Election Problems

Two things that are confusing the upcoming election are primaries and polls.  Because primaries are limited to one party, they tend to give power to the most extreme elements of each party, which pushes Democratic candidates farther left and Republican candidates farther right. The primary system works against centrist candidates.  Thus, the divisiveness in our politics is not clearly representative of the actual attitudes of the country, which may be more centrist than the election results show.  News and social media tend to exaggerate this fact because centrist, normal ideas are less newsworthy  than extreme ideas.  

Polls have been unreliable in past elections, most notably in the 2016 Clinton-Trump election, but also in the recent elections in India and Europe.   Polls are the staple of the twenty-four hour news cycle.  Without them the talking-heads would have nothing to talk about.  Polls are frequently criticized because they depend too heavily on using landline phones and thus miss younger voters.  Recently I saw an interview with South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, who engineered Biden’s win there, which was probably responsible for Biden’s election as President.  Clybern poo-pooed the polls in general and particularly those showing Biden behind Trump.

Polls provide Joe Scarborough and his fellow anchors with plenty of fodder for arguments, but they may not be well anchored in reality.  The truth will come out on election day.