In reply to Jim 1003:
> ^ I never said I didn't like liberalism, I just said the media commentators and pollsters are so obsessed with it, they have now left the real world and cannot predict anything anymore. They just predict the candidates who support their view will in. So we now have , wrong predictions for Cameron being re-elected, wrong on Brexit, wrong on Trump. The media luvvies need to get back in the real world.
I think the mainstream broadcast media admit that they didn't pay enough attention to what was happening on social media. It's an understandable problem, it's difficult to quantify and, frankly there's a lot of stuff out there that really doesn't need to be publicised any wider.
I heard one pollster say that a high proportion of Trump supporters were probably among the alt-Right, Tea Party, survivalist, gun culture anarchist nutters who simply put the phone down when anyone asks their political opinion since they refuse to be complicit with the liberal, globalist, Washington establishment elite (or graduates as they are sometimes known). Difficult to count them if they want to be off-grid. In a way, if they just want to isolate themselves from society, that's up to them (as long as they don't break the law) but if they start voting for nutters in numbers that make a difference, then we do need to take them on.
While I'm on the subject of social media, it's one important aspect of the fractured media culture, especially in the US but increasingly here too. Those with strong political views increasingly engage only with like-minded posters/viewers/listeners who will reinforce their prejudices and not challenge even their most outlandish obsessions. US TV is horribly polarised (the liberals too - I love Rachel Maddow but even I eventually get tired of her shooting fish in a barrel without anyone arguing back). Talk radio is the same, unhinged self-publicists not so much preaching as screaming at the choir. Most of all, the internet enables and fosters extremists who never talk to anyone who disagrees with them.
Not only do these people never get challenged but the pollsters, political parties, academics and mainstream media find it hard to figure out how significant they are and whether they will vote at all, never mind who for.
Post edited at 10:42