The Alternative Reality Election.

          We are still waiting to get a full picture of what the polls are telling us about who won the debate and more importantly the debate’s impact on the election. What we are seeing without question is a shameless attempt to continue the creation of alternative realities whenever and wherever possible. It is exceptionally important that we focus on the pernicious potential of such creations rather than merely debunking them.  

      Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump wants to claim/believe he won the debate. In so claiming, he relies on click button online samples.  Mostly for entertainment value, but also for page clicks, many websites launched who won the debate questions?  Click a button and you voted. They don’t ask for demographic samples.  They often don’t have a security measure to prevent multiple votes from being cast. They are all basically worthless for gauging public opinion. This is understood by a great many people to simply be true. But as we have seen time and time again, something which was understood not to be true before Trump says it becomes true to his partisans in very short order after he says it. 

 This is not, as it might seem, a harmless phenomenon.   If people begin to base their belief about how the election is going on the results of these online polls, then they become much less likely ultimately to believe election results that prove considerably different.  In a country where both candidates seem like a certain lock for 40% of the vote and probably higher, it is not difficult for the opposing sides to be in such silos that people don’t really know people supporting the other candidate.    Thus this creation of alternative reality based on blatantly flawed polls can cause serious problems.  Democracy only works when the side that loses believes the outcome and accepts it. The creation of an alternative reality following a debate does raise the specter of creating a similar alternative reality around the election itself. This is a risk we should be watching for carefully as the election continues.