Proof in the Polling

Okay, as a progressive, I’m convinced that “news sources” such as Fox, Breitbart, Neva, and the like are deliberately skewing both their news stories and their polls to make it look like Republican candidates are both sensible and winning and that the Democratic candidates are untrustworthy losers. Yet I have observed that those on the right believe that sources I get most of my own information from—New York Times, Washington Post, FactCheck org, Snopes.com, etc., are skewed the other way. They believe that these organizations are tentacles of the liberal propaganda machine.

The media on the right seem to think that everything Hillary Clinton has done since she was born has been blameworthy on a global level and that Donald Trump has the answer for the country’s myriad woes. So that when the Times, Post, etc., give resounding editorial endorsements to Clinton, they, too, must be untrustworthy and unreliable, especially when they use words like “disaster” when referring to Trump.

But here’s the thing, folks. Maybe because I am a progressive, I truly believe in objective reporting. I want the facts and not empty rhetoric or downright falsehoods. In other words, I do not think that my own news sources are skewed—I believe that they are accurate. If not, I wouldn’t study or even read them. I’m not saying that some polls might not be skewed to the left but if so, they are not skewed nearly as severely as right-wing polls. An average of all polls, therefore, is almost meaningless as it will always be skewed to the right.

So here it comes. I saw a poll this morning put out by Neva—a smallish right-wing organization—saying that according to their latest poll, Trump will win by a landslide. Breitbart had a similar story. More cautious and unbiased polls gave Clinton a fairly comfortable lead. Therefore, Republicans are convinced that their man will win. But Democrats also have a plausible reason to think that their woman will come out ahead. 

There is, of course, is a way to tell who is right, but only after the election is over.

If, in fact, the right-wing-skewed polls are just abject garbage, Clinton will probably win. It will be proof that right-wing polls are giving us deliberate misinformation. It can't be both ways; if Clinton wins, the right-wing pollsters are either incompetent or deliberately lying. It will also be telling us that true and unbiased journalism is not dead.

So in a kind of odd way, the polls that turn out to be wrong will prove their biases. And by extension, the news sources that rely on these polls will prove themselves to be at best, out of touch with the facts. At worst, they will be proven to be deliberate purveyors of false information (a.k.a. liars). This is what happened during the last election. The right-wing polls had Romney so far ahead that both he and his handlers had conniptions when he lost.

Too bad people’s memories are so short.

UPDATE: November 12, 2016. This year's election proved that anything goes--even polls. It seems that the right-wing-accented polls were, to my dismay, more accurate than the supposed-unbiased polls. Obviously the numbers they were working from were flawed and it is incumbent on them to find out why.