The post-mortem on the 2016 election has now begun (and will probably continue for the next dozen election cycles) trying to identify for both Democrats and Republicans how badly the polls performed. The questions will all be variations on a simple premise: How could our pollsters have failed us so badly?
I think that this might accurately answer the question, but will never, ever be accepted by politicians of either party:
The citizens of this country lied to the pollsters.
While hard to believe, it seems to me to just a case of the citizens conveying to the politicians and their subservient pollsters the age old proverb “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Why do I say that? Because that’s the reason that politicians and their supporters (or if you prefer, sycophants) are so enamored of polls and polling. They want as detailed answers to their questions as possible to enable politicians to be as effective as possible when they lie to us!
About two years ago, I wrote an article about the real reason polls are even done at all. Simply, polls exist for one purpose only, which is to let politicians know exactly what lies to tell.
Here is a short segment from that article:
Every person who enters into a relationship with another human being always wants to hear their potential partner say the words “I love you” in some form or other. All of us do, and sadly we succumb to the temptation to give little hints to the other person as to what it is we really want to hear from them.
Most of us have succumbed to that temptation, particularly as teens or young adults. Then we hear those magical words, and we’re in heaven. The fact that the person telling us that they love us is frequently lying, and may have an ulterior motive, is ignored. We heard the words that we really, really, REALLY wanted to hear. They took the hint! Hoorah!
Of course sometime later, either shortly thereafter or occasionally after a lengthy courtship, you find that the words you were waiting to hear were not spoken from the heart, were not even vaguely true, and that you’ve been played for a fool. You find that the words were only spoken as part of a planned seduction.
Sounds an awful lot like a political campaign, doesn’t it?
The worst part of the “I love you…NOT” disappointment is when it dawns on you that you gave the liar the script that they would use to break your heart. You didn’t just hint. You didn’t just imply. You actually told them, sometimes in great detail, exactly what you wanted to hear.
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Why would you think that the people responding to poll questions would tell the truth in their answers?
So again, I have to ask, why would you think that the people responding to poll questions would tell the truth in their answers? And if you doubt at all that the answers aren’t the absolute truth, why would you ever believe any poll result? Probably for the same reason people fall in love with (and end up with disastrous marriages) the wrong person. They accept the answers to questions that they ask as being true, because they hear the answers they wanted to hear.
Still wondering why the polls were so far off? I might be wrong, but I think this might be a more accurate explanation than any that politicians and their pollsters will manage.
Unless, of course, they accept their own culpability for this fiasco.
Think that could ever happen?
Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller for manufacturing firms, a Vietnam veteran and an independent voter. Jim blogs at jimyardley.wordpress.com
