Recent polling, you may have heard, predicts Donald Trump will win the 2024 presidential election in a landslide, every state’s electors casting votes for him in an unprecedented clean sweep. I stand by my impromptu polling techniques as both accurate and fair, regardless of the small sample size and lack of regard for scientific method. Trump’s thumping of Harris will be greater than Franklin D. Roosevelt’s defeat of Alfred M. Landon in the 1936 election, in which Landon won just 8 (Vermont and Maine) electoral votes.[1]
While answering polling questions, any respondent may, with confidence, know nothing about the issue or context. Oftentimes knowledge is inconvenient, isn’t it? Ask a question, and folks give an opinion even if they have no idea what the hell you are talking about. We all enjoy bestowing our views whether we know the topic under discussion or not. Knock and a door will open. For my poll, I asked a handful of MAGA craps their take on the 2024 presidential election, and they all agreed that Trump will slaughter Harris (my poll was taken shortly after Uncle Joe dropped out). Asked whether Mike Pence should be hanged, they all thought that would be a pretty good idea. Further, they proved their servile loyalty to Trump by claiming that the people crossing the border unlawfully are in fact not really people at all. Adding to these revelations, a majority believed Democrats are communists (or worse) and are known human traffickers. Though I strongly doubt their conclusions, results of my poll are certain, so put that into your pipe and smoke it.
Sure, I know, some polls, more than others, are accurate reflections of people’s political views. But a snapshot of an election a few months before the votes are recorded will at best show a trend, not a conclusion. Adding to the confusion are samples sponsored by foreordained groups wanting to influence races more than wanting to measure accuracy.
Having shown a definite loyalty to autocratic leaders, former president Trump ostensibly agrees with Joesph Stalin’s conclusion concerning elections: “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” Despots and wannabe despots have known that conclusion for as long as voting has been a favorite of ersatz democracies. I doubt most MAGA devotees believe the Dems had their thumbs on the scales during the last election as much as they’d like to have theirs on the scales for the next election, in which case they cannot lose. Because Trump has made a rule of never losing, he will not accept losing anything, ever. If he calls “heads” and the coinflip comes up “tails,” he insists on two out of three or whatever number it takes for him to win. Only losers lose. And Trump is a winner, every time. Case closed. Exactly how he got his followers to line up and march with him through the public square, escapes all logic, but there it is. I suppose it is easier for all of us to take orders rather than give them.
We are now entering the post-truth age, where facts are less important than public opinion. Perhaps we’ve been there for some time. In other words, if a fact does not conform to a hearer’s beliefs, even a scientific fact (should it make a difference), well then, of course, there must be an alternative fact which supports the hearer’s beliefs. Flat-world advocates have been around since long before Galileo declared the earth a sphere, which, of course, was a conclusion he had to abjure once the governing powers at the time decided to charge him with apostacy. What did he do? He swore to an alternative fact—okay, the world is flat. I’m sure he had his fingers crossed behind his back because he would surely rather live on a flat earth than die on a spherical one.
Post-truth is now a thing since we learned Obama was not a citizen and was born in Africa, since Trump’s crowds were larger than any other in history, since Trump claimed he graduated first in his class at Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania (the commencement program does not have him listed as receiving honors at all), and since, well, just about everything he says is a lie, isn’t it, or as he phrases it, “truthful hyperbole.” The Washington Post’s fact-checkers counted 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidential term.
Question: How do you know when Trump is lying? Answer: Whenever he opens his mouth. He’s got an alternative fact or a “truthful” hyperbole ready to serve his purposes. And he doesn’t care if you do a fact-check or not. So, again, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
[1] This poll is specious because I asked a dozen people who don’t keep up with current events.