In the thirteen hundreds in what I assume was France, the word Polle was actually a surname. Then for some reason the common noun began to be used to describe the hair of the head, or the fur from an animal. Then around 1690 a poll tax became a literal head count.
Because everyone needs to pay taxes so you have an accurate count to keep the treasury in good order. In an attempt to maintain accuracy I should probably add that most people pay taxes, with children and billionaires being the exception.
Since then though, the poll and its use has expanded beyond tax collection and turned into a tool to predict voting and to gather opinion. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’m a skeptic about polling results for a variety of reasons. Part of my skepticism is based on the concept of random, and part of my uncertainty is because opinions are like underwear and people change them every day.
Again, in the interest of accuracy I’ll add that some people do not change their opinions ever. Some people are indoctrinated at an early age and those persuasions are with them for life. Also, some people don’t change their underwear every day. They probably should but they don’t.
So, the pollsters likely get the flavor of the day from the people they can persuade to participate in their questionnaire. Those same people may have an entirely different opinion the next day, and as a result the accuracy of the results will differ come election day. Then there’s the questions themselves, and the affiliations and motives of the pollsters. If the people gathering opinion are neutral, then they/’ve probably made an effort to not ask loaded questions, and to achieve that neutrality I just mentioned, it follows that the questions themselves need to be specific but not pre-loaded.
So, generally speaking I guess the sentiment of those polled can be gathered. But when we’re talking about election polling, I really think the first question that should be asked is, are you going to get off your ass and actually vote?
Because if you’re not then it really doesn’t matter what the fuck your opinion might be of Donald or Mark. In 2024 thirty five percent of eligible American voters didn’t bother, and so the polls need to find a way to exclude those people. Canada wasn’t much better with twenty eight percent of eligible voters deciding to leave their fate in the hands of someone else.
Then there’s the concept of random. I’m not sure how the selection process is determined, but I’m guessing that the polling would have a bias issue if the information were gathered at an Orange Aid rally or at a no Kings rally.
Any rally I suppose is bad. All of the people that attend would be mirror images of one another. Orange, Gay, Gumball or Monster Truck. The participants wouldn’t be particularly diverse, and that’s going to fuck up the results. So, I guess the pollsters just grab phone numbers from a voter or some other list, and call people to see if they want to talk. Or they go stand on a street corner, or in a mall and hope they don’t get told to fuck off because everyone thinks they’re trying to get you to accept Jesus as their lord and saviour.
I think the phone method is probably easier on everyone involved. But I’m not sure that any method satisfies the definition of random. Most spaces are designed to attract specific kinds of people, and so where the pollster chooses to situate themselves is going to have a significant impact on responses.
For example, if you place one pollster outside Tiffany’s and another outside Bass Pro you’re going to get very different answers from one location to the other. However the answers at one location will probably be very similar.
Anyway.
Defining random is their problem. The experts can sort it out.
If American polling is anywhere near accurate then I have another issue altogether. My issue is with Americans in general. What bothers me is that Dementadon still has any positive response at all. I see only two explanations to explain support for the man, and neither are comforting. Either the people that support him are as fucked up as he is, or they really have not one clue what’s going on around them.
Right this moment 21% of polled Americans strongly approve of his job performance. I repeat, strongly approve. I’m guessing here, but I’m going to speculate that all 21% buy gas and groceries. I’m going to further speculate that there is no way that 21 % of any countries citizens think that aggressive sexual acts with minors that may or not technically be rape, is an acceptable way to behave.
So, what the hell America, twenty one percent?
I keep waiting for that moment when the twenty percenters are going to reconsider, but I’m not sure that moment is ever going to come. I am however certain that if Biden shit his pants in meetings that he would have been labeled shitty Joe and not sleepy Joe, and Fox and friends would have had a literal fecal field day with the situation.
But they ignore diarrhea Don and the Epstein files and instead focus their attention on the communists. Brown commies with them funny sounding Ehrab sounding unamerican names.
Don is good at focusing the base, and I think he’s exploiting two aspects of America that appear to be historically constant. The first is someone to hate, and the second is the President telling you who those people are and when to apply the hate.
Don and his Republican cohorts are much better at this than Joe or Barack. I’m trying to think if Joe ever employed the tactic and I’m drawing a blank. Don on the other hand has an extensive list of hate targets, and as soon as the president names them, the media goes to work, and the next thing you know America is focussed on Haitian pet eaters and transexual athletes.
Meanwhile DJT is shall we say, struggling with Iran, but still found the time to throw some hate at Communists, Canada and Cuba, before he shit himself and nodded off in a meeting. Then after he was cleaned up and rested up, he posted an AI image of himself in a generals costume with Patton and MacArthur standing on either side of him. I guess if five draft dodging deferments and bone spurs aren’t an issue for the base, then the medal of honor he gifted himself isn’t an insult to them either?
Seems like it should be. I thought the base worshipped the American military, and detested stolen valor. But, the base is peculiar in where they find offence.
Even before Fox news arrived on scene there was a solid group of Americans that were the base of the base. The Jesus posse of white nationalists that spawned the KKK, the Proud Boys and Joe McCarthy. This group of people spent eight years in barely controlled rage over a black president, and they clearly prefer an incoherent incontinent as president over anyone with a darker skin hue.
So I’m suggesting the next polling event should come up with some questions so that America can understand roughly what percentage of people comprise the base. People that will never under any circumstance abandon the orangutang looking fella they elected.
The questions need some thought though. I don’t think you can straight up ask if people are committed to being racist, so asking if they would ever vote for a black presidential candidate is probably a no go. Maybe the way to measure the depth of racism is to ask if they would vote for a Republican presidential candidate who happens to not be white or male.
The next question I would add to the poll is, on a scale of one to ten , how much do you care about rich people giving absolutely zero fucks if you can afford to get sick? I think it’s a valid question, although I’ll concede that perhaps different wording may be something to think about.
The next question can be simple. Have you noticed that it seems to be getting warmer outside? This question is also valid, and I’d be interested to see if there’s at least some acknowledgement from the base to a reality they’re currently experiencing. If somehow a few testimonials from farmers were added to the equation that might help.
Because as far as I can tell, pretty much everyone who’s ever chewed on a piece of straw, or physically touched a cow before it was a burger voted for Dementadon.
I’m not sure what other questions would identify the die hard Trumpers. I can think of a few but they’re basically insults disguised as questions. Inquiries asking about the last book a voter read, or if you really need all of your front teeth.
But in the end I suppose that all the information required to identify the Trump cultists is available in the approval rating.
Twenty one frigging percent strongly approve, and that’s not just a base identifier. Its a harbinger of deterioration of the American democracy, and an in your face statistic for the rest of the world that 2026 America is going to be a prolonged issue, regardless of the midterms or the next presidential results.
Because in many ways, the damage is done, and all we’re left with are consequences.