Talk shows and call-in guests are not a "scientific" poll, but they're countering the "65% of Americans want Biden out"

[lees1975]

Since the debate, we know what the big topic of discussion on the talk shows and podcasts has been. My daily schedule allows me to listen to four, two locally based in Chicago, at WCPT, Richard Chew and Joan Esposito, along with Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartman. Both of the local based programs have been jammed with callers since the demands for Biden to step down have grown shrill. Of course, not all of these people are atriculate speech makers, but the pattern is clear from the local folks. They are overwhelmingly defending Biden.

Maybe Chicagoans are more realistic and have a better understanding of the real danger posed by Trump, but most of the callers also watched the debate, and a lot of them have been asking why the media isn't focusing on Trump's lies, flaws, criminal record, and general lack of qualification to be President. Many of them are wondering if those Democrats who are getting the public attention to call for him to step aside are qualified to serve themselves, since they do not appear to understand the reality of the situation, or believe that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.

I really appreciate the direction Stephanie Miller has taken. And even though Hartman has called for Biden to step aside, he does not appear to screen his callers, the vast majority of whom are taking the other perspective.

I've linked Joan's show on Friday, it was an eye opener. She doesn't ask big money celebrity guests to come and be pundits, she goes to experts who have years of experience in the field and in most cases, are still on the ground in their job, to answer tough questions.

https://heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive/

Democrats are, once again, engaged in a foot shooting contest. To be subject to the threats of people just because they have a lot of money is to be right back in the kind of crap that the party is supposed to be standing against, elitists running the show because they are rich.

[Desert grandma]

1. YES

This!

[yardwork]

2. About 50% of Americans want Trump to win, so...

If only 65% think Biden should step down, that's maybe 15% undecideds/Democrats.

[Johonny]

3. It could never take Thom 100% seriously

When I listen he was okay. He'd have Bernie on and talk real politics. But then he'd also have JFK assassination nuts on. He'd dabble in RFK Jr land . . . I get he has to pay the bills, but it was hard to take his show 100 percent serious. That's probably why he sort of faded off my radar over the years.

[JohnSJ]

4. Unfortunately right-wing radio dominates the airwaves by 10-1. The shows OP reference would be considered

progressive, and the one group that has supported Biden throughout this ordeal has been the progressive caucus members, so it is not surprising that the listeners to these shows would follow that trend.

[Sympthsical]

5. Motivated people are motivated

That's why we don't use self-selection samples as statistically relevant. If you're only sampling the people who really have something to say and really want to be part of the survey, you're not getting an accurate view of the general population. It's going to be very, very skewed.

I have all kinds of anecdotal evidence of how people feel right now (DU would hate what the Democrats around me are saying). But I don't base my opinions or sense of reality solely on that. I try to read widely, broadly, in places with people who think differently or are not like me. Then I feel like I have a much, much better sense of things.

I have a lot of Democrats in my life - a lot - who never wanted Biden to run for a second term and still think it should be someone else. But then I come to DU, and the demographic here overwhelmingly supports Biden remaining as candidate. (I'm in the remain camp, for what it's worth).

So, who's right? Who's representative of Democrats? The people in my real life or the people I post with online? Because DU and the Democratic friends I had a meal with the other day are extremely opposite of one another right now. I was the only person at the table arguing that it's too late to change things, that it'd be too damaging.

That's why we try to use statistics and reliable polling methods to get a sense of these things.

[lees1975]

6. I'm not convinced

that any poll is reliable. And some of those whose job is to make decisions based on what information they can gather, are also not convinced.

[Sympthsical]

7. As someone who reads deeply into polls regularly

They're good for getting a decent sense of how things are doing at the time. Not perfect, but a good general idea. If you can get, say, 10 polls and really dig into them - look at the samples, regions, demographics, the questions asked, and how the question was asked - you can understand general sentiment at a moment in time.

2020 and 2022 had historically accurate polls. That polls were off is a myth that gets perpetuated here, because I think it's useful for some people to discredit polling when the numbers don't reflect their desires. But there's a difference between forecasting and wishcasting.

It doesn't erase the cold, hard data that is available to anyone with eyes willing to see. People claim, "The polls said Red Tsunami!" They didn't. The media said that. But here. Let me toot my horn. Here was my prediction in 2022 based on the polls I was reading. And this was two weeks before the election.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=17271873

I was bang on. I didn't know for sure because there are a lot of variables, but I had a feeling based on the data. Because I was actually reading the polls. I wasn't reading tweets or watching cable news or listening to people who shared my brain or just taking someone's word for it. I didn't pay attention to Red Tsunami crap from the media or participate in conspiracy theories that there was some kind of massive secret Roe vote no one was detecting. I looked at the hard data and then came to a conclusion. Not vice versa.

I almost always read "Polls are always wrong!" as "I don't like what the data say, so I've decided it's not true."

Not a great way to go through life. Not very The Science of us, either.

[lees1975]

8. I heard an interview with a pollster, a political scientist, yesterday, explain how polls get skewed for media use.

How to tweak the data to get a result that matches the pre-established narrative.

Of course, when you put everything in some kind of "composite," you get a look at all of the polling data together and you can also get some kind of "average." Then there's the media trick of reporting that as you get closer to an election, the polls "tighten." But that doesn't change the fact that multiple individual polls missed their predictions outside the margins of error and it's' only gotten worse since 2016.

[Sympthsical]

9. Data can be tweaked

And you take that into account. That's why I said, you have to dig and catch if the pollster is doing anything tricky. There was someone in 2022, I can't remember who now, who was weighting their stuff so strangely that the only sensible thing to do when you were looking at composite data was to leave them out. It was a big story, and I cannot remember the name now.

But my overarching point is, we've kind of devolved into Stephen Colbert's truthiness. "I feel in my gut, despite everything, that this is true." We used to make fun of the right-wing for this. But now it feels like our culture at large has embraced it. The media, polls, the culture, and other evidence - all wrong. My gut tells me this is what's actually true.

And if you're in a curated area or bubble, and you're surrounded by people who have similar digestive instincts, it's really easy to feel like everyone around you agreeing is evidence. "Look, everyone here thinks this is true! Must be!"

Yeah, but that's just religion at that point.

I would rather work really hard to divine and know true things, and I think our culture is losing that more and more. That's why the non-stop poll denial bugs me. It's just truthiness. All the polls that have all said more or less the same thing for almost two years now are wrong? All of the them? Every single piece of data for two years? Every indication in culture that this is what people think? Screw the polls. Look how non-Right popular culture has discussed all this for years. That alone should tell you the polls are probably around the mark.

That's a big leap of faith to be taking to truthy something different. JMO.