Well, the polls predicted the popular vote for Clinton to within a fraction of a percentage point, and showed Brexit and Brenotretarded (I kid) as head-to-head.
They showed Remain having a victory 52-48 and Clinton painting the USA blue, when in reality Leave won 52-48 and Clinton lost the swing states and even Democrat strongholds.
On the other hand, they're giving a 20% win to Macron. (And in case you think French pollsters sucks exceptionnaly, they predicted the first round pretty accurately).
I don't think French pollsters suck exceptionally, I just find it foolish to buy into the sort of strategizing that ignores their own eyes and reason in favour of the assumptions predicated on polls. Analyzing data and identifying key demographics, targeting demographics with online ads likely to motivate the desired voters to mobilize at the ballots, demoralizing opposing demographics into believing their situation is hopeless - if there is an argument to be made that is is a very insincere way to conduct a democracy, I won't make it, as I don't know what makes an authentic democracy. I do know however that to be successful one must accommodate for and prepare for all outcomes, rejecting the most obvious ways your candidate can lose as even being possible on account of polling is absurdly risky, especially since pollsters only have access to one piece of information: How their respondents claim they intend to vote. Issues of voters being embarrassed to endorse a position upper-society looks down upon, issues of pollsters inflating or deflating genuine support on the belief that it should be more or less to accommodate for this, issues of pollsters not polling a representative audience - all these affect accuracy. Nevertheless, if polls were 100% accurate and 100% reliable for each moment in time they were taken, times change, and with it people's intentions. What is more surprising is that knowing this, people learned from Trump or Brexit not that one should act on the assumption that polls are not always 100% precise truth, but instead continued on course as normal. While David Cameron was talking about how he intended to heal a divided country upon his victory, his opponents were busy campaigning. While Clinton was talking about how Trump should not respond to his defeat violently, he was busy campaigning in states her campaign believed were safe Democrat seats. In the UK, in 2015, our parties ran into the exact same issue - they assumed that certain seats were "safe seats" because the people "always" voted for them, therefore they would again - only to be surprised, finding the polls were not entirely accurate.
Tl;dr, "because something hasn't ever happened, it won't happen" - is flawed thinking. We see today not just in past "surprises," but even today, wherein France will either have its youngest or first female President, both political outsiders from a system designed to keep them out. The unthinkable is subjective and personal, for others it is being planned for everyday. There is danger in simply assuming Macron has won because he's favoured to win, when Marine Le Pen has previous experience in Presidential campaigning and is capable of mobilizing her supporters in the lower-class areas of France in which her opponents cannot, hence why Macron should be trying to get the endorsement of Melenchon. Never say you have finished your job until you have finished it, and God knows people are asking what happens if Marine wins. If Macron has already won, I think it is more interesting to ask what happens after his victory. French concerns with mass migration taking away their identity, exposing them to the security risks of Nice and Paris, the death of their industries at the hands of wealthy financiers imposing free trade and open borders, all concerns that will have to be handled by an anti-nationalist Rothschild Investment banker who is pro-open borders, pro-EU and says France has no culture, whose support is based around a fear of Le Pen more than a love for Macron, especially given Macron's history in Hollande's government spent reducing corporate tax rates and Union rights.
In the queue to see Macron were lawyers, PR consultants, graphic designers; students, gay couples and middle-class Parisians of multiple ethnicities. These are the representatives of a cosmopolitan, successful France. It was hard not to be reminded of the “metropolitan elite” who voted against Brexit.
Macron has called for investment in poorer communities, and his campaign staff pointedly invited onstage a struggling single mother as a warm-up act that night.
Yet his Socialist rival, Benoit Hamon, accuses him of representing only those who are doing pretty well already. It is hard for some to disassociate Macron from his education at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration – university of choice for the political elite – and his career at Rothschild. One infamous incident from early in the campaign sticks in the memory, when he told a pair of workers on strike: “You don’t scare me with your t-shirts. The best way to pay for a suit is to work.” For Macron, work has usually involved wearing a tie.
IFOP figures show him beating Le Pen soundly in when it comes to the voting intentions of executives and managers – 37 per cent to her 18 per cent. But when it comes to manual workers, she takes a hefty 44 per cent to his 17. He would take Paris; she fares better in rural areas and among the unemployed.
If Frédéric Dabi is to be believed, Macron’s bid for the centre-ground could pay off handsomely. But not everyone is convinced.
“He’s the perfect representative of the electorate in the big globalised cities,” the geographer Christophe Guilluy told Le Point magazine in January.
“But it’s the peripheries of France that will decide this presidential election.”
Marx and Machiavelli were right, in that the powerful ultimately derive their power from their people. I'm intrigued by what spiciness shall ensue post-victory of whoever, and am somewhat saddened by my poor grasp of French.
It's 100% all but guaranteed at this point.
The complacency sets in
France is a proper, actual, real democracy, where all votes are equal, and where you absolutely cannot win unless you convince more than half of voting population that you're the one who should lead their country.
This is what makes an authentic democracy?
*EDIT
An EU related joke:
Author
Topic: The friendly and polite Europe related terrible jokes thread (Read 1006700 times)