Lil' Kellyanne, helping Trump shape Muslim policy with polls of "no real statistical value."

[Miles Archer]

In June 2015, Conway appeared on Gaffney's podcast, Secure Freedom Radio, to discuss the poll about American Muslims. "It's very alarming to me that such a high number of individuals, Muslims living in the US, would say, 'Well, we can have a choice,'" as to whether to follow Shariah law or US law, she told Gaffney. She expressed alarm that some respondents believed the religious practice of jihad had a violent component. (In mainstream Islam, jihad refers to efforts to support the faith, not violent actions.) She said her online survey had caught "over a quarter" of respondents "admitting…that this is not a personal peaceful struggle."

Conway continued: "And I think this is important because the answer from lots of folks always is, 'Look, don't cast a wide net and call all Muslims nonpeaceful and violent and adhering to jihad and Shariah and bloodthirsty.' Fine. However, look at the data. The Muslims living in the US themselves—27 percent of them, anyway—say that this is what the purpose of jihad is, to either punish nonbelievers (16 percent) or, the other 11 percent, to undermine non-Muslim states."

But her poll had serious methodological problems. Most notably, it was an opt-in online poll, not a random sampling of Muslims in the United States. That means it was not scientific and wasn't a reliable indicator of American Muslims' attitudes as a whole. On its website, the American Association for Public Opinion Research cautions that opt-in polls "may not be reliable" and warns that "this type of sample is not based on the full target population." Regarding Conway's poll, Democratic pollster Mark Mellman wrote last year, "One cannot say that it represents the views of American Muslims. For many, that fact is sufficient to dismiss the poll." Mellman also took issue with how the poll questions were worded, contending that they were vague and misleading and designed to make American Muslims appear radical. "In short," he wrote, Conway's polling company and Gaffney's group "created an issue where none is apparent, except perhaps to a small minority."

After Trump publicized this poll a year ago with his proposed Muslim ban, a representative of Conway's firm, speaking anonymously to New York magazine, essentially trashed the poll: "As this poll was conducted among an online group of opt-in respondents, we did not publish a margin of error or otherwise advise our client that the data were statistically representative of the entire US Muslim population." In other words, the poll had no real statistical value. Yet that hadn't stopped Conway from claiming that a significant number of Muslims in the country were extremists.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/kellyanne-conway-immigration-islam-bannon-trump

[katmondoo]

1. She will on Rachel Maddow tonight

I am not watching