Yeah -- I think a lot of people who took even just one stats course are in a similar boat. Though I think it's a bit easier to understand the shift if you frame it within the context of Social Media sites controlling the population's opinions / propaganda.

Most govts understand at this point, internally at least, that if a message is repeated often, loudly, and it saturates a people's media, they start to believe it / agree with it. The survey, and the reporting storm surrounding a survey, isn't so much about showing people an accurate representation of how people's viewpoints vary, but rather a vehicle for govts/companies to tell people how to think. Sites like Facebook don't so much as sell advertising, as they sell the ability to socially engineer its users to like your product / political stance: make enough general noise about a niche position, and people will think it's a majority opinion.

Where the bots get used in the workflow, isn't really that big of a concern.