I'm not really invested in defending Nate Silver or in the results of the presidential election, I just think statistics are cool.
Being a liberal doesn't make you bad at stats. The degree to which 538's models reflect personal value judgments is almost certainly minimized, so dismissing them out of hand because they come from Nate Silver and use cutesy animal drawings doesn't really "own the libs."
"But 2016" they gave Trump more of a chance than anyone else did, and besides they've since updated their models to avoid those specific problems.
And, I'm sorry, even a really really shitty statistical model is going to be a better election predictor than your opinion on what the "mood on the street" is or whatever.
Of course, Trump's voter suppression campaign is a huge wild card in all of this.
My one gripe with 538 is that in 2018 they were defending individual donations as a valuable source of forecasting data for campaigns, but in in 2020 when that turned out to be a boon for Sanders, they made a complete 180 on that idea. I mean, Sanders did get defeated, so they weren't wrong, but that stuck with me.
Otherwise, yeah. Statistics are better than anecdotes.
Everyone should ignore their punditry. Their whole brand is stats and so to the extent that one is going to pay attention to 538, one should only pay attention to their models.