The #Resistance conspiracy theorists turn on the pollsters
Timothy P. Carney
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One of the things that makes Donald Trump’s base so unreachable by other Republican candidates is that they are impervious to persuasion by facts. Any fact that undermines Trump’s claims or that shows his weakness is assumed to be a lie concocted by the establishment.
Specifically, to argue that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden, Trump supporters need to maintain that the polls were all lies. It eventually becomes a massive conspiracy theory that teaches you to believe no one because everyone is in on some devious plot.
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The #Resistance to Donald Trump always was similarly fueled by conspiracy theorist thinking from the beginning. They cast him as a puppet of Vladimir Putin, who was pulling the strings because he had kompromat on Trump — something involving a “pee tape.”
And so it’s unsurprising to see the #Resistance types become impervious to any information that cuts against their view of American politics.
Here’s the latest incident. MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki this week was analyzing polls on the air, and mentioned a Wall Street Journal poll in which two-thirds of Democrats said that Biden was too old to be president, and voters were far more likely to say Trump had a strong record of accomplishments.
A wildly popular #Resistance Twitter account that calls itself “Mueller She Wrote,” a reference to early #Resistance theories that Trump colluded with Putin’s efforts to cause chaos during the 2016 campaign, suggested on Twitter that the poll was Trump-funded misinformation, which Kornacki and others were spreading.
The reactions from large accounts on Twitter accepted this claim instantly and echoed the deep, abiding distrust for anyone who is not explicitly part of the #Resistance.
Here’s a former unbiased news editor from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.
Here’s another liberal with 200,000 followers laying out the narrative.
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Kornacki had to set things straight with a lengthy Twitter thread explaining that (a) the poll in question was jointly conducted by a Democratic pollster, and (b) that pollsters often get paid by parties to do private polls.
But expect the craziness to spread as Biden’s poll numbers continue to sag: The #Resistance will continue to disbelieve anything that undermines their preconceived notions. As has been true since 2016, Trump’s most angry opponents become just like him.