About half of Americans believe Trump should end his campaign, describing his guilty verdict as “correct." He's weakening.https://t.co/hlR6KWDI3k
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 3, 2024
Exactly 50 percent of those polled said Trump’s guilty verdict was the correct decision by the New York jury, and 49 percent said Trump should immediately drop out of the presidential race.
Despite that, Trump’s favorability did not fall in the poll compared to previous editions. About 31 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the former president both before and after the conviction.I mean, it’s an interesting conclusion, but what does it mean to say “Exactly 50 percent of those polled,” and in the same breath say “About 31 percent of Americans” think…anything?
Is it like the weather forecast that says there’s a 60% chance of rain today, and the whole day is sunny and clear? And the explanation is that 60% of a undesignated and ill-defined area (usually the “viewing area,” and what the hell is that?) might see rain, not that where you live and work has a 60% probability of rain (which is how I always understood it). And even then, you can prove the value (validity) of the predictions by whether it rains, or not. Or how often the prediction adequately forecasts near-future conditions.
How do you ever prove 31% of Americans think anything? Except that they like ice cream, puppies, and apple pie? And even then you can rely on the sales and consumption of ice cream, apple pie, and the cultural popularity of puppies. (I like puppies, but I’d rather raise kittens.)
How do you prove 31% of Americans “approve” of Trump? Conversely, how do you prove 32% of Americans approve of Joe Biden? And what does it mean? They like him on TeeVee? They would vote for him no matter what? They would like to have a beer with him? Does it mean 68% won’t vote for him, no matter what? And yet every four years, the incumbent wins with shockingly low approval ratings, and rather than question the nonsense of something not only unprovable and demonstrably disproven, we decide the victory was in spite of the deficit.
Or because of it, thus “proving it,” if he wins.
The Narrative cannot fail. It can only be failed.😨
I'm entirely convinced that polling companies are like "journalists" are, they mostly know which side their bread is buttered on and if they want to keep a contract they'd better find what those who hire them want found, if not those who own the polling company - millionaires and billionaires mostly want to know their Trump tax cuts will be extended, or to cause the conditions that will make that happen. The "journalists" would be reporting on fact instead of polling and horse race if their prime directive wasn't to maximize profits. I've become convinced that "journalism" will always serve itself irresponsibly unless they are forced to serve something higher by some outside force. It used to be the vestiges of religious morality that did it, sometimes in the form of libel law and a readership that believed in some higher moral vision of democracy. Thanks to secularism and the failure of organized religion (and I don't mean the mega churches and things like the Southern Baptists and Mormons and "trad-Catholics") and literacy in general, those are gone and the media is a Nietzschean phenomeon.
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