What's the point of public opinion polls on policies?

[Hardkill]

I get that voters don't vote a candidate simply based on his/her policies regardless of what the policy polls say.

Also, it seems pretty clear that none of these popular policies like Medicare for All, the public healthcare option, gun control regulations, paid family leave, strong laws against corporate lobbying and dark money, etc. will ever be enacted within the foreseeable future (or perhaps never during any of our lifetimes).

So, what good do any of these polls do?

Edited April 28, 2022 by Hardkill

[captainamerica]

Overall, polls on the internet are easily manipulated which are then use to manipulate. 

So that is one incentive. 

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02942925

 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by captainamerica

[captainamerica]

Another incentive is to collect a lot of data even for its own sake. 100s of thousands of data points are collected and then analysed later as per need. There is an entire machinery dedicated just for collection of such data. 

[Hardkill]

Okay, but how do these polls convince enough people to pass these policies?

[captainamerica]

It does not usually convince enough people. As evident. Sometimes there is pressure given the numbers. But that is rare. 

It does benefit politicians but polls can't really change everything. 

It is used in combination with memetic inoculation. Polls are just one way. They have other tools and all of them are used together.

Edited April 28, 2022 by captainamerica

[Hardkill]

10 hours ago, captainamerica said:

It does not usually convince enough people. As evident. Sometimes there is pressure given the numbers. But that is rare. 

It does benefit politicians but polls can't really change everything. 

It is used in combination with memetic inoculation. Polls are just one way. They have other tools and all of them are used together.

So, then how will collecting this kind of data be beneficial or helpful for anybody?

[SeaMonster]

Polls don't necessarily have a lot of meaning because the people being polled aren't necessarily told all the implications stemming from a certain policy.  E.g. "Do you think there should be universal free college?" vs. "Do you think there should be universal free college and we pass a 20% value added tax to pay for it?"  People like free shit in a fantasy world where such a thing is possible, they don't like paying out the ass for free shit in taxes.  So the point is mostly to attempt to bluff at there being more support for a policy than there actually is.

The only thing that matters in politics is how the actual vote goes.  Polls and news stories are mostly noise.

Edited April 29, 2022 by SeaMonster

[captainamerica]

On 4/29/2022 at 0:38 AM, Hardkill said:

So, then how will collecting this kind of data be beneficial or helpful for anybody?

• As stated above there is direct benefit as politicians manipulate and get some extra votes. Some extra votes can change careers. 
• As stated above sometimes a policy may be adopted by a politician based on polls. But this is rare. 
• Politicians' major use is for marketing and campaigning. They don't actually use the data in making better policy decisions or educate the people when they are wrong. For eg. Nate Silver, respected statistician, polled young people and found that their left ward movement is tiny. Basically same as the previous generation who are around the center overall. (Can't find the link but avail. On five thirty eight). Politician like Elizabeth Warren will see this data and see an extreme tax will not work. So she uses phrases like only "2 cents on the dollar" where as in reality her tax is like 90%. 
• This data is very useful in Marketing. Consultants are paid. Marketers are paid. Researchers are paid. It has billions of dollars worth of value to any political group. You can see how this is atleast a multi hundred million dollars industry. 
• Wall Street uses this data to adjust their activity to productively run the economy. Let's say 30 percent of the wall st. Is corrupted. The remaining part is still essential because banking is an essential function of the society in the 21st century. All this data helps them adjust. 
• Sincere analysts can and do draw insights about the real growth direction of society from it. And leaders can take proper decisions from it. But still most political leaders use it for better marketing primarily. Not better policy. As eg. 70 or so years ago. (can't recall exactly) there was a Gallup poll with question if people with net worths more than 1 million dollars exist. About 40 percent said no and that was the public sentiment back then. They were ready to confiscate assets above 1 million dollars. If this was implemented then America would be much poorer today because of lack of innovation. Good Leaders today can learn from the the often myopic views that the populace had held, given such data, and take better decisions. But most political leaders only use it for better marketing and messaging. Similar data is avail. For sentiment around Automation and that can be used to get better insights as well by different groups in wall street, visionaries in academia, economists etc. mostly excluding the politicians :-D

Edited April 30, 2022 by captainamerica

[Yarco]

Pretty much what's been said above. They aren't called public opinion polls because they accurately reflect public opinion. You can phrase the same general idea two different ways and get two extremely different results. Most of these polls are misinformation designed to sway public opinion.

On 4/28/2022 at 4:34 AM, Hardkill said:

Okay, but how do these polls convince enough people to pass these policies?

You're giving people way too much credit. 50% of the population has an IQ below 100.

[captainamerica]

5 hours ago, captainamerica said:

As eg. 70 or so years ago. (can't recall exactly) there was a Gallup poll with question if people with net worths more than 1 million dollars exist. About 40 percent said no and that was the public sentiment back then

The poll was if they should exist. 

Not if they exist.

Obviously they existed. :-D 

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