Joe Scarborough Pretends Drudge Poll Actually Means Something

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:15 pm

Donald Trump was quick to hype Drudge last night, citing an online poll that gave him the debate 80 to 20 while saying nobody cared about a scientific poll at CNN that gave the win to Clinton. Trump tweeted that CNN was “little watched.”

On Morning Joe this morning, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski talked about Drudge and the intensity of Trump’s base, doubtless reflected in that poll. How many Democrats are going to visit Drudge, however, to vote in a poll there? Joe doesn’t take that into account when he makes more of Drudge than he ought:

JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): Anybody that knows Donald Trump knows that Donald Trump knows that he won the debate and will be quoting Drudge [Report] and every other online poll that you can judge. There were a couple of other snap polls. CNN found that actually scientific study found that Hillary Clinton absolutely ran away with the debate, 62 percent to 27 percent. Donald Trump won’t be sharing that poll, he will be sharing the Drudge Report’s online poll which showed 80 percent said he won the debate. But as Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein tweeted, “The Drudge poll on the debate looks like the presidential election results in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” I don’t know that I would say that Mark Halperin.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I don’t know if I would say that either

SCARBOROUGH: But there always was this dichotomy. The fact that you have 80 percent of the people revved up enough to go to those polls suggests something about the level of intensity, as well. I mean, throughout the primaries, TIME would have one of the online polls as well.

In judging the results of the debate, we must draw a distinction between an audience firmly grounded in our shared reality, and that other audience which prefers to partake in Trump’s virtual reality. Trump probably didn’t say anything to lose him votes from among his supporters, but he doesn’t have enough supporters to win the election.

It really doesn’t matter that Drudge readers liked Trump’s debate performance. That is not a surprise. What would be a surprise – and a meaningful one at that – is if scientifically conducted polls, or the markets, say, showed Trump winning, and they don’t.

Scarborough himself admitted that “by all past debate standards, Hillary Clinton won. Most of us around the table believe that.” His follow-up claim that “you don’t judge Donald Trump by those standards” is nothing but nonsense. Math works the same for all of us, and what you don’t know can hurt you.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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