I am just not sure anymore how much credence to put in polls.
I thought about it logically...We are a country of 319 million people spread out over a large geographical area.
The polls that we are shown consist of either 500 or 1000 people responding according to which polling company does it.
And I thought about it...what would the average person do if they got cold called and somebody started asking them to "take a poll"?
I believe that most people would hang up on them instantly.
The very few that actually would take the time to let some stranger interrupt their day or evening with a poll are most likely people who either have nothing to do, are a little bit "off", or have a specific agenda (not an open mind).
And then there is the issue of WHERE the polling sample is taken. My guess is that you would get wildly different answers from steel workers in Pittsburgh vs. liberals in Beverly Hills vs. people in a small town in Alabama vs. New Yorkers...etc.
That's why the polls were all wrong during the Presidential campaign. The polls are outdated in my opinion. They are asking the wrong people in the wrong places.
And even IF they could somehow get a perfectly percentaged group of people that were exactly a mirror image of the entire country...it STILL wouldn't be able to be accurate when they only use 500 to 1000 people out of over 300 million people.
I think in the past...a poll was put out by a newspaper or reported on television news, and it sort of had the ability to create a perception amongst people. Because that was the only source of information over the last decades.
You know what I mean...you'd hear that "75% of Americans approve of bananas" and you would think to yourself..."Hey, I guess I approve of them too!"
But these days? People can access things for themselves online.
And I'm not talking about "fake news" or Facebook feeds. That's way too simplistic a way to understand what's going on.
People these days can actually google up a subject and find information for themselves.
For instance, we can instantly find video footage of politicians saying one thing a few years ago...and the exact opposite thing now.
Or a news organization reporting something (like the recent wiretapping that they all reported on in Jan. when it made Trump look bad) and then pretending they don't remember reporting it (like they are doing now when they question Trump about his allegation of being under surveillance).
They used to be able to get away with that. Not anymore.
I'd bet you that Trump voters haven't changed their minds one little bit about Trump. Matter of fact, the more that the media (especially CNN) does NOTHING but attack him every day...the more it's causing his supporters to dig in deeper.
If the Democrats and CNN and MSNBC, etc. really wanted to hurt Trump...they would just stop piling on every day and leave him alone. Actually just start reporting the hundreds of actual news stories that are happening every day.
I tuned into Fox a couple of days ago and saw that Iran was fucking with our navy ships, then I saw that the U.S. is deploying anti-missile technology in South Korea in response to North Korea testing another ICBM. Then I saw that Tillerson is on his way to China for high level talks.
I saw all of that reported in about 10 minutes time.
Then I switched over to CNN and what did I see?
You guessed it...Anderson Cooper with another "Panel" of "analysts" all babbling on and on about how Trump sucks.
Not one shred of news was reported.
Anyway, I digress. I don't believe the polls are very accurate these days. For all the reasons I gave at the beginning of my soliloquy.
