Online Polls: Dumb Clickbait or Stupid Timewasters? You Decide.

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The Trumpian bluster continues apace today:

Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized the media for saying online post-debate polls “don’t mean anything,” as he continues to brag about winning the surveys many consider unscientific and unrepresentative.

At a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the GOP presidential nominee cited online polls from Time magazine and the conservative Drudge Report that showed him leading Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton following Monday night’s presidential debate. “I’m winning all of these polls, hundred of thousand of votes,” Trump said. “I have to sit back and you have to sit back and hear these polls don’t mean anything.”

I love how reporter Lisa Hagen carefully says that “many” think online polls are unscientific. I think the phrase she’s searching for is “everyone with a three-digit IQ.” These polls are clickbait, nothing more. But it doesn’t matter. Clearly Steve Jobs willed his reality distortion field to Trump after he died.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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