POLITICAL POLLING TECHNIQUE BIAS

The Constitution makes is gloriously obvious, in our country we can worship the way we chose or not worship if that is the route we choose. There is not supposed to be a religious test for political office, but unfortunately, this is not the case. This subject comes to the front because of remarks by recent presidential candidates related to Muslims being eligible to be president. Those of us interested in politics from the policy perspective often forget the amount of social power non-governmental groups has. As readers of my blogs know, I am terribly concerned about the economic direction taken in this country since the time of Reagan. The top-down economics has ruined the middle class and all evidence suggests it is going to get worse. Perhaps the tremendously flawed Citizen United ruling of the Supreme Court put the last nail in the coffin of the middle class there. This sounds as sinister and pessimistic as I intended it to sound. I spend hours each day wondering why working people vote against their interests. We, including the working class, clearly know the results those votes have produced. We are no longer a government of the people; we are a plutocracy. In my most optimistic times, I don’t see this as meaning everything is lost forever. Because these few men have bought and paid off congress, I see unions as being the organization(s) that can lead us out of this morass. However, more and more it appears that we will have to have some catastrophic event to trigger that happening. The American Revolutions shed the Royalty of Europe. The Russian revolution shed them off the power of Czars. What can we look to shed us of the power of a moneyed plutocracy? No one wants a revolution. A few rich men control the congress and the Supreme Court. I hear that lament every day from the people who are disgusted with government. They did it in a clever way; first they divided the people on multiple single issues so we are no long a population interested in good government but rather we vote, at least those few who vote, based on our interest in abortion, same-sex marriage, segregated schools, voter suppression, government control of educations, religious affiliation, etc. For example, I had a fellow tell me that he did not like George W. Bush but the priest told him to cast his vote for him. The people who hate the government and do not want to become involved are the very people we need to become involve and vote. The recent so-called debate where 15 people stood and told us what they were for and against was a classic display of ignorance. As a result, I realized, poll results are false. What is missing is pollsters telling us how may calls they have to make to get one answer. For example, they tell us of those who responded, 35% favored Trump, etc. Even if the pollster asked, do you vote or will you vote etc. and then tell us those who responded are likely one issue voters. Only a small proportion of the electorate vote but if the people doing the poll have to call 100 people to get one answer and they base their poll on an unknown number of responses what can their poll mean? They can include all the standard deviations etc. they want but their result is so “technique” biased the results are meaningless unless the rich use their dollars to drive down the number of people who go to vote by preaching hate for government as you heard those 15 candidates do. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated