I KNOW I saw articles and heard talking heads say Russia messed with vote counts. As Tyler has pointed out, you get this headline:
Reuters: "U.S. accuses Russian spies of 2016 election hacking" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-indictments/u-s-accuses-russian-spies-of-2016-election-hacking-as-summit-looms-idUSKBN1K32DJ
Or
NY Times: "Russian Election Hacking Efforts, Wider Than Previously Known, Draw Little Scrutiny" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/russia-election-hacking.html
where the title CLEARLY insinuates that Russians hacked the election, where the nuance and "it was only the DNC" stuff is buried (you know nobody reads these things.) Facebook twits share and reshare, talking heads speculate and go to illogical extremes; a narrative is built, and Portland, among other cities, gets looted and set on fire.
The first article describes in detail information about Russians hacking and releasing information to harm the Clinton campaign. No mention of hacking vote ballots or changing counts was made in it. The second article describes how Russia was involved in hacking for the purpose of voter misinformation to try to prevent people who supported Democratic candidates from getting to the right place to vote. No mention of hacking vote ballots or changing counts was made in it. Seems like good journalism - clearly explaining news that happened.
Is your concern that you believe people are too stupid to read further than a headline to clearly explained information in the article?
Stupid ? That might be too strong
I would say it’s a valid argument as to why 66% of democrats believe Russians changed vote totals. The only other explanation I heard above was phraseology. Which invalidates most surveys. Any other thoughts on why such a large part of one party believes in fiction ?
So just to be clear then . . . we're saying that "MSNBC, CNN, Wahsington Post, NPR, NYtimes" - none of them have
really mislead anyone? Because now we've thrown that out the window we seem to be instead discussing why people are too stupid to read for themselves. Which is OK. We can go in that direction. But I want you to acknowledge that there is little real evidence that "MSNBC, CNN, Wahsington Post, NPR, NYtimes" were pushing a false conspiracy theory as was originally insinuated. They are valid and legitimate news sources. If we can agree to that, then moving right along . . .
I suspect that confusion about the survey wording may have played a part in the results, or possibly there was a problem with the way the polling was done. It's strange that 76% of Clinton voters would accept Trump as legitimate (
https://news.gallup.com/poll/197441/accept-trump-legitimate-president.aspx?g_source=Election%202016&g_medium=lead&g_campaign=tiles) if 66% of them thought that he was elected by Russia.
So I looked into the YouGov data tallies. It doesn't show 66%:
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zq33h2ipcl/econTabReport.pdfPage 96:
Do you think the following statements are true or not true?
- Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.
Clinton Supporters:
Definitely true 31%
Probably true 32%
Probably not true 29%
Definitely not true 8%
If you combine 'probably' with 'definitely' you're close to 60% . . . but I'm not sure it's fair to do so as they mean quite different things. Where exactly is your 66% number coming from Tyler?
Now, 31% of people who voted for Hilary thinking that Russia definitely tampered with voter tallies is
still bullshit and a cause for concern. That is an indication of belief in fiction and very bad. But it's quite different from the 66% number that you've been quoting.