New poll results show 53 percent of those surveyed couldn't recall struggling harder to make ends meet

A majority of Americans now say the cost of living is the worst they can remember — and most of them blame President Donald Trump for their predicament.

Poll results published Friday by Politico showed 53 percent of those surveyed couldn't recall struggling harder to make ends meet, up from 46 percent in November.

The poll by Public First also found 46 percent felt Trump was fully or mostly responsible for the state of the economy, unchanged from six months ago.

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[–] 44 points 5 months ago* (6 children)

It's a valid comment, but I disagree that you have to reach that conclusion.

This poll gives a better picture of US citizens' ability (or lack thereof) to obtain and understand basic facts when you combine it with actual data. I.e., the facts alone tell us only what reality is, and the opinion poll alone only tells us what Americans think, but together they tell us how well-informed Americans are.

That, in turn, helps suggest (even if proof is harder) how effective right-wing information technology is, how seamless the Fox News/influencer/social media info bubbles are.

And, as depressing as it is, opinions (the perceptions of a party's or candidates' culpability and capability) decide elections where reality and opinion are in conflict. 2024 proved at least to me that we have reached an inflection point and entered the Disinformation Age, where propaganda actually can consistently win out against reality by sheer flood of disinformation, if it's not moderated or regulated.

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  • [–] -3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    As soon as a news story includes both the feeling and the fact, your comment becomes valid.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago* (4 children)

    I get the snark, but honestly, we are all capable of synthesizing information from multiple sources - a story can be useful even if it supplies just one or more true premises of a valid conclusion.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Fair. Point me to a news story that contains the facts so that I may sufficiently synthesize.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    Your comments are far too arrogant for how completely ignorant they are.

    You wanna know why I believed that America would become a fascist dictatorship 25 years ago? Because of combining my opinion of watching Fox News (considering it to be fascist propaganda) with raw stats, like Fox News being the #1 cable news network, with numerous other opinion polls proving that R's perception of events were dependent on Fox propaganda, divergent from both reality and D/I opinions of reality. I knew R's were the most propagandized population in America because other populations opinion polling did not change anywhere near as significantly over time, nor did it mirror the changing narratives of propaganda. These have been reinforced continuously by the vast majority of both polling and other raw stats since then.

    In statistics, all data points are some abstract proxy that attempt to measure reality. They are not reality itself, and none of them can be trusted to provide some end all be all proof of reality. Even math itself is an abstract representation (language) we use to understand and communicate.

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