John Diefenbaker, the late, unlamented prime minister of Canuckistan, used to say that dogs know what to do with poles. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean "Poles", so guess he meant "polls". I think of his little joke every time some pundit tells me that the latest polls prove this, that or the other. And I remember how right the pollsters were (NOT!) about the 2016 election.Yesterday I heard several members of the commentariat trying to explain away the latest Clinton News Network poll which, according to CNN's headline, shows that "The nation remains divided on impeachment as House vote approaches". I'll get to that in a moment, but first some other recent poll results.
According to Breitbart News, a Quinnipiac Poll released last Tuesday showed registered voters oppose impeachment and removal from office by 51% to 45%. A Monmouth University Poll released last Wednesday showed almost the same result: 44% in favour, 51% opposed. And even an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released on Monday showed voters opposing impeachment and removal from office by 49% to 46%.
In contrast, a poll released Sunday by Fox News (high on President Trump's fecal roster at the moment) showed registered voters support impeachment and removal from office by a 50% to 46% percent margin.
Breitbart says Fox News Poll respondents (if not the pollsters themselves) have been consistently left-leaning for some time. For instance, in the poll conducted between September 11 and September 14, 2016 -- less than two months before Donald Trump was elected president -- 55% of respondents opposed building a wall along the US-Mexico border, while only 41% supported it. Despite those poll results, Mr Trump easily won the presidency in the electoral college vote, even though he lost the popular vote by two points. Neither Fox nor any other major pollsters saw that coming!
The poll that really counts, though, IMHO, is one conducted for CNN from the 12th to the 15th of December. It shows that support for impeaching and removing President Trump from office has decreased, even as the House prepares to take a full vote on the articles of impeachment this week. 45% of Americans told CNN they support impeaching and removing the president. That represents a 5-point decrease from a poll conducted in mid-November after the House Intelligence Committee finished its public hearings. But opposition to the impeachment and removal of the President increased in the new survey from 43% to 47%!
The survey found that support for impeachment and removal fell even among Democrats, with 77% now in favour, compared with 90% in November. Moreover, the majority of Americans surveyed also said they do not think anything will come up during the looming Senate impeachment trial to change their minds on the removal of Still-President Trump. Just 24% said it is "likely" or “very likely” a Senate trial could push them to change their minds, but 22% said it is "not too likely" and 50% of those surveyed said it is "not likely at all."
Do the math. Add and divide as you will the polls show a nation deeply divided, split right down the middle, give or take a percentage point or two between the supporters of the President and the anti-Trumpers and never-Trumpers. So how are the lamestream media pundits playing this? The official party line is that because the numbers haven't changed over the weeks and months of the impeachment witch-hunt, obviously the President's campaign against the Democrats and the media is failing!
Seriously... that's what they're saying. It's not their campaign to get Mr Trump out of the Oval Office that is failing... it's his campaign against them! It's the Goebbels strategy: keep repeating the Big Lie, loudly and often, and people will eventually believe it. Doesn't look to me as if it's working. Not all Americans are as stupid as the Dumbocrats take them to be.
Bottom line: Even Fox News concedes, as the headline over their report on their poll says, "Impeachment needle not moving as majority of voters oppose removing Trump." That's all ye know and all ye need to know. Impeachment? Fuggedabahtit and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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