Just one of many things wrong with our polls
The–ahem!–science of opinion polling has become so corrupt, so tainted, so notoriously unreliable, that we’re almost back to where we were before polling was invented.
Like, for instance, this new Reuters/Ipsos poll claiming that “Most Americans” see the MAGA movement as “a threat to democracy” (https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2022-09-07/most-americans-see-trumps-maga-as-threat-to-democracy-reuters-ipsos-poll).
Could anything be more worthless? Could anything be more crass? Hey, for all you schmendricks know, the MAGA movement is “most Americans”!
Where did they take this poll? At a teachers’ union convention? Who did they talk to? Gender Studies majors? Do they even know any Republicans? Is Castro’s Cuba their spiritual home?
Well, why should polling be any better than our nooze reporting? Actually, I think it’s worse (if such a thing were possible). And look at what we call our “education.”
This country hasn’t jumped off one cliff. It’s jumped off several dozen of them.
Polls are no more reliable than the people operating them.