But it doesn’t change the assertion that polls are NOT a fair and objective sample of voter intent-they have other purposes and usefulness.
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Too true. No argument from me.
My belief is that voter “polls” pre-election were never accurate and never intended to be so. They’ve always been, by design and intention, a tool of manipulation.
Psycho-Social Manipulation Via Pseudo Demographics.
Most people want to be an accepted member of the herd. Polls operate as a means of telling the herd what to believe, via the “voice of authority” mechanism.
Absolutely agree. The derps are always manipulating with some sort of PSYOPs.
“hey’ve always been, by design and intention, a tool of manipulation.”
Quite likely, many of us were lulled into complacency back when the media made much more of an attempt to be “fair and balanced” but 2016 was enough to force them out of the shadows where the manipulative aspects were clear to anyone who cared to look.
And as I said, why not? The cost to manufacture a poll is virtually nothing, and while a single poll may not be highly effective at changing behavior or thinking like all advertising, repetition over time reinforces the perception and change does occur. Use different names of supposedly reputable organizatons to reinforce the sense that since all polls get the same results they must be accurate. A repeat the same made-up results to create the perception “this is how everyone else thinks so they must be right and I’m the one who’s wrong”. Classic propaganda techniques - “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
Combine the low cost with the lack of transparency and accountability and you’ve got the cheapest means of influencing an election ever - and it’s perfectly legal.
All it takes is to lie to people, and for the people not to know they’re being lied to.