ROCK HERMON HACKSHAW
AS A freelance journalist, I refuse to dabble in conspiracy theories given that their truths are hardly ever upheld. In the contemporary US political realm/discourse, what has been disappointing is the proliferation of conspiracy theories, coming mainly from those on the right wing of the political spectrum.
Television networks such as Fox News, Newsmax, and others of that ilk perpetuate some of these conspiracies through resuscitation and repetitiveness, without even filtering for veracity.
In the 2020 election, Newsmax and Fox News spread so much false information about the legal outcome that they were eventually sued by voting-machine manufacturers, and, despite paying out over a billion dollars in civil-court losses, they still give voice to frivolous conspiracies.
Even though all the lawsuits against these outlets are still not resolved, they continue their slanted news overage and unobjective political commentary.
It is downright dangerous in many ways. It’s unethical, to say the least. You can endanger lives with conspiracy theories, so there is a moral imperative to be careful as journalists and ones who publicly disseminate information. It is with an awareness of all this that I write this article.
I have observed some strange things happening in this year’s presidential election. I could go down many rabbit holes here, but I will only dwell on the “polling” of potential voters.
When you compare the last presidential election with this one, a few things jump out at you. There appears to be a preponderance of polling this time around, with a few new polling outfits emerging, beyond the traditional CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Gallup and others which have been around for years.
When you dig deeper into these new polling entities you will find Republican connections behind the scenes. These entities present themselves as marketing researchers or political consultants, and they make their polling results public by employing both mainstream and social media.
These new outfits hardly share their crosstabs. Why is that? Crosstabs will indicate things like the composition of the population that was polled; the type of questions asked from which answers were solicited; the racial, ethnic and religious make-up; gender differences; and specific geographical locations, etc. So, what’s happening here?
A common observation is this: Donald Trump is nearly always winning or close enough to be within the supposed margin of error. This has happened time and again. It doesn’t matter if it’s a national or swing-state poll. Political shenanigans again?
What many people seem to have missed earlier this year was a profound moment in Trump’s election interference/fraud trial. Disgraced lawyer Michael Cohen testified that in 2016 – during the Republican presidential primary – he and Trump conspired to fix the polls. He stated that they finally corrupted a specific poll to show results favouring Trump.
This manipulation of public perception helped him win the primary and eventually the und
