Why the Polls Might be Flat Out Wrong

 

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Congratulations to President Trump!  Well, I blew my prediction about the polls (I think), or perhaps I overlooked the larger factor that Trump supporters were not cooperative with the pollsters either  (?!)

In any case, I believe in America no matter who the President, and the American people are resilient enough that we will be just fine, so life will continue, even for those who are disappointed in the outcome of the election.

I listened to an economist today recount how the stock market, after flopping under Bush, did great under Obama, continued to do well under Trump, and grew at the same rate under Biden.  There were only a few times when the stock market went down after a Presidential Election.  Very likely we will be okay. 

If you are worried about establishing hereditary control of the White House, recall that he was the one that opposed having the third Bush in the White House (thank God).  That sort of nonsense, plus the Democrats' sham primary system that allowed a man with Dementia to be their preferred candidate, is a real existential threat to Democracy.  

So perhaps you may be legitimately concerned about another four years of President Trump, but we have seen much worse (Jeb is available if you want him!). 

Rather than complain, I suggest we extend our congratulations and work together on the complex problems facing America. 

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What if they had a Presidential poll and nobody came? 

Before answering that cryptic question, let me offer that America is still the greatest country in the world, and it will continue to be the greatest country in the world even if your favorite candidate does not make it. Those of you who are crying that America is doomed unless your candidate wins underestimate the strength of the American people and overestimate the strength of your candidate. Your candidate is not as good as you think, but either would be better than a man in early stage Dementia. This should be obvious. 

But my point today is that I question whether the polls are going to get it right. The reason is I hang up on the bastards when they call, and there might be other people like me that don't trust them.  I don't think we really need to know who is going to win, and we really just need vote our conscience.

In this election, I think there is a legitimate fear that if you get a call from a pollster, and you answer the wrong way, the result might be a lower credit score, or it might be more difficult to get a job in the future, or who knows what they might do to you if you answer incorrectly?  This is the Data Age, and we are rapidly learning it is also the Misuse of Data Age. Besides, how do we know the caller is really a pollster, and not some fringe group who will seek to harass members of the opposition later on?  

So, some voters may well lie about who they are going to vote for.  

Now let's ask, who would be least likely to lie to pollsters?  I'm not an expert social scientist, but my guess is that probably well-established suburbanites who lean Republican would feel comfortable in cooperating with pollsters. 

Who would be most likely to lie?  That would be young males from minority groups. And, well, pollsters are reporting unexpectedly high support from that demographic this year. To be sure, many feel let down by the Biden Administration, and really do feel that President Trump offers a logical alterative.  But is it possible that they might fear reprisals from a new Trump Administration, rightly or wrongly, and lie about who they support?  That is, young males from minorities may be disproportionately telling pollsters they are voting Republican. Similarly, fringy independents like myself might think the same way. That's my guess. 

They surely keep stats on the percentage of voters that refuse to cooperate, but I have not seen that reported in the press.  I suspect it will come out after the election.

In any case, we will survive November 5. We survived four years of being led by a man in the early stages of dementia, so stop saying America is doomed if they don't vote for your  candidate. It's hard for me to imagine that either candidate is going to be a step backwards. Come on! Calm down.  We'll be all right, and four years from now we will have the opportunity to peacefully elect someone else. 

Agatha All Along--Barely Watchable Witch

 

"Somewhere, there's got to be a plot on this road!?"  

"Umm...nope." 

What a crushing disappointment! Agatha All Along is the sequel to WandaVision, which was a work of genius. Wandavision involved the Scarlet Witch and the Vision participating in 1960s style sitcoms, and not really noticing anything was unusual about it. Gradually, however, they start to become aware that they may have ties to superheroes from the 21st century. Agatha keeps appearing in different situations and becomes a woman of mystery. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it yet, but Wandavision was one of the most compelling Marvel works I've ever seen.  The Scarlet Witch was a relatively minor character in the Avengers movies early on, but in Wandavision she became a superstar. So I had to watch the sequel, Agatha All Along.

So my expectations were high for Agatha, who we met in WandaVision. The first show was rather good, but it went downhill fast. In Agatha All Along, for some reason Agatha has a different personality than she had when we last saw her in WandaVision. Well, okay... So she meets meets a mysterious young man who dabbles in witchcraft. He too changes his personality from one episode to the next, which is rather confusing. But in any case together they and some friends decide to make a special pilgrimage on the Witches' Road, based on a rumor that something good might await them at the end.  Nobody knows what the Road is or why it's there or what the reward is.  It's the same plot as the Wizard of Oz.

You know how baseball has unwritten rules of baseball? Well, there are unwritten rules of witchcraft, and the book is very thick. All the witches know about them, but they won't tell us about them. They have these stupid do's and don'ts and rules of etiquette about how to behave or you get zapped from some other realm, and nobody much questions it. 

The major problem with the show is that people change their personalities for no reason, week to week. Perhaps the writers thought this would be an interesting plot device, but it just makes the show hard to follow. Maybe they had multiple writers and they argued about how to portray the characters and so they compromised, and each got their chance for different episodes.  Who's in charge here, where are we going and who knows what is going on?  It's a mess

A basic problem with magic tales is that there are no rules. So, hypothetically, if you have the Wicked Witch of the West fight Agatha, they can zap each other with lightning bolts. "All zapped out, Agatha?" "Ha ha ha, you didn't know I had a magic scroll!" "Oh yeah?  Well, I have a magic amulet!" "So what? I have an enchanted sword!  Ta da!"  ....and so on. 

So you go on with the stupid battle till someone gets splashed with a bucket of water and melts.  But this is not a plot twist.  This is just making it up as you go along who has the last enchantment. We are just waiting on the whim of the screenwriters.  This is not creativity.  It is just formulaic and one dimensional. 

Or you  can always say, hey, everything is an illusion, this is not the real world, and have a character wake up and the world vanishes. This happens over and over. Oh, this isn't the real world, either!  Poof!  It another dream!  Nope, this isn't it, either!  Wash, rinse, repeat.  It is not clever. It's formulaic. Cop out!  Not a plot twist. 

This is why Agatha is boring, despite lavish sets, beautiful scenery, great camerawork and inspired acting performances. They couldn't quite overcome the mishmash of a script.  

Are you bored O, Goddess of Death?  How did she get that job, anyway, and why can't somebody else do the same things? Being vague is not the same as mysterious.