How did it get this bad? We're so doomed.
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Trump administration seen as more truthful than news media: poll
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How did it get this bad? We're so doomed.
jellies_two
Member
The snowflakes live in such a safe space they had to build their own news source inside, so this is no surprise.
I was talking to one who insisted the Quebec attack included a Muslim. Yesterday. How do they survive insisting Wikipedia is fake news?
I was talking to one who insisted the Quebec attack included a Muslim. Yesterday. How do they survive insisting Wikipedia is fake news?
This is what happens when you have generations of people fed bullshit by people who will do anything to keep their spot at the top of the mountain. It doesn't help that many still believe in a magic man who makes everything happen by waving a magic wand.
The news media has some responsibility as well to a point because Journalism has been bottom of the barrel and fear mongering in many ways for a long time. If someone asked me if I thought the media was truthful with no separation I'd have a hard time saying yes when your likely including places like Fox News and now Breitbart bullshit.
The news media has some responsibility as well to a point because Journalism has been bottom of the barrel and fear mongering in many ways for a long time. If someone asked me if I thought the media was truthful with no separation I'd have a hard time saying yes when your likely including places like Fox News and now Breitbart bullshit.
You don't and you can't. If we don't take it all back in 2018, it's over.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
Someone needs to take out the reality distortion reactor atop Trump Tower ala the Star Wars assualt on the Death Star
Advocatus Diaboli
Member
Agreed. This is a meaningless poll for drawing the conclusions that some are drawing. In addition to all the reasons you state, which are absolutely accurate, consider the polling methodology:
So, one major point: The poll only tracked registered voters with landlines who agreed to participate in the poll.
What demographic has free time on Super Bowl Sunday and Monday (a workday) to discuss politics with a weird computer that calls their landline?
Fancyarcher
Member
They're definitely a problem. I'm not sure will be able to get through to most of them, though. The big supporters are basically a lost cause at this point.
Yep. Democracy in America is going to be dead very quickly.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
Thank you for the post.
PoliSci professor at Dartmouth:
I'm not an expert but I would agree with this.
There needs to be an option on a survey that essentially says "the media has the wrong agenda".
I think if some people believe the media over-reports or under-reports certain topics then they might classify that as "untruthful".
I'm not an expert but I would agree with this.
There needs to be an option on a survey that essentially says "the media has the wrong agenda".
I think if some people believe the media over-reports or under-reports certain topics then they might classify that as "untruthful".
plagiarize
Banned
Exactly. They've shown they will line up along someone who barely represents every value they claimed to have.
So we will never reach them. Fortunately they are still a slowly dying breed, and fortunately we can win without them.
But it's still kind of depressing to think about.
So this is really fucking bad. I feel like the full impact of the destruction Trump has/will do hasn't sunk in yet. Like, the writing is in the wall but my brain won't let me entertain the thought of what is likely about to happen. Over half of a country, any country, believing the words of an authoritarian over that of the press is very very very bad.
Advocatus Diaboli
Member
PoliSci professor at Dartmouth:
I'm not an expert but I would agree with this.
There needs to be an option on a survey that essentially says "the media has the wrong agenda".
I think if some people believe the media over-reports or under-reports certain topics then they might classify that as "untruthful".
Well, there are several truths, after all.
You might call them alternative truths.
... but anyway, look at the polling methodology. This was a robocall that targeted landlines. That should influence how you view the data.
RPGCrazied
Member
Americans are stupid, and Trump and GOP want this. Just look at who they just confirmed to run Education.
I really wish that journalists and the news media would once and for all take is seriously that they are not respected and work from that.
Poll after poll and the media just acts like the public sees them as these heroes that speak truth to power. Clearly the public does not.
This is not a new phenomenon.
Poll after poll and the media just acts like the public sees them as these heroes that speak truth to power. Clearly the public does not.
This is not a new phenomenon.
Muffin1611
Banned
Excellent post. As always, the phrasing of the poll question is extremely important.
Advocatus Diaboli
Member
This is the wrong attitude to have.
Polls aren't meaningless. But the methodology, the potential for bias resulting from the questions, and the fact that people gloss over the poll results as gospel, rather than understanding that the poll results are just another data point muddy the waters.
You shouldn't have a hard time accepting the results of polls ... but we should all be careful about how we interpret those results.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The problem isn't the news media stats. It's that 9/10 Republicans find Trump's administration honest
Those people will never believe anything had he does
Those people will never believe anything had he does
Randolph Freelander
Member
No, they are not. Polls can be off, that's why there's a margin of error. You don't throw out a 60/40 result because a different 52/48 poll turned out to be a 51/49 reality.
How do you counter this? So many people saying that no organization can discredit the government except the government, and the word of the layman is the only other source of truth, in a reality where all individuals seek out other like minded individuals?
How do you dissolve a cult on a societal level scale?
How do you dissolve a cult on a societal level scale?
The media is guilty of trying to one up themselves for some time now so as far as I'm concerned, they sowed the seeds of it and it didn't take much for some demagogue who knows how technology in society works to come in and capitalize on it. Pulic distrust of institutions and the media in general has been growing for quite some time. Television news media in particular still informs most people in this country even when compared to social media (although this is changing). The issue now is that accountability has withered past the point of no return for many of these media giants and the public now trusts them about as much as they trust a shitty reality show on MTV.
We stopped holding them to high standards and the sheer volume of information they espoused daily diluted what is scientific, objective truth from what is hyperbolic editorializing. Trump didn't even need to do much to skew those numbers, he just needs to keep pushing the message that he agrees with most voters that institutions are corrupt and lie. Without accountability, we lose democracy. Without democracy, we slide towards more autocratic principles in our government as a whole, this of course gets further exacerbated by political polarization which means any change of house in our government will just focus on revoking the changes of the previous rule.
Even if Democrats win the next presidential election, a majority of their early legislation for years will be undoing what this Presidency put in place. When politics stagnate and technology zooms past them, you'll see inequality truly explode.
We stopped holding them to high standards and the sheer volume of information they espoused daily diluted what is scientific, objective truth from what is hyperbolic editorializing. Trump didn't even need to do much to skew those numbers, he just needs to keep pushing the message that he agrees with most voters that institutions are corrupt and lie. Without accountability, we lose democracy. Without democracy, we slide towards more autocratic principles in our government as a whole, this of course gets further exacerbated by political polarization which means any change of house in our government will just focus on revoking the changes of the previous rule.
Even if Democrats win the next presidential election, a majority of their early legislation for years will be undoing what this Presidency put in place. When politics stagnate and technology zooms past them, you'll see inequality truly explode.
RPGCrazied
Member
This guy will tweet just about anything that favors him, regardless of the source. Jesus.
More_Badass
Member
Yes, also important. You should always consider the kinds of people that would be able to take part given a study or poll's methodology.
Unfortunately that kind of critical thinking regarding polls and stats isn't really taught to people
Pretty much. There was a survey image floating around here in recent years ranking various news outlets on trustworthiness. Republican trashed everything besides a couple of obvious outlets. Dems were generally trusting of most outlets, except the few obvious ones. Independents fell along the same lines as dems.
Just using the general term media produces garbage numbers. Several individual outlets would outrank Trump easily. But I bet we're going to here about this poll from Trump/Spicer anyway.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
well ,no, both sides are not actually the same.
old people usually registered Republican.
CrispyBoar
Banned
nvm
andythinkpad
Member
I was going to say, also RT.
As much as I want to defend the media and laugh at Republicans, I really can't here.
American news media is largely despicable. Nobody trusts them -- to be honest, to cut through the bullshit, or actually deliver news. And frankly it's a reputation that is largely deserved. This last election was a huge black mark on nearly everyone in the profession.
If you were a layman watching the typical news program last year, you would have thought that this last election was about whatever Trump was doing that moment, and Hillary's emails (what EXACTLY about those emails? Not sure. But clearly it's something bad, right?).
No policy got covered. Substantial debate was shelved largely for personality pundits (looking at you CNN). BLATANT lies got mainstream coverage as everyone scrambled to turn Trump's latest tweet into a headline. It was an embarrassment, and frankly there's no defending it.
Fuck your degrees and years of experience. The only difference these days between the typical news media personality and somebody you'd find talking pop culture on E! is that the E! guy will likely be wearing a better suit....and know what the fuck it is they're doing with their hair (looking at you, Tapper).
American news media is largely despicable. Nobody trusts them -- to be honest, to cut through the bullshit, or actually deliver news. And frankly it's a reputation that is largely deserved. This last election was a huge black mark on nearly everyone in the profession.
If you were a layman watching the typical news program last year, you would have thought that this last election was about whatever Trump was doing that moment, and Hillary's emails (what EXACTLY about those emails? Not sure. But clearly it's something bad, right?).
No policy got covered. Substantial debate was shelved largely for personality pundits (looking at you CNN). BLATANT lies got mainstream coverage as everyone scrambled to turn Trump's latest tweet into a headline. It was an embarrassment, and frankly there's no defending it.
Fuck your degrees and years of experience. The only difference these days between the typical news media personality and somebody you'd find talking pop culture on E! is that the E! guy will likely be wearing a better suit....and know what the fuck it is they're doing with their hair (looking at you, Tapper).
GameAddict411
Member
I really hope that this poll is inaccurate, because if not it's the end of this freedom as we know it. If Trump starts pulling bullshit out of his ass, people will simply believe eat it. There won't be any chance of stopping the alternative fact that the Trump administration invented to mislead people. I remember Trump's tweet about how the media is faking all the news about him. It's not surprising if his followers believe him.
CrispyBoar
Banned
Now I understand what you're saying. Very informative!
SomewhatGroovy
Banned
I feel we have been an oligarchy for quite some time
FinaruDensetsu
Member
Bigger issue is why do 31% of democrats find media to be untruthful.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
I'm really hoping the Republican respondents just treated this as political identification and not as an actual Question. I definitely remember reading something about how polling itself is being politicized because people keep using the questions to voice their politics and not their actual opinions.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
My mind wanders, so forgive the unhinged rant, but my thoughts (as a Euro guy);
I think history dictates that it has to play itself out. These ideas have been roasting since Reagan. The people who support these policies and ideas are not going to give up. There are so many of them, that at best you'll stifle and get nowhere.
So the question is; Do you see this as a two step forward, one step back proposition?
The pendulum will change. It doesn't feel like that right now. We've had 25-ish years of liberal progression generally speaking in the world across many factors. Across extreme poverty, opportunity for women, reduction of people dying of preventable causes, protections for gays and lesbians.
What the republicans really want is for the democrats to lash out. If they do that, a lot of the good will the Democrats have will be unsurped, and many people will stand and not know who are the good guys and bad guys. Just like the Israeli/Palestine conflict or Sunni/Shia, it will be another fight where there will be endless arguing who is worse and who started it. It leads to apathy.
The republicans have a good propaganda machine, and one that is good at spinning things.
Letting it play out, with the democrats protecting its people and trying to minimize the damage in the liberal strongholds and major cities is probably the best thing they can do. When the economic meltdown and disruption of these terrible policies will hit a lot of Americans right in the face, that is when they will realize that these Reaganomic based ideas wasn't such a good idea. Like many eras prior who championed stupid ideas, things have to get bad before the myth and lies about them are dispelled. There was probably no way, that sooner or later, these chickens wouldn't come home to roast.
Emails, Clinton, Obama, Terrorism. Those are all symbols, but not the root cause. The root cause is a belief system among countless millions that lower taxes, limited government and more guns will make society better. They will not listen, so now they will learn, and from that, there will be a massive counter reaction and awakening of new political interest the United States hasn't experienced since the Vietnam.
The circumstances and ramification has to hit enough people, but you can count on that things will change.
The Democrats have an opportunity to be the guys who can sweep in and fix the country. Much like how The Democrats got a whole massive level of traction after the Great Depression, they became a powerful party, and all factions of the country was in agreement on what needed to be done. Don't think that public affordable health care, free education and gun laws are never going to happen. But pain but reality must hit the people who belief these myths. It will never go away. The democrats have always been in the way for their tax breaks. For their bible. When their reduction in quality of life, income, opportunity and wealth is felt as the world turns to other places, they will pause and wonder, and the republicans will lose credibility.
If the Democrats engage and stoop to the republicans level, what will happen is that the democrats will take the blame. The spin will be that it is not trump but democrats gridlock that does it. They will scoop and sway over the facts. Nobody will care about who is worse or who started it. What matters is here and now. People have the patience of mayflies and the memory of a goldfish. The democrats need to fight for justice, and focus on helping and being able to show their economic, social, and fair superiority through example. They must not become a proto-version of the republicans thinking they can beat them at their own game. that won't happen.
The concept of being a troll is that you rile someone up to a point where they become so upset they start imitating the troll, but of course not being a troll they don't know the dance, and then they get scolded. Not only are they losing at the troll game but they've also compromised their own values and principles and have become a poor imitation of what they're fighting against.
The onus is not on democrats being chicken shits. Of course many of them are. Many politicians are interested in keeping their seat warm. Rarely do you have high ranking politicians who'll kill their career for doing what is right. But nobody should lose sight of the focus. The western world is embracing hate and racism. It is the people who elected them. It is the people (almost 100 million american registered voters) who didn't give enough of a shit to vote. It tells us that life has been to good for many people in the western world. We've fallen to complacency, and the masses have tuned out of politics, and into pop culture, entertainment and social media. We cannot be bothered to care that much about what is going on because it is unthinkable that something bad could happen. We've totally lost the concept of the responsibility to pay attention, and because of this apathy and indifference, we're now seeing a smaller number of determined crazies taking power.
We are going to pay the price for that, and over the next decades we will learn from our mistakes. The pendulum has swung.
Any liberal or vulnerable person needs to seek liberal strongholds with protection. many people cannot afford to get out, but it's important that you do, and don't stay in a regressive shithole. When Obama won, there was a large group of republicans emigrating to texas and the southern states. This polarization will continue will probably continue.
I've not really thought about it deeply, but I wonder how it would be if the US separated into 50 sovereign states. Still had free commerce, transfer of people and a united states, but put a lot of the federal power into the state hands. Let each state have more control. It's a sentence of countless innocent people who've done nothing but being born or who have ended up in a bad red state, but what is more important; everyone suffers under gridlock, or each state being able to determine its own soverignty? You'd be able to demonstratelly prove if the red or blue states had the better policies. The individual states politics would be more important, and every citizen in a state would be a lot closer to being able to influence in their community.
Perhaps over 300 million people is just way too much for one congress, senate, supreme court and president to determine.The value and belief systems and desires to live are so different.
Being separate like we are in Europe creates other problems, but the United States could be strong as a unified country. It could still have a central economy, president and presentation for all states in unity. But allow states to determine their own laws. The blue states could get their causes, and the red ones could get theirs. They will influence each other over time, and those with the bad ideas will falter. I am convinced that the economic despair and depression in the Reagan based states would make them change their tune if they demonstratively saw blue states doing better across many levels of society. I am not American, so I can only look at this from a European perspective.
Your sphere of influence as an individual becomes diminished the further out you go. But if you go to a country like Iceland, which has 300,000 people- your sphere of influence grows immensely. You have a statistically large chance to affect politics, your community and life. That is a small subset of enough people to bring everyone closer to being able to make a difference. When it's one man and a small diversity lacking senate and congress, the representative aspect of representative democracy gets reduced as you get more people.
Everyone in the US: Take care of yourself and each other. Hunker down. Find a spot and allies try and get to places that reduces the influence. Don't think that this is the end. This is a point. It's a low point, and it might get a lot lower before it gets up again. Remember that decades from now, people who've not been born are going to be reading about this and go "WTF...". Don't forget that we are on the right side of history and it's recorded for all to see. Just because the west is demoralized into a frenzy of fear, hate and disinfranchisement, it doesn't mean it won't go the other way. The solution is feeling the consequences of our actions. Then everyone will change their tune. Like after the great depression, or when the middle class whites got the draft during the vietnam war. Then you're going to see protests like you've never seen in your lifetime. Life is still to good. There is still too much pizza, porn and video games for hundreds of millions of people to give a shit. They will begin to give a shit again and it will change our society when they do. That is the comfort that keeps me going. It's to depressing to think about all the people who will be hurt. All the people who need physical, mental or financial aid. I know the republicans will be the price once the calamities of their policies will spread like a wildfire. See what happens when Ryan kills most welfare aid. The rise of instability, crime, and desperation will make it unmanageable, and millions and millions of people who are completely disengaged in politics will risk their life to force change through massive public demonstrates.
Occupy Wall Street didn't work because at the end you could go home to your apartment, jerk off and eat pizza. People weren't desperate enough. People weren't at their ends wits enough. It has to get worse before people will give a shit. That is why I think this right wing sweep of the western world was unavoidable. We've completely lost sight of the lessons of our grandparents and great grandparents generation. That has consequences. So this is the only way it could go down. And two steps forward, one step backwards have happened throughout history many times.
None of this will be much of a comfort if you're reading this and you literally cannot eat or go anywhere. I know that... Just hang on. Find shelter. Find people who can help, and help them if you can too. It's all we can do. We don't choose the times we live in. It's not good or evil. It's just many human beings fighting over who has the best ideas about how to shape civilization and culture. Man made constructs. And in the end, Americans will always do the right thing...
... after they've tried everything else.
MHWilliams
Member
People tell me that if you sit down, have a discussion, and give people the real facts, they will change their minds.
Elaugaufein
Member
Title is click baity since this wasn't head to head. What it actually says is that Democrats distrust general media more than Republicans distrust a Republican administration. Which should be news to no one (Being skeptical of say Fox News is probably a pretty decent idea).
If every poll is always 3 to 5% in a margin of error and most polls are one person has around 3% more than the other, then yes, polls are meaningless. They are the poll numbers, that after generating score after score, get thrown up to say, "We think you have more approving then disproving, but in reality, its anyones guess."
I do not believe America is so evenly divided on everything.
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