Be Skeptical Of Polls And Those Who Pay For Them
This week’s Courier Herald column:
This is Easter Week. It’s also the week we sent the Georgia General Assembly home from their annual 40 day stay in Atlanta. The overlap on the calendar lends itself to a few words on the juxtaposition of religion and politics, but the focus today will be on a much narrower focus in the Easter story.
The events between Palm Sunday and Easter are a master class in the shallowness of public opinion. At the beginning of the story, the residents of Jerusalem lined the streets to welcome Jesus as a king. By Friday morning, the crowd had turned and sentenced him to death while choosing to release a murderer instead.
Two thousand years later, we seem to be governed by polls. Elected officials are farther and farther removed from the public they represent. To gage the sentiment of how issues of the day are viewed and how likely they are to be elected and re-elected, polls often help politicians turn anecdotes into data.
Somewhere along the way, media outlets decided that public opinion polls were the best tools to explain public policy questions in their 90 second news packages and 14 paragraph print stories. Over time, telling the public what others support or oppose has been prioritized as a shortcut over detailed analysis with pros and cons of proposals.
The biggest problem here is as obvious as it is ignored by those who have institutionalized this practice. Asking the public about policy matters that most have not considered much less understand would generally not yield informed opinions.
Instead, these polls are often used to pigeon hole elected officials into support of popular proposals instead of good policy. Too many reporters load up with righteous indignation before asking “77 percent of voters support getting something for themselves and having someone else pay for it. Why are you out of step with your voters?”
Reporters and those of us who write opinion pieces have no shortage of help from others who want us to know that the public supports their positions. Our inboxes are filled daily with press releases from various interest groups who have commissioned a poll demonstrating overwhelming support for their initiative, or for the candidate they promise is winning an election.
It’s almost like those who are writing the questions and choosing those who are polled can sway the outcome of these all-important polls. And by “almost”, I mean it’s exactly like that.
The problem for ancient rulers and current office holders alike is that those who rely on polls when sound judgment and leadership is needed will often find themselves vacillating at times when a steady hand is demanded. Pontius Pilate decided to leave Jesus’ fate to the mob in order to avoid making a controversial decision himself.
The construct of the question to the public was designed so that he could get the outcome he wanted – letting Jesus go – without having to face the consequences from what he thought were a small but powerful group of powerful insiders. Surely the will of the crowd – the people that had just welcomed Jesus as a King days ago – would decide to release Jesus instead of the brutal murderer Barabbas.
It didn’t work out that way. While the lessons of Easter are much greater than this narrow slice taken out for a political column, there is an important takeaway here for those who govern and for those who would be governed.
There are matters that are to be put to the will of the majority, and there are those that should not. Our Constitution is an express exercise in the latter. It was designed not to enforce the will of the majority, but to protect the rights of the individual when in the minority.
Public opinion can change quickly and violently. There are many whose entire profession and avocation are dedicated to ensuring that it does. Given the right issue with the right catalyst, literally anything can become politically popular.
How extreme can these swings be? The only time that Jesus was ever on the ballot, Barabbas won the election. He was sentenced to death by the same crowd with whom he polled as the overwhelmingly popular leader just days prior.
What was the change between Palm Sunday and Good Friday? Thirty pieces of silver.
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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2018 – I have a few thoughts I should get on paper. Naw, not today.
2019 – Naw, timing doesn’t feel right.
2020 – Maybe in a week or two
Spring 2021 – Perfect
“There are matters that are to be put to the will of the majority, and there are those that should not. Our Constitution is an express exercise in the latter. It was designed not to enforce the will of the majority, but to protect the rights of the individual when in the minority.”
As phony as a diploma from Trump U.
I’m a boomer so I run into this all the time.
“Why do you support Brian Kemp?”
“Because he is doing all the right things”
“Polling shows most Georgians are against his policies”
“Polls are no good, they are all rigged”.
Saw your article “Be Skeptical of Polls…” in Sunday’s Athens Banner Herald and I am skeptical of your conclusions when you write “The events between Palm Sunday and Easter are a master class in the shallowness of public opinion.”
Of course, the Easter holiday did not exist during Jesus’ lifetime, but I’m sure most readers will understand what you meant. This time period in question was actually the Feast of Passover, the most important Jewish holiday. One estimate is that over 2 million Jewish people from around the Mediterranean were in Jerusalem to celebrate this important Feast.
You write, “At the beginning of the story, the residents of Jerusalem lined the streets to welcome Jesus as a king, by Friday morning, the crowd had turned and sentenced him to death while choosing to release a murderer instead.”
During the week, Jesus went to the temple and “cleansed” it of the for profit money changers and the sellers of sacrificial doves. Jesus rightly considered these activities to be an abomination.
He also condemned the priestly classes’ extortion of requiring worshipers to pay to undergo ritual cleansing in the numerous mikvehs baths which the priestly class controlled.
Jesus said these activities turned God’s temple into a den of thieves.
These temple activities brought in huge revenues for the priestly class and they would do whatever necessary to continue to collect that money.
Jesus was arrested by the Temple police on Friday night. The Jewish Sabbath begins Friday at sundown and continues until sundown on Saturday. Jesus was taken to the house, rather mansion, of the High Priest where he was falsely charged with several crimes.
This “trial” contained multiple violations of Jewish law because: it was illegal to hold trials at night, all trials must be conducted in a public forum, (not the high priests house) and trials were forbidden to be conducted on holidays, i.e. the Sabbath and/or the week of the Passover Festival.
The public at large did not attend this preliminary trial Friday night because first, they weren’t invited, and most importantly, it was the Sabbath. It was illegal for people to travel or to be out in public unless they were going to the temple to worship or sacrifice. The people in attendance were scribes, elders, and dozens of other high priests.
After an inconclusive night, Jesus was taken to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate found no evidence of guilt in Jesus and would have released him but the priests gathered a crowd which threatened a riot.
You wrote “by Friday morning (actually Saturday morning) the crowd had turned and sentenced him to death…”
It is almost certain that the “crowd” that called for Jesus’ death was not the same “residents of Jerusalem” that welcomed Jesus with palm fronds and affection.
I would suggest instead, that this crowd consisted of the friends, families and employees of the high priests, numerous other employees of the Temple including mikveh bath attendants, the money changers and dove sellers whose livelihood was threatened, other locals who profited catering to Jewish religious tourists, and even members of the Judean Medical Association who watched in horror as Jesus healed numerous patients without charge.
The pious Jews who welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday would have been, as required by Jewish law, in their residences observing the most important Sabbath Day of the year, the Sabbath of the Passover Festival.
I’m sure that it was not your purpose or intent, but conflating the pious Jews of Palm Sunday with the greedy hypocrites of the Temple establishment, is a foundational proposition of antisemitism. Seeming to blame all of the Jewish people instead of those who were actually guilty is a historically troublesome problem.
Jim McMeans
Danielsville, GA