The public doesn’t need Donald Trump to tell them they should distrust institutions.
It’s Donald Trump’s fault that pollsters keep blowing it, according to a growing chorus of liberal critics. This is pure sophistry, but it’s also representative of an important failure on the left, which reflexively blames Trump for problems they created. Here’s one example of this facile critique, courtesy of The New York Times. (More here and here.) Let’s assume for the sake of argument this theory is correct. The Times is blaming Trump for pointing out their obvious, admitted failure in 2016. Perhaps their apologists can fairly contend it’s the excesses of Trump’s attacks on the media and polling industry that poison people against surveys. But Trump won the GOP primary and then the general election by tapping into these sentiments, not creating them. Further, even if Trump’s rhetoric were more restrained, any criticism he directed at the media and polling industry would be considered dangerous by his opponents.
