I keep seeing comments to the effect of not believing some polls just because—specifically, polls that have asked Republicans/conservatives if they doubt that the 2020 election was decided fairly. Just this week, someone here literally said, “They’re just trolling them [the pollsters].”
What will it take to get you to see that that’s mistaken?
We in the reality-based community used to guffaw at conservatives with their need to “unskew” poll results. How has that tendency made its way into our camp?
“They just trolling” is not testable, and I can’t prove a negative (that they’re not trolling). But here’s what I do know.
- Most people don’t care enough about polls to deliberately lie to the pollster. I mean, that’s a huge dedication of effort. Most people, if they don’t want to be bothered, will just hang up or discontinue the line of questioning.
- To intentionally lie, one would have to have a different answer at the get-go. How many of these random people have that in their arsenal? They’re just sitting there, ready to pounce at this one particular question?
- Statistics, as a method of measurement, is sound. Sure, go back to the poll itself and examine the structure of the sampling, see the size of the population, look for yourself as to how the questions were phrased (this has a huge effect on the type of answers returned). Do all of those things, as that’s simply due diligence. But, if the poll is solidly designed, then the worst you can expect to see in terms of any one answer type is one standard deviation from the mean. If you get to two deviations out, something is seriously wrong. So when three-quarters of Republicans say that they believe the 2020 election was decided unfairly, to consistently say “oh, they’re just trolling” is sneering in the face of science. You’re saying you believe nearly all of the responses are outliers. This just cannot be.
“There was some kind of relationship between what the people believed, personally and idiosyncratically or in consensus, and what they spoke. This is axiomatic to sociolinguistics, the foundation on which we now base our work.” These were the words of William Samarin, a noted linguist, way back in 1979. AXIOMATIC.
It is folly to continue to believe that there is, let me say it, a grand conspiracy among the conservative voters, regular people, your average gal or guy, to attempt to mislead the poll takers. It’s not realistic and it flies in the face of science.
Just accept that these people are in such a tight, reinforcing bubble that they truly believe this nonsense, poisonous and destructive as that nonsense is. Everything in their environment—their friends, family, colleagues, the media they consume—is reinforcing this belief. Don’t compound the problem of our comprehending the issue by just denying that these people believe what they say they do. Accept that they do.