Trump and Biden
Trump and BidenReuters

A sign of the times? Reuters/Ipsos has conducted a poll asking respondents whether or not they will accept the results of the 2020 US presidential election. That in itself could be news… but no one seems to be batting an eyelid. After all, this is the post-truth generation, the generation of “fake news,” of “lamestream media,” of allegations of Russian and/or Iranian meddling with election results, of conspiracy theories both small and large… and so, no – the fact that such a poll has been conducted at all is not news.

The results, presumably, are. Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University, quoted by Reuters, says that the poll’s findings are reassuring and that they have “eased his concerns about post-election findings.”

Should they? Reuters has chosen to stress the fact that “a majority of Americans appear ready to accept the result…” This alone should be incredibly reassuring, we are being told. Apparently, 79% of all Americans will accept a Biden win, and 73% will accept a Trump win, regardless of their political leanings.

But now let’s take a closer look. Among those Americans who support Trump, just 59% will accept a Biden win, the poll’s results state. 41% will not accept a Biden win. What will they do about it? 16% admitted that they would “do something to challenge it … such as protesting in public or resorting toviolence,” (emphasis added).

Let’s assume that Trump voters constitute around 50% of the US voting population. That’s around 80 million people, given the percentages that usually cast a vote at all. 41% won’t accept a Biden win – that’s 32.8 million people. 16% of them may resort to violence to protest an undesirable result – that’s 5.248 million people. Over five million very angry people. And that’s just the Republicans.

Don’t Democrats get angry too? Let’s see:

73% of Americans will accept a Trump win, the poll reports, including 57% of Biden supporters. Thus, 43% of Biden supporters will not accept a Trump win. We’ll assume that they, too, constitute around half of the US population, again, around 80 million likely voters. 43% of them won’t accept a Trump win – that’s 34.4 million people. How many of them said “they would take action to challenge the result”? The poll says 22%, which translates to 7.568 million angry Democratic voters.

What all this means, therefore, is that no matter which way the election goes, there are going to be at least five million, and possibly up to eight million extremely frustrated, bitter people who are already talking about “taking action” to challenge a result that they fought against with all their might. Is that really so reassuring?

The results are also intriguing in that they portray Democrats as more likely to be embittered to the point of violent protest, despite the fact that it is Trump, rather than Biden, who is constantly sounding off about the likelihood that the results will be “faked” or otherwise distorted by home-grown as well as foreign parties.

Thus, Green of Columbia University’s assertion that “This is why many people who oppose Trump are holding their breath and hoping for a lopsided outcome that is not up for grabs,” might be mystifying to those who lack any familiarity with the “lamestream” media. Those who oppose Trump are not necessarily “holding their breath and hoping…” They are at least as and probably much more likely than those who oppose Biden to be actively preparing for the day after with – who knows what.