Notice: I have a new item up behind the green door. This is a post about the movie Avatar and how it relates to the increasingly fantastical world of the Left.
It is becoming popular on the Right to dismiss polling as nothing more than another part of the endless gaslighting from our rulers. Like the news, it is assumed that the polls are fake, at least regarding Donald Trump. For sure, there are a lot of bogus polls and even more bogus poll stories. Like everything else in this age, the quality of polling has steadily declined. That said, there may be some other issues beyond deceit that are undermining the utility of political polling.
One obvious problem is the demand side. The media has always liked polling because it is cheap content. It allows them to discuss the results of an event, like a presidential election, for months before it actually happens. Polling stories are just a way to pretend the election already happened. Then as the polls change, and they always do, the media can talk about those changes. That also opens the door for so-called experts, who can provide “expert” commentary on the polls.
Of course, supply naturally follows demand, so Gallup was followed by other polling outfits supplying opinion surveys to the media. The explosion of media over the last thirty years has caused an explosion in demand for polling. One reason we have so much bad polling now is the same reason we have fake news. There is only so much good quality material, so the void is filled with low-quality material. Fake news has replaced real news and fake polling is crowding out good polling.
Polling is a business. These companies don’t just do presidential polls every four years. They make the bulk of their money doing work for the political establishment and corporate clients. If you want to know if your new slogan resonates with the public, hire a polling firm to test it out in key markets. If you want to know if the deceptive name for your amnesty bill will fool the public, have a polling company do a survey of your voters to find out if they fall for it.
This is where polling may be running into trouble without really knowing it. They no longer have many different clients with different requirements. In reality, the big polling outfits have one client, Politics Inc. One of the ironic aspects of the liberal democratic age is politics is now big business. Billions are spent on elections, which means there is a political industrial complex serving that industry. Consultants, policy experts, money-men, organizers and so on live off politics.
When the Democrat party went all in on the Russian conspiracy hoax, major news outlets created divisions just to perpetuate it. The New York Times reorganized their “news room” just to promote the hoax. All those “reporters” sitting in cubicles grinding out content needed material, so the vast political-industrial complex was happy to provide quotes, rumors and anecdotes to make it happen. The Russia hoax quickly moved from conspiracy theory to being a jobs program.
This dynamic in which politics is a vast economy of its own may be breaking the old political polling model. Instead having lots of clients that change every election cycle, the polling industry has one big client – the political industrial complex. The candidates and issues may change from election to election, but the people hiring the vendors is always the same. It is the same consultant class, the same media class and the same organization men. There is one client now, Washington.
An interesting example of this is the Trafalgar Group. This is the polling outfit that predicted a Trump victory in 2016. They have been getting a lot of attention this year, because they are once again predicting a Trump win. All the other polling outfits are predicting a Biden landslide. Naturally, Trump friendly media is now all over these guys as they are saying what they like to hear. To a lesser degree, Rasmussen remains a fan favorite, as they report positive polling about Trump as well.
According to the Trafalgar Group, 2016 was the first time they did presidential polling, as polling was a small part of their business. After 2016, political polling became the biggest part of their business. If they turn out to be right in 2020, it is safe to assume that polling will be their only business. That means their only client will be the political industrial complex. Business is business and in business, the customer is always right, so it is not hard to see where this will lead.
Something similar happened to the credit agencies. For the longest time they made their money supplying a wide range of clients with objective credit analysis. Banks would rely on them to provide credit reports on borrowers. Investors would rely on them to rate corporate and government bonds. Government and corporations would use them as part of their evaluation of employees in sensitive positions. A spy agency, for example, does not want a man with money problems.
Then a funny thing happened in the 1990’s. The Wall Street investments firms started to become the dominant customer. The proliferation of investment vehicles meant a spike in demand for credit analysis. Soon, Wall Street was crowding out all the other business, as they cooked up more and more exotic instruments. It also meant a much closer working relationship between the two sides. The customer is always right and everyone does a solid for a friend in need.
By the time the mortgage bubble was ready to burst, the credit agencies were just slapping AAA on everything that crossed their desk. The clients were happy and no one was complaining about the fees, so why not? The same thing may be happening with the polling outfits. They supply polling results that make the client happy and they get paid well for it. Note that none of the polling outfits that got 2016 completely wrong suffered as a result of their errors.
The goofy TV pollster Frank Luntz made a startling admission the other day on Fox News when he said the polling industry is dead if they are wrong this time. In other words, if Trump wins in two weeks, polling becomes fake news. In a sane world he would probably be right, but as long as the political industrial complex is in business, they will be gaslighting the public on behalf of their client. That means they will want polling, even if it is based on wishful thinking.
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The problem with polling is the loss of the land lines. Prior to that, polling companies understood who they were polling by looking at the area code (% of wealthy, % African American, % blue-collar, and so on).
Cell phones have f***ed that up and internet polls remain problematic.
Yes there’s fraud and stupidity, but the loss of landlines has been the decisive factor.
I knew polling was almost completely BS back when Ron Paul ran for President back in 2012. The polls were very consistently wrong every…….. single……… time. It was very clear they were purposefully trying to deflect people away from voting for him.
There was an internet gambling site online at the time (the name escapes me) – that also consistently got their “predictions” correct … every……… single……… time.
As I remember the way it went online gambling on political races was then made illegal – and that internet site went away shortly after that as well.
Every since watching all of that I just simply don’t take ANY of the polling on elections races seriously. Polling is just another form of media designed to lead you astray.
I haven’t seen the Avatar piece, but I did an analysis when I was actively blogging. The fantasy has been done before: Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, various versions of Mutiny on the Bounty (spoiler alert: Bligh was actually the very flawed hero).
Its the same fantasy, lower ranked/status White man moves up in status and women by siding with tribal enemies against White civilization. In real life, this happened a couple of times but never worked out well. In the 1600’s the Spanish had a corporal taken prisoner by the Mayans whom they warred with in Guatemala IIRC. He talked his way out of human sacrifice and dinner, and was soon their war leader and married to a Mayan Princess. He led the Mayan tribe into battle successfully for decades until he was finally killed in battle. Arriving at Pitcairn Island, the Bounty mutineers soon enslaved the Tahitian men they brought along and ended up all killing each other over the women also brought along (Fletcher Christian was among the first along with his woman). Arriving thirty years later, a British ship found there was only one man left, one of the mutineers. and a bunch of women.
The fantasy did not scale in real life as tribal units only go up to 100 or so. Its why the fantasy had limited appeal to White men — real resources and cooperation depend on something bigger than a tribe and more intellectual capacity than oral tradition. [Christianity beat Paganism in Western Europe based on literacy and access to to things like tallying taxes every year.]
Its why anti-fa does not scale up. Sure the dregs of White society show up, but what White man wants to overthrow White civilization so that … a black Rapper / Warlord gets all the women, particularly the White women? It is not as if Black women are known for their beauty and femininity. This is why BLM has such a gender imbalance. Its basically black dudes and White women like Chelsea Handler. Donald Trump basically owns White men. Go on Youtube and check out the knife, archery, gun, hunting, and auto videos. Pretty much all White and the good news is that White dudes are very much into what their ancestors did.
This is why Hollywood’s propaganda efforts are failing with White men. That stuff and other power fantasies of you go girl Mary Sues and various black power stuff is repulsive to them. China is out as a market now, and the big budget movie is effectively dead. Low cost streaming must compete with a zillion youtube and other streaming options for White men’s attention.
The Democrat fantasy is that White men are not needed. Strong empowered women along with black dudes who are rapper/warlords can run everything and do everything along with other “diverse” people. That’s about as likely as the Avatar franchise actually happening and making money.
Avatar made a bunch of money, mostly off inflated 3-D prices. Unlike the Marvel bunch or even the DC folks, the Avatar universe as of now consists of one forgotten movie that won’t play well on even Ultra HD tvs.
The Biden campaign is run by twenty something White women. They are very empowered and smart. Just ask them.
The polls. They are what they are for a reason. The idea is that if Trump wins, the Dems will cry voter intimidation, mail voting days after, demand the courts ok this while rioting in the streets. Until enough votes can be manufactured to win. Biden has already given this away with his diverse voter fraud comments.
The military is supposed to remove Trump after x number of days of this, in a color revolution. Certainly the Big Tech, Media, Security Services, universities, and big money Dem oligarchs like Gates and Buffett are all on board. However …
AOC gave the game away with “abolish the military and spend the money on black people.” Biden certainly wants to abolish fossil fuels. Without oil there is no military.
I *DO* expect a coup, but I don’t think it will go to Dems plan. Consider the Joint Chiefs. They don’t want their retirement plan to be Wal Mar Greeter. Biden is also in the Chinese pocket and they fear a war with China that will expose them as the third raters they are. Trump is no-go as he’s reining in the Special Forces Olympics that get Colonels promoted to Generals and one star Generals to Two or Three Stars. Over the dead bodies of soldiers and Marines. Thus they can’t turn things over to the weak Biden operation — the Bidens can’t even keep Hunter’s graft or molestation of his niece secret. Poor operational security.
Trump is a no-go as he’s peace mongering. No one in the military likes a peace monger.
I think therefore a coup likely but one where the Generals and Admirals stay in power. Likely with a woke Pinochet having gays give free helicopter rides to straights, Christians etc. trying to split the middle of wokeness and protecting their institution.
Institutions protect their existence. The security services are the Democratic Secret Police, but the Military finds itself in the cross hairs of the Woke and China. I expect them to make a play to rule directly.
I agree in part and disagree in part. Biden will do whatever he is told. The Left doesn’t mind war at all, and in fact enjoy the additional powers they grab during conflict. The progressive affinity for war started with Wilson’s entry into World War I and continued through Obama with the assassination of Ghaddafi and proxy wars in Syria.
Your broader point is taken, though. The military is prepared to seize operational control from governors if necessary. I’m expecting that unless Biden wins outright, which I actually don’t think he will although it is possible, the Democrats simultaneously will go into the courts to challenge results and encourage rioting on an unprecedented scale. The usual cuckish suspects will encourage Trump to abdicate for the good of the country. He won’t.
At some point before late January, with riots underway and a heavy military presence in the street where necessary to protect rioters and federal property, the United States Supreme Court will announce Biden has won. Such a scenario would have been fantastical just five years ago but who would be shocked at this point?
If you were the Joint Chief, would you trust Biden’s health and energy and his staff to protect your budget? Or cave to AOC and the other folks funded by China and Iran to do away with your budget?
Would you trust Biden and his staff to NOT do away with fossil fuels? How can you run tanks, aircraft carriers, and fighter jets on solar power? Its pure fantasy.
The US faces exponentially escalating demands by black people for more money spent on them. That leaves really just the US Military. The security services cost money but not very much. The military budget is huge, and employs a lot of White people. Directly or indirectly.
So its both the female/non-White group buying into the fantasy of abolishing Western civilization while still having the good stuff and a solid money grab the Military leadership must contend with: while not having the Obama “black protective shield” to deter their actions.
I would agree the Clinton-Obama left is pro US Military Special Forces Olympics, but they are not in charge any more. Its the AOC wing, with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib as the Squad set to run things.
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are close to 80 or so. Who in the Dem Party is A. White B. Part of the pro military group? C. Under 70? Even Hillary! is over 70 IIRC. And what Trump has done is radicalized the left to the point of shrieking lunacy.
The temptation to grab power under an agreed upon coup must be overwhelming.
I’ve been posting clone news reports for months. For every “Biden up 10” report in June 2020, there’s an identical one from June 2016 for Clinton.
That Biden +14 poll a week or two ago on CNN? I found an identical one in Time for Clinton dated 10/26.
They’re not even trying to hide it.
Luntz replied to a verification email he got from Bannon. Bannon was verifying Hunter’s emails, and Luntz was on several. In the email exchange Luntz points out in his own way that’s he’s on the right team, and also that he was in contract with Paul Ryan. They’re all dirty. Luntz said if the polls are wrong again, his industry is toast.
Let’s burn us some $&!@ing toast.
I’d like to see a poll of your audience about who thinks you did a good job driving traffic to your subscribestar sign up page with the Avatar link because I for one almost signed up until I remembered this is the internet and you would have to be a complete lunatic to share any of your financial information with the deep state censors who almost certainly read all of these posts and put all of us who comment on a list of suspicious individuals to talk to once we all live in the Wokeistani People’s Republic of the Unidos Americas.
Nice try Mr Z Man. Nice try.
Also, loved Friday’s podcast. Yes, a lot has changed for sure.
I often wonder if any of these comments ends up flipping the deepstate agent who reads it. On Facebook, it’s a common phenomenon. I remember one funny story of a censor going nuts after reading conspiracy theory stuff and ending up sleeping with guns under his pillow. One thing that’s not appreciated is that even totalitarian regimes can be brought down by slowing flipping their members. Of course, many of these people are sociopaths, but I wonder if one or two might not secretly agree or at least do his part to throw sand in the gears by perhaps doing less work than he could.
“Hey. That’s a good comment. Let’s find out who that is.”
“Yeah, I’ll get on it next week.”
There are at least two industries I know of where you can be wrong more than half the time and still remain employed; polling and weather forecasting.
And American politics.
The public polls are obviously manipulated, and those doing the manipulation are not that good at it. Z has noted many times that the people doing the manipulation are not that smart or that good at it.
Case in point, national polls that show Biden getting 53%, 54%, even 56% of the vote. In the past 50 years, here are the largest popular vote shares in the US Presidential election:
1972 Nixon – 60.7%
1984 Reagan – 58.8%
1988 Bush – 53.4%
2008 Obama – 52.9%
To believe a poll from ABC News or CNN, you would have to believe that Biden is on track to do as well or better than Obama in 2008 or Bush against Dukakis. Does anyone really believe that to be the case? But these organizations put these polls out suggesting that with a straight face. Either they really believe their own BS, or disrespect the public enough to assume they will swallow this crap, or both.
Further, what is odd about this election is the fundamentals seem to line up for Trump. Typically for an incumbent to win, he needs to have his base fractured and a significant percentage of them turn against him. Think Perot voters in 1992, or Reagan Democrats in 1980. Trump certainly has not lost his base, or if he did for awhile during peak COVID, he has it mostly or completely back in the fold now.
Of course, it is possible that the demographics have shifted enough that the base for Trump is too small to drive to a victory, but we shall see.
We will know a week from Tuesday, but there is a huge gap between the polls and tangible factors such as enthusiasm and event attendance. Luntz may be semi-right but not for the reason he thinks. People don’t expect polls to align perfectly with final results but to show trends and a reasonable snapshot of where things stand. If people won’t participate or answer honestly, even rough snapshots become impossible. There may be a demand for wishful thinking, as you suggest, but that won’t fetch the same price as something useful.
It would be interesting for some smart guy to compare polling trends with SCOTUS decisions.
I am thinking in particular about all the ‘polls’ from a few years back declaring that Americans were suddenly cool with sodomite marriage.
Oppose gave way to tolerate gave way to accept gave way to celebrate gave way to promote.
What’s next?
Participate?
Rush Limbaugh had a good point a couple of weeks ago when he said that polls would become much more realistic within the last two weeks because the polling organizations’ reputations would be on the line
Remove the possibility of meaningful feedback from a system, and it becomes pure fantasy. I remember discussion the 2004 election results with some colleagues in the Political Science department. They were, of course, convinced that John Kerry was going to win in a blowout. After quite a few drinks, I asked them what they’d gotten wrong. Their answer? Oh, those stupid redneck racists, the Public, threw another temper tantrum. “Nevertheless,” I persisted, “shouldn’t that cause y’all to rethink a few things? I mean, even if that’s true, then you misunderestimated the stupid racist redneck temper tantrum factor by an order of magnitude. Isn’t it, you know, kinda like, your job to get that right?” I wasn’t invited to any more happy hours after that, and they all got tenure.
Sorry Z for going O/T, but thought people may take interest in Jim God going on a tear on Counter Currents
I have to wonder if he will be there for long lol
He’d appreciate your recognition.
Most of us just call him Jim Goad. I disagree with him on a few points but his overall thrust of excessive passivity is dead right.
He is indeed. Our passivity has also driven people like Denninger nuts as well.Our side still acts like its 1985 and is oblivious to the fact tha the elites and upper class whites along with their ethnic lackies have declared war on us.
They want us dead and gone and our collective response is to act like it’s a joke. So we laugh at Antifa and BLM, while throwing kids like Kyle Atkinsson under the bus or ignore when a white man is shot dead in front of police by a Satanist/Anfifa goon.
We don’t get that war has been declared on us at all. We see whites being shot and killed or beaten and our collective response is either silence or mockery.
Normie conservatives are rather dull reactionaries. They typically don’t think deeply about anything and prefer not to get their hands dirty. They’re also hampered by a self-defeating moral code and patriotism. If you want conservatives to fight back, I’d recommend attacking the latter two., especially patriotism. You can’t fight a system that you’re constantly pledging loyalty to.
Another influence on that stock market crash was diversity. The activist groups cried to the gov that banks werent loaning enough to blacks and latinos. The banks were just following the smart rule of not loaning to people with poor credit and no verifiable income. The gov pressured the banks to lower their standards, ten million people bought homes who shouldnt have, they all stopped paying their mortgage and the rest is history. We’re now doing this with criminal laws, the SAT test, and highschool grades. Bright future ahead
As Peter Hitchens said: “Opinion polls are a device for influencing public opinion, not a device for measuring it. Crack that, and it all makes sense.”
I’ve always found it a bit insulting that somebody thinks I’d be influenced to vote for their candidate because of a yard sign or bumper-sticker. (That these tactics might work horrifies me.)
That these tactics might work horrifies me.
Yes. No wonder our overlords despise us.
Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly made that observation also.
Speaking of polling….
and as it relates to the “hive mind”
Anyone else find it perhaps profound or curious that a poll of 800 people can tell us how 100 million will vote within a point or two?
I find it hard to believe as well, but perhaps not for the reasons one would think. In theory, a smallish sample may indeed be a pretty good measure, but in practice the assumptions that must underly that sample for the degree of accuracy beggars the imagination. But as I’ve said before, accuracy is very often not the purpose of the sampling in opinion *making* polls.
The Tokyo Roses of mockingbird media are gaslighting people into not voting. Fool us once……
You guys really need to shorten those election cycles. Don’t ask me how you’d do it. But no country can withstand 2 warring factions at one another’s throats for 2 years straight every two years. The Canadian federal elections are up and over in three weeks.
Considering the result, I’m not sure that is a recommendation.
It’s worse than that
The political ads are non stop for months before the election
In reality, the elections never end. In’s a constant churning that can only be escaped by dropping out of society. Not kidding.
Though the guy that ran my old firm’s Des Moines office did say the summer before the caucuses did involve a lot of free food.
Offer free food, and people will show up, like ants at a picnic
Not the people you want around though lol
It was a big thing in 2015, when the elites decided that Trudeau would win.
In 2019 they decided Trudeau would stay in so the election was quick and you barely noticed it happened.
The country is so flooded with immigrants and non whites now we will never have a normal party win again – unless, of course, a Muslim party splits off or something (and I would vote for them) – but that’s years down the road.
Maybe then we can have a leader of the quality of Justin Trudeau!
Didn’t know that you’re a big Obama fan.
Trudeau>Obama
Trudeau < Trump
Actually, I’m not even sure Trudeau > Obama. Trudeau isn’t just a lefty like Obama, he’s also an idiot. I don’t think much of Obama, but I think he’s got better than a room temperature IQ. I suppose you can say that a dumb leftist is better than a smart leftist, because they can’t accomplish as much, but leftism seems to be doing just fine in Canada.
I think part of the danger of Biden is that he is so mentally unprepared for the presidency that he will be entirely under the control of deep state hacks without even his own sense of public shame or self-preservation to hold things in check. So, no, a leftist idiot in charge isn’t good.
I’d say Obama was worse .
Leftism is doing “fine” in Canada but it is apparent that the US is riot central.
I think it’s sad what’s happening in both countries but the US seems to be more materially/culturally broken.
The reasons the US is in the state it is in right now have relatively little to do with Obama.
But are not the timing, or call for the election, up to the ruling party? Or is that just British?
Z has mentioned, though it was common knowledge 28 years ago, that Clinton pioneered the never ending political campaign. Before Clinton I remembered politics not being something anyone cared much about between elections, but since Clinton had to have his “clean up crew” on TV all the time (people forget that the Lewinsky scandal was one of many) then you could no longer get away from it.
Our host gets some interest this morning from the civnat site Ace of Spades.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/390877.php
The guy who posts the morning briefs has been drifting in and out of dissident ideas for the last few months. He still clings to his normie ideals with all his strength but he’s starting to realize that they’re inevitably slipping away forever into the abyss.
Watching Biden give his PN speech today, given the polls, why is he there? He should be in half a dozen other states. Also, given his speech, he will, within one year, become the most hated President in modern American history. No one likes an old guy shouting at them. He emanates weakness. Trump is clearly the stronger candidate, but the country itself has shifted to the left during his presidency. Electorates by nature, continue to shift left and then slingshot right after an emergent crisis. We haven’t yet had an emergent crisis, but it’s coming.
I am of two minds on all of this
One side says Trump will win b/c it’s impossible that a country would vote for Biden, even one as demographically scrambled as this one, for surely common sense must win out, and in fact the other day it struck me that Biden would be humiliated by electoral defeat — coupled with contents from the laptop from hell — and would die away in shame a broken man
The other side is a feeling people about to die must feel, stoic resignation and acceptance. If he wins, it’s where the country is today and probably for a long time.
In a normal world, Trump would be up handsomely
One left field prediction–Hunter “suicides” next week and Biden goes the sympathy route with the voters. And blames Trump.
Mean orange man picking on young (50 year old), little Hunter drove him over the edge is what they will say. Hillary will be happy to make all the arrangements.
Team Biden is probably doing a cost/benefit analysis on that very thing
I’m not sure if you’re using some esoteric interpretation of the term “emergent crisis” but I’d say the entire past year, at least from about March 1, has been nothing but a perpetual crisis.
What I said, Pozy.
History once again repeats itself. Sounds a lot like current times. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals
JR said, “We haven’t yet had an emergent crisis, but it’s coming” (referring to the kind of crisis that causes a political slingshot-shift to the Right). Not so, JR! The emergent crisis is here, and has been for some time, from DC dysfunction and open corruption; to burning cities, to rampaging looting joggers; to standing-down police; to prosecution of people for defending themselves; to the obvious corruption of the FBI, State Dept. and Justice Dept.; to open mainstream media lies; and lots more. A vote-fraud-proof landslide is about to happen.
I’ll watch a few minutes of Biden rally YouTube videos mostly to read the comments: 90% anti-Biden.
Is there anyone who actually bases their votes on the debates or on promises made (very sincerely) that every other politician makes?
Trump was the first presidential candidate I was ever excited for. Both Bushes were horrible. McCain was so bad I voted for Bob Barr. Romney was so repugnant to me I actually voted for Gary Johnson! Aside from his utter cowardice, the thing that most bugged me about McCain was his SJW streak. His smacking down some old woman about Obama being a great man and a good man is I think the single thing that most stuck with me. No amount of dislike for Obama could get me to hold my nose and vote Romney. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t see how any self-respecting Democrat can hold their nose and vote Biden. I guess if they had any self-respect, they wouldn’t be Democrats.
I don’t. You can’t really believe any promises politicians make, and the choices are pretty stark. I think undecided voters are mostly morons or attention-seekers.
The debates are for entertainment or confirming your bias. If Trump killed a person on stage during the debate, I’d be like, “I’m going to need more context for that, otherwise, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
is it possible that the state/national polling discrepancy is due to the fact that Biden is winning 65/35 in some states (think NY, CA, MA). Swing states are the most polled states – but I feel that “safe” states should also be polled to paint more of a picture.
Good essay as usual. I would add that broadly speaking the problem also exists with the increasing dogmatism in Academia and politics, indeed in many aspects of everyday life that in the old days had nothing to do with political beliefs. Such as Pro Sports. While these are not directly a customer – client relationship, lackeys are hired, approved, not cancelled, etc. because they please those in power, not necessarily because they are objective and speak or seek the truth. It’s not difficult to grasp why those in power do not want independent Minds seeking out the real reasons for things being as they are.
Sometimes I like to provide musical suggestions. Today here are a few related to the press.
UFO “the writer” ( this one is especially relevant to today’s essay. Instead of just a single writer think of a committee or the stylebook as the censor.)
Billy Bragg ” it says here”
Don Henley “Dirty Laundry”
Dire Straits “lady writer”
Usually you can find the tune on YouTube or who knows where else. If you would wrap if you don’t like rock and roll, you could consider a poetry and look it up on azlyrics.com.
So where does this kind of self-deception lead? In our evolutionary history, if you misjudged the intentions of that lion up ahead on the trail, your DNA was eliminated from the gene pool and it was a win-win for the species. Nowadays, being stupid, wrong, or corrupt gets you more gravy and consequently our species DNA gets more polluted. How long can this go on? Good question.
Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » The Polling Problem
For the media polls are no different than markets for certain types of traders. It’s all about creating movement and action–both up or down can be traded. “Dave, our analysis shows that the Biden fart during his last news conference has caused a 7% drop in support among suburban females aged 35-50 who use scented oils in the home. If this trend continues the campaign will be in trouble in four key battlegrounds…”
I call Baby Boomers
I have both a landline phone and a smart phone. On my landline, I have caller ID. I never answer a call when I don’t recognize the name and/or the number that shows up – I let it roll over into voicemail. On my smartphone, I likewise don’t answer unknown numbers. So really don’t know how many pollsters I’m avoiding, but I have no regrets about any of them.
I have almost never in my life been polled. I can think of two occasions and neither of them was a presidential poll.
I think about how I use my phones, both mobile and landline, and the amount of robo-calls I get means I virtually never answer the phone unless I know who the caller is. The only exception to this is when I put ads for livestock up for sale and am thus forced to answer all the calls, but that’s not really that often as a percentage of my time.
I do get polls in the mail from the RNC or NRA or whatever now and then and they go straight in the trash.
I don’t think I’m that unusual, from what my friends say. So, given that, who is answering the calls for polls? This seems like very specific subsets of people.
“People who answer calls from unknown callers”
And a further subset, “People who don’t hang up on the pollsters.”
Then a third subset, “People who don’t lie to the pollsters.”
How can they possibly get an accurate measurement of voter sentiments?
Good critical thinking. The correct answer is they can’t possibly be reaching a representative sample.
Good point. Back in the 90s I worked for consumer product regulatory agency that sometimes sought to collect data by a form of telephone polling. The proliferation of fax lines and cell phones made the random digit dialing method that had been the standard mechanism to achieve a random sample increasingly unreliable. I don’t know what techniques pollsters use today to try and achieve a random/representative sample of voters.
I consider it my solemn duty as an American to fuck with pollsters. Due to the nature of my work I have to answer lots of calls without recognizing the number, so I get polled all the time. I’ll make time if I possibly can, and the longer the poll, the better. If you start hearing a Dem pandering to the disabled transgendered pansexual chupacabra voter whose number one concern is the Designated Hitter rule, you’ll know I’ve been having an effect.
Man, those chupacabras. Comin’ here, eatin’ our cattle. I hate those guys.
Smuggled across the border on the backs of coyotes. Literal coyotes, Canis latrans, according to the very very very smart blue checkmarks in the Media.
Your cattle were delicious! Uh, I mean “dang them chupabras, never know where they’ll turn up.” P.s. not our beer bottles, not our flying saucer. /s/ the extraterrestrial aliens
Personally, I believe in psychometrics. I think they are quite accurate and predictive. Unlike a lot of you, I have thought of the prospect of being polled as something I would like. The idea of it appeals to me from both a sort of autistic POV about using the raw data for analysis and because it speaks in some way to a high trust society i’d like to live in . I lean towards the naive though, admittedly. So, with that in mind in terms of psychometrics, I would say these people are going to be more prone to be like me- high in agreeableness and openness, which would put them squarely in the left category, probably also high in conscientiousness, where you might pick up some righties, but I have to think people who would volunteer to be polled would be predominantly of left temperament. So that may say a lot about polls.
The customers (politicians) don’t even give a damn what people want or think anyway so why poll them? Beats the hell out of me. I think it’s just due to inertia, and it gives them warm fuzzy feelings by thinking they’re “taking the pulse of the American People.”
Maybe by polling they can believe they are doing something we might want. When you’re so used to lying to everyone else you don’t mind lying to yourself.
Hear, hear. I frequently receive these “polls” in the mail—all obvious pure BS if you’ve an IQ above room temperature. For example, the Republicans regularly send me “polls” via the mail where they solicit my opinion on all sorts of “important” national matters.
These polls are interspersed with how their current touted candidate(s) will use this info in Washington. Always ending by a general return mail envelope and check boxes for solicited donations of $10, $25, or $100 to promote the effort. NRA does the same.
I assume these polls are designed to do two things: 1) solicit personal information for resale or future use; 2) flatter you such that you feel important and are more willing contribute money.
These “polls” probably work, but it’s insulting that a particular organization that you have some inclination to support, considers you little more than a rube to be fleeced.
Timur Kuran pointed out that in oppressive societies when a poll is conducted, even the color of the pollster’s pen can affect people’s answers. If the pollster’s pen is the same color as one of the political parties’ banners, then people will assume the pollster leans toward that party and will then tell them what they want to hear. Most people getting called by pollsters (or hell, most people, period) know that almost all of the elite in the Western World despise Trump and hate his voters, so when you get a call the instinct will be to imagine the person calling you has a blue pen in their right hand, whose nib they would like to jab through your white Christian eye.
And if they’re lesbian pollsters, they want to put your balls in a blender.
And we have something brewing in the Gulf. Would be interesting if it spools up into a tropical storm or hurricane and knocks out the power and roads to a chunk of the country just before an election.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php?basin=atlc&fdays=5
Huh. Going to hit some reliably red states.
Trump needs to dust off that “Nuke the hurricane” from orbit idea.
As you said before, they will tighten the closer to the election we get, they don’t want to lose money providing a bad product. Oh, and I hate gaslighting. They knowingly do it and then turn around and say, what are you going to do about it? It’s infuriating.
Lastly, feel free to spam my local Covid snitch page: https://riverstonehealth.org/public-health-preventing-disease/2019-novel-coronavirus/governors-directives-covid-19-complaint-form/
If you do not like spamming Zman, I will delete the post.
The state of MT is using this to sue businesses and individuals.
I’m not sure I understand, Z: I can see the “studies” working like that. Eg. I want to promote a certain agenda, so I contract a firm to cook the numbers and the data to support me. But serious polls?
From a poll, though…pulling data out of your ass may work for the hack media… but both parties at some point will need solid data they can base their run on. Part of the reason Hillary lost was that she believed the BS her own team was producing. (I would have loved to have been there with them, as the amped up shitlibs prepared their ‘Congratulations Hillary’ party on election night…).
I am forced to conclude our leaders are so stupid, that they have deliberately thrown away a priceless statistical tool in favour of yellow journalism and empty propaganda. I’d love to see Donald’s polls. I will bet his are as accurate as a Swiss watch in comparison to those of his rivals.
Wall Street should have been demanding honest credit evaluations. The power of belief should never be underestimated. In the case of Washington, they are more deluded and disconnected from reality than the bankers a dozen years ago. That’s been the subtext of the last five years.
Yes, but as you stated, those paying for the polls had a particular interest in the outcome. So they got their outcome, dishonest credit evaluations, which turned into profit (as short term as such a thing could only be).
Accurate political polling has an essential purpose for the political candidate/party. I doubt if they are paying for fantasy (knowingly), but have no doubt they keep such information confidential. This is different from using polls as a disinformation weapon in the campaign. Those are paid for as well, but the outcomes predetermined.
Bankers are in the business of rapacious greed and profit.
Politicos and the associated far left system are no longer in the business of politics. They are in the business of religion. Religious Zealots generally do not like heresy or anything which may counter dogma.
You grossly underestimate the well curated alternate reality these people require to sustain basic existence and not curl into a fetal position of existential crisis.
Of course, I live in DC so I get the rawest of the ‘raw feed’ about how disconnected from reality they truly are on the regular. Perhaps that is why you don’t grok how far into the Matrix they’ve pulled themselves.
I’ll second this. I spent a lot of years in academia, most of it in college towns. I’m willing to bet they’ve even got the DC bubble beat in terms of mass delusion. This is a planet on which they truly believe that the New York Times and Washington Post are grossly biased… in favor of Donald Trump.
Trust fund babies who are now old and divorced or widowed matrons of the arts are tantamount to the strychnine drinkers and viper handlers of the churchians. They will act to send you into the eternal lake of fire so they might feel worthy enough in the eyes of mother gaia to cackle aloud over your shrieks of pain and horror. It’s why they exist.
As I often lecture here, the power of Reality to put delusional beliefs to the test should never be underestimated either.
Wall Street demand “honest” anything? This week Goldman Sachs admitted guilt for bribery, fraud, and money launderingin multiple countries. They’ll pay a fine, and Tim Leissner has been barred by the SEC, but nobody at GS is going to jail. Same with Citi and JPM (5 felony counts in 6 yrs). Until some of these people go to prison the fuckery will continue. (Reminder that both parties ran on bringing back Glass-Steagall in 2016.)
We’re seeing a textbook example of The Power of Belief right now with the Wuhan flu. Despite an avalanche of studies that show masks don’t work, as well as real life data over the past 7 months that show mask mandates have had no effect on the spread, belief in their efficacy is religious in nature.
Yeah, I was going to argue… but I think you both are right, on second thought. We are in a steadily more dangerous reality inversion…
Phone poll response rate* is 6%, per Pew Research Center, Feb 2019.
* Response rate means they get info from only 6% of the phone numbers they call.
Totally off topic: are you sure you can’t throw up something by way of a greatest-hits list?
I’ve recently persuaded a couple of “I know something is wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger on it” center-right types to check out your site, but there isn’t really any entry-point for newbies to get the lay of the land.
Just four or five of your representative pieces would do. We’re kind of missing a chance to bring more people into the thing.
I second this. Such a list would not only introduce you, but will serve to get people up to snuff wrt current thinking. For a person as productive as you are Z-man, it would be of great help to noobies.
There are the three menu items at the top of the page: “Epistles,” “Essential Knowledge,” and “My Theory of Everything.”
I second this. These are great intros to the Zman; the Essential Knowledge reading list is more eclectic than you might think. Lots of great stuff in there.
Those are definitely good intros to the Zman and his thinking. As they were all written 2 or more years ago, I suppose there could be some updating. On the other hand, since I starting reading his blog around two years ago, his core positions haven’t changed much, if at all and no real reason they should. He’s one prolific writer, that’s for sure. Send the newbies there.
Also link them to episode 123 of the podcasts, “Talking To Normie”.
How is everyone’s neighborhood polling going here? Trump signs vs Biden. Even steven here.
There are no signs anywhere here. You would never know we have an election coming.
No yard signs for either candidate here in Berkeley (though some bumper stickers for Biden). It would be suicidal to put up a Trump yard sign in Berkeley. And I guess there just isn’t any enthusiasm for Biden.
I’m in SE Berkeley, what part of town are speaking of? I do see some Biden signs but not all that many. Some of them say “Bye Don” in the Biden logo.
It’s pretty much a Biden fest in my area, but that’s in a stinkbag blue city in what used to be a reliably red state. If the demoncrap candidate pulls off our senate race and/or Biden wins the state I’m burning my state flag. How’s that for a futile, inconsequential protest?
How would that “poll” be considered remotely valid? As mentioned repeatedly here and in the news, Leftists will punish you for stating your political preference—especially Trump. Rightists still have some respect for free speech, so a Biden sign will not elicit having your home or car vandalized. I’d suspect you’d see a proliferation of Trump signs out in already very conservative neighborhoods. What we’d be more concerned about are Trump inroads in mixed or liberal bergs.
Shy voters are shy for a reason.
Trump signs 10,000 to 1 here in small town/rural North Carolina. It is the big cities(Raleigh, Charlotte, Asheville)where Biden and our idiot Governor have their support. My guess it’s that way across the country. The city is where freedom goes to die.
Exactly the same in my state. The rural areas are almost uniformly Trump.
60-40 where I am, sad to say in favor of Biden. And my state is the swingiest of swing states. That said, I live in an upper-middle class area, surrounded by working class areas where the whites are less delusional, and there are more Trump signs (despite the threat of violence from the vibrants and the nearby campus).
In the most heavily liberal part of Salt Lake City…it’s Biden, BLM, “Bye-Don” (oooh, clever!) signs everywhere.
Next to the LGBTQ+ flags, BLM signs, “We Welcome Refugees” and the sacred “We believe” liturgy, of course.
I just fly the US flag. It’s like a giant finger to the neighborhood, which, to be fair, it’s meant as such. As is a vote for Trump.
I’ve seen very few signs here for either Trump or Biden. I’m in a Democrat leaning area west of Portland OR. We’re also not far from much more rural and conservative parts of the state. I see a lot of pickup trucks with flags flying in their beds. This is presumably support for Trump and quite encouraging here. I’ve actually seen more bumper stickers for Trump but very few cars have stickers for either candidate. I go on walks through an upper middle class white subdivision and there’s also very little political signage.
The interesting this is, while I don’t think I’ve seen any Trump signs there yet, the few Biden signs are always accompanied by the “flag litany” signs with all the poz slogans, and of course BLM signs. What this suggests to me is that only the most fanatical lefties are willing to put up a Biden sign. If this is true, it suggests that Zombie Joe has little normie support in what should be a solid area for him.
This tends to confirm what common sense and personal interactions tells us. Support for Biden is very soft among everyone but the far Left. Support for Trump is about as strong as possible among his base and probably surprisingly (though quietly) strong in some of those homes I see with no signage at all.
I take it you’re in the Avenues.
I was just there and saw the same thing.
Sugar House, unfortunately. Never would’ve moved here if I thought the idiots would approve a homeless shelter in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Alas.
Pretty sure UT will stay mostly red in my lifetime though. Might have to suck it up and go LDS if things really go south. Ridiculous religion, but other than the Amish, they’re the last group in America that still have massive social capital.
(For the moment, anyway. The inter webs really corrode actual community by hyper magnifying the small blemishes at the expense of otherwise great support systems)
Sugarhouse is such a high density mess now. I knew it was gone when a needle disposal box popped up next to the (now closed) 24 Hour Fitness.
Well, your house has probably appreciated considerably, especially if you bought over 5 years ago.
Here in the second-largest city in a very Red state, I had been seeing Trump signs outshowing Biden ones at least 5 to 1. But in the last couple weeks a whole lot of Biden signs have been popping up. Now it seems almost even. It’s a little worrysome.
In my subdivision Trump signs outnumber Biden signs about 5 to 1.
One interesting thing I’ve noticed this year is that the people who have political signs on both sides are all tucking their signs up next to their houses and not out in the middle of their yards or next to the sidewalk where they’re easier to steal or vandalize.
One Biden sign on my street
I thought about defacing it
I think there is another around the corner too
The Biden sign on my street belongs to a known poverty pimp. The rest in the neighborhood are no doubt retired GM workers repaying the bribe Obama gave them back during the bankruptcy by further screwing the legal system. However, considering the classic “blueness” of the area, there a lot of Trump signs. The countryside though is more distressing, obviously lots of idiots brainwashed by their cable news station that they’ve been stuck home watching for months.
Trump dominant and slowly pulling away down the home stretch.
Within the confines of my smallish city (25,000) in NYS, Biden signs are more numerous. As soon as you get into ‘dem ‘dere hills it’s a complete rout, with Trump signs ubiquitous. In the end, my county will vote red, as it normally does — Trump beat Hillary by more than 20%. Not that it matters.
One thing I’ve noticed in the more urban areas is that of homes with multiple signs for local elections, maybe half of them don’t have a Presidential sign, either Biden or Trump. The Trump people I can understand, but I’m surprised at the number of Democrat homes that don’t have a Biden sign.
Urban vs rural is super intense, it’s crazy how even a town of 25,000 might be way more left leaning than its rural neighbors. There must be some kind of psychological phenomenon.
It’s the “I’m better than this” phenomenon
For whatever reason, any young person with even the slightest dreams of becoming something, if he is from a rural community, will assume the attitude of “these rural people are a joke lol, I am so much better than them. Look at that idiot with his stupid cowboy hat. He doesn’t even have cows lololol. These people are so suck. I’m heading to the city. People get me there.”
I have seen it all my life
That’s why the FBI hates Trump. Remember Szrock’s “you could smell” the Trump voters? They don’t want to be Clarice Starling.
“You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed? Pure West Virginia. What’s your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you … all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars … while you could only dream of getting out … getting anywhere … getting all the way to the FBI.”
A lot of it is these types are just butthurt that they then turn into an us/them that eventually can morph into a false sense of superiority. They are going to be more group oriented: less individualistic. This can either be because they are low in conscientiousness and need higher density areas to scrap out an existence/piggyback off others or more developed infrastructures, or because they are highly agreeable, which might indicate cowardice-They got picked on or beat up by redneck types at some point and this makes them feel inferior which they then convert to superiority. (This is another reason for the push for the Wiggerization of urban blue collar whites- to put them all on team blue, and separate them from rednecks, and narrow the divide between urban working whites and liberals who may have also been picked on or beat up urban blue collar whites, but they can all bury the hatchet over a pint of multiculturalism/Black masculinity).
So generally I think it’s mostly going to be different mixes of higher agreeableness, and openness, with lower conscientiousness, of people who congregate in denser ecologies.
A lot of it is these types are just butthurt that they then turn into an us/them that eventually can morph into a false sense of superiority. They are going to be more group oriented: less individualistic. This can either be because they are low in conscientiousness and need higher density areas to scrap out an existence/piggyback off others or more developed infrastructures, or because they are highly agreeable, which might indicate cowardice-They got picked on or beat up by redneck types at some point and this makes them feel inferior which they then convert to superiority. (This is another reason for the push for the Wiggerization of urban blue collar whites- to put them all on team blue, and separate them from rednecks, and narrow the divide between urban working whites and liberals who may have also been picked on or beat up urban blue collar whites, but they can all bury the hatchet over a pint of multiculturalism/Black masculinity).
So generally I think it’s mostly going to be different mixes of higher agreeableness, and openness, with lower conscientiousness, of people who congregate in denser ecologies.
Getting bet up by redneck types is part of too, I’m sure
Revenge of the Nerds
I’m too busy surreptitiously placing “It’s Okay To Be White” stickers without being destroyed to notice.
Heh. I’ve a roll of “Smile, Jesus loves you” stickers I put on the BLM signs.
Jesus loves blacks. Blacks love Jesus. What’s the problem?
Rural part of michigan, Trump dominant.
I got an accidental poll.
A forgetful friend in the office accidentally called me; I picked up since I was awaiting his call for business this morning.
He didn’t realize he’d called, or that I could hear him arguing with another friend, an irascible old scoundrel.
“You’re voting for Trump, that racist?” he cried, outraged. Both are Mexican, this is L.A. The old scoundrel is a pure cholo gangbanger, still has the tattoos, and was laughing at him. “Of course I am,” pachuko cholo said. “We all are, ese!”
3.5-to-1 in favor of Trump.
Here in an outlying Houston suburb, its almost all Trump signs. Probably 20-1. In my particular subdivision, there are no Biden signs anywhere. Then again, I also live in an area with one of the highest concentrations of concealed carry permit per capita in the nation.
in N.Ga 50 to 1 Trump. Traveled to south Ga and middle TN. same thing.. even bumper stickers on the interstate.
Starting to see some, but still outnumbered by the BLM signs, which I think are intended to ward off rioters, like the “soul brother” painted on ghetto store windows. Frankly, I can understand why someone might hold their nose and vote for Biden, party loyalty, Trump’s a clown, etc. But how could anyone actually alert people to it? Brag about it? “Yep, I proudly cast my vote today for the next President, Joe Biden!”
100% Trump. I’ve seen flags, massive signs, truck flags, shirts, face masks and everything else. I haven’t seen a single Biden sign, though I have seen signs for local Democrat candidates.
A few Biden signs, no Trump signs. I am in a deep red suburb in the Intermountain West.
Trump signs and flags everywhere in the rural towns. I don’t think they are concerned about vandalism there. Some people in my neighborhood are complaining on Nextdoor about their Biden signs disappearing.
I am in perhaps one of the kookiest, crazy blue-haired part of Lagos on the Chesapeake, and there are lots of Biden signs (used to be mostly Bernie signs way back). Lots of anti-Trump signs as well (e.g. “Anyone but Trump 2020”). Funny thing is, everyone always talks about this neighborhood’s supposed racist past, but I can tell you that those old folks are gone… It’s over the top Lib, as far as the eye can see.
My neighborhood newsletter had a Karen complaining that people were throwing garbage on her yard and stealing her Biden sign. I’m in Trump country I see some T signs out on farms. I think people are still complacent here. That’s the poll I would like to see: how many people know of the Biden porn videos, and the pay-to-play scheme of the Bidens etc. How far the scandal of this clown world has penetrated into the consciousness of Americans.
It is a childish pastime of mine to provide pollers the exact opposite information of what my position on a subject is or how I expect to vote.
I read an interview with the guy who runs Trafalgar and he had some interesting things to say about this. Their starting point the last time was to determine the sorts of people who are likely to respond to polling calls. What they found is left-wing partisans are much more likely to sit and answer a long survey than other voters. The other polling outfits use a 30-minute survey, so Trafalgar went with a short series of questions.
The other interesting thing is was how they adjust for the shy vote. They came up with some techniques that make people more comfortable responding to these questions. The Bradly Effect is something traditional pollsters have never been able to solve. This also impacts the mix of voters in their surveys. He pointed out the Republicans willing to engage in surveys are much more likely to cross the party line to make a point.
We’ll see. The guy is way out their on a limb again this time.
You get a “polling” call. How do you know it’s not Antifa calling, and once you admit to supporting the orange man, they pop out from the bushes and murder you. Is the FBI keeping tabs on Trump supporters? They are talking about re-education camps.
I’m sure they have all this data from our phones, anyways, but still. Seems foolish to be answering polling calls in 2020. I think many Trump supporters feel the same way. If I do answer polls, I give random answers.
Totally agree
When Ron Paul ran the first time I donated I think $50 or $100 and next year for two years straight I was audited for the first time in my adult life
And Huffpost was publishing the names of all donors, and I saw my name on their list when I googled my name for something else. I had no idea that was possible. So here is the whole world knowing whom I voting for.
No way I am telling a poster anything or ever donating again. If I donate, it will be cash in a basket like at church.
Unless your verified name pops up on my phone’s rolodex I never, ever pick up. Leave a message. I even had a friend record the message prompt so that my voice pattern cannot be recorded and it’s close enough for clients to believe it’s me.
It’s amazing that say 10 years ago I’d say you were a nut, now I envy your excellent tradecraft.
Yeah, me too. Not being a crackpot is increasingly a sign of lack of mental acuity.
A shorter survey is good and all, but how do you know that at the beginning? If you’re disinclined to take a survey, you’re going to hang up as soon as you discover the provenance of the call.
Around here the local Progressive groups were already looking up Trump donors in town in 2016, the county paper published a searchable map of pistol permit holders a few years ago… I know of once incident where a Trump sign was out, then stolen and the back window of the resident’s car broken out. So we’re not exactly prime polling response types–yet 42% of the votes cast here were for Trump in ’16. Funny thing there are barely any Biden signs out and half the ones I’ve seen are at hard core Progressive addresses.
I do the same, especially with automated polls over the telephone. However, this is just to amuse myself when bored. It is not difficult in polling to ask questions to detect/rate such incongruences. One produces a “lying” or “deception” score and excludes respondents on that. Problem is it lengthens the poll and take a bit of thought which adds to the cost—and since the purpose of the poll in question is not always to extract the “truth”, it’s a wast of time for the pollster.
Luntz was also saying Trump has no/slim chance at this point
If he’s wrong, it’s HIS polling who’s done
I doubt it. His act is just a ridiculous show. Those little meters he uses are fake. The results in the screen are whatever the producers ordered. it’s all an act.
That’s just it, it’s a paid for act in many ways. I believe there are two broad types of polls—those for internal consumption, those for external consumption. Both produce revenue for the polling company, but are not of the same desire—seeking truth.
The polls for internal consumption need to be as accurate as possible because they will drive the campaign decisions. Two resources are always in short supply for any campaign: time and money. A poll showing a need to shore up the vote in a State that is in the bag, is costly for a campaign. A polling company that fails in these predictions is not getting the business next time around.
The external polls are of the opposite ilk. They need only to produce the outcomes desired by the campaign or party. It could be showing the opposing candidate losing or the losing candidate in the lead. They are desired to drive public opinion in one form or another. Those are the ones we see most often reported. They are also the reason we see the polls begin to drift toward the final outcome (truth) during the closing days of an election cycle in order for the polling company to retain/claim some sort of credibility after the election.
I remember, in the last week of the 2016 elections, one well known polling company changed their polling prediction of 12 point lead for HRC to (IIRC) a toss up. Some folks with some knowledge of polling called this a farce in that such an opinion “movement” was beyond belief.
Anyone know if the NYT is going to go all in on the real time “chance of winning” meters again this year?
Fun watching that thing crater last time around..also in real time. It was clearly designed to “voter suppress” any Trump voters, but failed spectacularly.
Can’t even imagine what Google, FB, and Twatter are doing behind the curtain to shape behavior this time around.
Those meters are intriguing but for them to be accurate they have to rely on a ton of stored data of previously elections and how upcoming districts should be voting based on past and current data being fed into them
That might actually be somewhat valid
But I doubt they actually do that. Zman’s office monkeys are probably back there turning dials and getting thrown a banana when they turn the dial to blue
Never thought about like that… but wouldn’t doubt it
I think he rode that little meter schtick as long as he could and now he’s out of gimmicks
It would amuse me to no end if you would adorn all your office monkeys with Mark Zuckerberg masks for Halloween.
News is show biz. His little dramatic bit was just part of the show.
There is a picture floating around of Obama with a bull horn in front of 5 people that are ten feet away. For me that is representative of all that is going on. BS poll numbers are just another political ad to get somebody to believe their program. The smartest among us have a tape playing in their head just like the guy at the drive through. Telling the truth is no longer an option.
Yep. But in the election day more than 60 million strong zombie army crawls out and votes for dementia. Hillary rallies were also small and despite this, Donald won by miracle.
I saw the Luntz quote and thought the same thing. In another age he may have been right but in another age polling and it’s users weren’t so corrupt.
There still also be an ongoing market for polling because the left believes it is stupid, immoral and anti science to learn from experience. Smart people listen to experts. The more those experts are wrong, the better because you can show your loyalty to science.
Climate change is the poster child for this. Increasingly dire predictions that are never right. How does the left respond? Immediately believe the next one.
It seems like the polling this year is entirely a faith-based thing.
Considering that presidential elections are typically decided by only a couple of percentage points, in a sane world the polls showing Biden up by 14, 15, 16 points would have been dismissed simply for not passing the smell test.
Fortunately for the companies providing the polls, there are tens of millions of true believers in the OMB church, so their product is not even required to pass a sanity check.
It’s all coping, from the right and the left.
“Checkmate, drumpftards. This poll is showing biden +15!”
“This new Trafalgar poll is owning the libs😎. Red wave incoming!”
Who knows what the internals show. My guess is that there’ll be a twist. Trump wins FL WI and MI, loses AZ and NC (stolen). Pennsylvania is where the election will be won or lost, hence the wacky court rulings recently.
Either way, demographics are destiny and the USA is headed towards 3rd world shit hole, regardless of this one election result.
Thereby once again proving that voting is a statistically meaningless gesture. It’s not enough to live in one of the three “battleground” states…you have to be in one of the 3 or 4 counties in the BG states.
Besides, if your state votes consistently “red”, you’re going to get flooded by “immigrants” and “refugees” relocated to your area to fix that nasty, embarrassing “red” problem.
Case in point: Virginia.
One great thing Trump did was changing the refugee rules; communities can now veto refugee settlement. Of course over time, it won’t matter. NC, Arizona and Georgia are going blue followed by Texas and at that point it’s game over. Even with the 75-25 R lead among southern whites, it won’t be enough.
Governance will go from indifferent/snake Republicans to openly anti-white radicals. Misguided accelerationists will get what they want but it remains to be seen if white people will actually grow a pair of balls.
Cali and NJ will flip this decade. Can’t believe I’m saying that but my gut tells me so. Rust belt has already started flipping.
NY probably won’t because of NYC but you never know. PA is primed to flip for a generation but GOP losers seem intent on letting NY/NJ and even MD colonize us because people gotta live somewhere!
It’s all moot though. I do believe a collapse of some sort is coming, with the attendant population reduction. And that will save what’s left of the American nation.
You never know (about CA and NJ), but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Go look up the Carter v Ford electoral map. A bit shocking to see the now “solid” R states back then we’re hard corps yellow dog Democrats.
Predictions are hard. Especially about the future, no?
They are, but it’s fun to trust your gut and see if it’s right 🙂 Especially now, because realignment is in the air.
It may come even worse: no collapse at all. What if technology (AI-like) makes manual labor superfluous? What is there left to collapse?
Collapse is in the plans (open borders, green new deal, lockdowns, great reset, etc). This will certainly result in mass death. AI is there to replace ‘superfluous’ humanity.
Nobody is that stupid or misguided. There has to be a malevolent will behind it.
I see the utility of MAGA as a rear guard action to blunt the effects of that plan and overcome them down the road. We’re going to suffer some of it. Unless something miraculous happens.
Nobody is that stupid or misguided.
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I don’t know about that.
The collapse is in the skill and ability of the new American populous to maintain and advance a 1st word technological society—not necessarily to fed and keep amused a growing supply of surplus human capital.
That might explain woke capital. High tech, low population society would have less need of a medium of exchange, trade being necessitated by scarcity. Economies are so human. So why not leverage it in the meantime?
What are you smoking lol
🙂 I don’t know man. Had a feeling about Obama in ‘04, Trump in ‘12. Had a feeling Covid wasn’t the black death, more concerned about the panic. You can go back to early March on this blog to verify that one.
Don’t have a crystal ball, not always right, but over time I’ve learned to trust my gut even when it sounds crazy to me. Usually gets me in a better place even if it’s off a little. We’ll see what happens.
There is a logic to what he’s saying. Those states may very well flip, just not in the way you imagine. I’m predicting that in 20 years or so the GOP will largely be the party of the poor — immigrant Hispanics, some blacks, poor Whites. This will resemble something like what Bolsanaro did in Brazil. The republicans will make a comeback, but not as a middle class White thing. It’ll be disaffected poor people & radicals raging against the establishment. Maybe they’ll push to elect a Bolsanaro or a Hugo Chavez like character?
It’s wherever Dems go. PA was blue since 1992. We got hit pretty hard. Same with MN. Red states are getting it now because Dems are moving in.
And it pisses me off that it looks like GOP has quietly agreed to cede PA to the dems. The farcical court rulings are telltale.
Yes, that is indeed what the Obama initiative “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” is all about, and will be back in place if Biden wins.
Dems’ problem is that their vote distribution is very inefficient. They win CA, NY and IL by huge margins, but are offset by closer races and close GOP wins in such as WI, MI, FL, and PA.
In addition, at the local level, they win many legislative and congressional races in urban ghetto areas by 90+%, but each such seat is equal to one won by the GOP with 52-53% (and there are NO places where the Republicans win by ghetto margins).
That too needs to be corrected. Hence the move to put more minorities in suburban districts to flip them to 55-60% Dem margins. Ultimately, the goal is to make Congress and the states all look like the Hawaii legislature–with one lone Republican in the state senate (up from 2016 when there were NONE!)
I wish I could argue with you, but I can’t. This country is doomed, and today was the first time I’ve acknowledged that fact to myself. Strangely, I didn’t have much negative feeling as I came to accept it. I think I’ve reach the acceptance stage of grief. America is gone, and I’m okay with that. It’s a relief not bother with it anymore.
I was visiting relatives in a ruby red state today and was shocked at what I saw going into the local Walmart. There were blacks, of course, but there were also an enormous number of Hispanics, bordering on outnumbering every other group; virtually everything was bilingual; lots of kids — youth was apparent among that demographic. Whites, in contrast, were an obvious minority. They were disproportionately old and the few who were young were also overweight, bordering on obese (and there were lots of those) and slovenly dressed; many were sick with deformities or were crippled, having an obvious issue with their ability to walk. Lots of people used scooters (obese, old). Same for the black population. All of these people had useless junk crammed into their buggies: big screen tvs, stacks of frozen pizzas, make-up. A non-trivial number of White women (obese) had mixed race children, mostly black.
This country is doomed. There is no way that population is going to be able to compete with the Chinese, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded about how bad things have gotten in this country. I’m guessing that explains so much of what’s wrong with this place. Everyone realizes the jig is up, and those who can are racing to obtain the things they can before anyone else. It’s a free for all.
OT: Friendly reminder you live in a police state. Scary stuff. State media is doing the dissident intimidation thing.
Ever since the polling in 2016, I have suspected that the polling results are driven by the demand for campaign money. I.e. if the polling showed that Biden would not stand a chance… why give any money to his campaign?
Yep, that’s one very good reason. The psychology of elections is another fascinating subject for discussion. Polls are definitely a tool in your psyche war chest.