Online polls are bad. They’re unscientific because they’re easy to rig: People can vote over and over again. Given the right wing’s fixation on the non-issue of voter fraud, it’s ironic to see the Trump campaign, licking its wounds after the drubbing Trump took in Monday’s debate, cling to them. Even as it has become more and more apparent that Trump lost—and as more and more Trump staffers have admitted that Trump lost—the Trump campaign is still pushing the idea that online polls are more accurate than other polls, which is completely false. On Thursday evening, Trump communications director Jason Miller tried to make the case to Chuck Todd.
Even for the Trump campaign, this is some primo gaslighting. To his credit, Todd pushed back, to the point that Miller almost admitted that Trump actually lost. Even within Miller’s blatant falsehoods, there’s an element of something approaching a normal strategy—the way to spin the polls is to say that they represent enthusiasm, even if they are not accurate. But what Miller did here went far beyond spinning. If you needed three and a half minutes of proof of the Trump campaign’s blatant disregard for the truth, this is it.
