“Is the country headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?”
I was asked that question in a telephone poll a few weeks ago, which I’m just now getting around to writing about.
Because we vote in almost every primary and election, our home phone rings from pollsters on occasion. Some of these polls are deceptive. Many are purely for fundraising. Others are the dreaded “push polls,” intended to manipulate the respondent with biased follow-up questions and incendiary phrasing rigged to trigger a response. Then, there are legitimate polls that ask legitimate questions, presumably intent upon measuring mass public opinion.
The pollster identified herself as being from Rasmussen, which I have a serious issue with in terms of their biased methodology (not to mention their catastrophic record of predictions), but at least it’s a national polling group. So, I played along.
The first question revealed just how problematic these polls are and how misleading the “results” can be. Question: “Is the country headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?”
How does one answer that? Hell no, the country isn’t headed in the right direction. But I sure like it the way things are now as opposed to two years ago. I’m generally pleased with the job the Biden Administration has done. But it’s not done nearly enough either. I’m outraged we still live in a society with no national health care, that we waste trillions on weapons, that the wealth gap between rich and poor is with worst since the Gilded Age, that women’s reproductive rights are about to be terminated, that the definition of success in popular culture is measured in money and fame, and most maddening of all–how bad today’s music sucks! I’m also scared shitless by the cancer of the Trumpian Right which is outwardly attempting to subvert American democracy. Is America headed in the right direction with all of these glaring signal flares?
So, how do I answer that question from a legitimate pollster? If I answer YES, it implies I’m happy with the current state of affairs. Well, I’m not. If I answer NO, that also implies I’m dissatisfied with Democrats who hold the executive and legislative branches and also are in charge of my own state (which is very well run by a Democrat majority under the circumstances).
The irony is — someone from the far-Left (me) is likely to be very dissatisfied with the current direction of the country. Yet, so too is someone from the far-Right, including insurrectionists. After witnessing 18 months of malady and ignorance a front-line health care worker is likely to be displeased with the state of the nation. So too would a typical police officer, or school teacher, or fruit picker in the fields of California. In essence, this question and answer yield NOTHING meaningful.
This cuts to the heart of the problem with oversimplified, shallow polling, intended to measure the moment. What if the respondent just lost his job and then gets this phone call? What if she just had a fight with her husband? What if the respondent’s bowling team just won the championship, and he then answers the phone? See the folly of these questions and polls? Even the “best” pollsters are subject to poorly-contrived methods and end up posting deceptive results.
I’m curious if anyone else has received calls of this nature and how would you respond?