.

And of course next day stocks went right up and nothing happened.

I just liked it because right after talking how they mispredicted the election so badly, they turned around and predicted something else, which again was quickly shown to be false.

So I do recommend watching the popular news channels, they are a pretty good source of entertainment. Read Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky and it becomes even funnier.

Also, Nate Silvers gave Trump a 30% chance of winning. There were plenty of pundits who saw Trump as a possibility.

What is so obvious that all this complexity is unnecessary? And if it doesn't seem obvious to so many people, why should I (or anyone else) update their beliefs and say ah yes of course; all those careful investigations were just missing the point?

I hope this doesn't come across as derogatory - it's not meant that way. I really am curious about the epistemology; when many people say complicated and some say obvious, what evidence should cause me to believe the latter?

Here's a video where a computer programmer who worked on voting systems is questioned under oath, and he makes some pretty good arguments that elections are rigged. At least the ones where electronic voting machines are used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcxGGnmRQAs&t=92s

I'll admit, I didn't bother researching, but I'd understood a lot of electronic voting machines were used in the election we just underwent.

The results of the election only slightly surprised me, but I've gone to great lengths to avoid ingesting media from mainstream sources. Outside the mainstream, Trump's popularity was quite a bit more obvious.

But in the final weeks the US election had close polling. Clinton was leading Trump by less than 5% in most polls and was actually behind in a few of them (Matt Drudge always managed to find those polls to link to).

So it's hard to understand why people might have those beliefs in a relatively close election. Easier to understand if the election was predicted to be a blowout.

But blowouts don't happen that often. The most recent true blowout I experienced was Reagan vs Mondale in 1984. An electoral blowout, only Minnesota and DC voted for Mondale. But the popular vote was closer, roughly 59%/41%.

> Iirc they've fought Medicare tooth and nail, even though it's modeled on a republican program.

First, you're thinking of Obamacare, not Medicare (actually, the Affordable Care Act); the narrative you're reaching for is that the ACA is modeled on Republican ideas, therefore the GOP isn't allowed to object to it. Medicare is something completely different, a health insurance entitlement aimed at seniors that's existed for decades.

And even then, neither half of the story is really true, because the GOP is not a monolith. Yes, the Heritage Foundation proposed something vaguely similar in the '90s, and Mitt Romney -- a liberal Republican governing one of our most liberal states -- pushed a vaguely similar plan as well many years ago, but the majority of Republicans disagreed with both on the idea. And even if it was based entirely on an old GOP idea, there's no logical way to therefore decide the GOP can't have problems with this implementation of it, or not believe the Obama administration would be competent to execute it.

Think of it this way. Bill Clinton supported military action against Iraq during his term, and even carried it out. Does that mean no Democrats were allowed to object to George W. Bush's Iraq war, because it was "based on a Democratic idea"? Of course not; the very idea is absurd. Same deal here.

If they do not self-censor themselves, they can expect to easily be a social pariah in most urban areas of living, with all the negative economic connotations that ensues.