Galloway summed it up perfectly in one tweet, as it became clear that Donald J. Trump, against all the odds, was to become the 45th President of the United States of America:
Pollsters pundits politicians…All you "experts" just took a hell of a beating (again)
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) November 9, 2016
There was no way the unspeakably awful Donald Trump would prevail, the MSM assured us. A victory for the quite wonderful Hillary Clinton was a slam dunk. After all, everyone in our circle is going to vote for her!
Bill Kristol, the editor of the neocon Weekly Standard and a regular pundit on US television, scoffed at the idea that Trump would even win a single caucus or primary.
Sticking with my prediction: Trump will win no caucuses or primaries, and will run behind Ron Paul 2012 in IA and NH.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 8, 2015
"Here's why Donald Trump won't win the Republican nomination" was the title of one piece in August 2015.
Tom McCarthy said that while "knowledgeable people" thought Trump might get the nomination, "more knowledgeable people thought he wouldn't." And probably, by this logic, "the least knowledgeable people" of all thought Trump would not only win the nomination, but the White House as well. But we never heard from them. Except on channels like RT, whose "obscure pundits" — to coin a phrase of a particularly poisonous stalker, again outdid the "experts" we see regularly on elite-friendly programs like BBC's Newsnight.
Then there's the pollsters.
Not a single poll ever showed Trump winning in Wisconsin. Ever. https://t.co/hI49J0OEuB
— Natalie Jackson (@nataliemjb) November 9, 2016
They were wrong about the 2015 UK general election, and they were wrong about the EU Referendum. And they were hopelessly wrong about the US Presidential election too. Not a single poll for instance, had Trump winning the state of Wisconsin.
In the last few days, almost all the polls showed significant leads for Hillary Clinton.
Surely, after this latest debacle, no one can trust pollsters ever again.
Politicians too, with the exception of outside-the-tent populists like George Galloway and Nigel Farage, demonstrated how out of touch they were with public opinion.
In August, Politico ran a piece entitled "GOP Insiders: Trump can't win."
"Trump is underperforming so comprehensively… it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of 'Death to America,' " was the verdict of an Iowa Republican.
Well, guess what, that video evidence of Clinton as Cruella de Vil did not emerge, and The Donald still won.
Throughout the summer we also had dire warnings in the US MSM that Trump was leading the GOP into oblivion.
Donald Trump, leading the Republican Party into oblivion. https://t.co/ZGMJIoXclU pic.twitter.com/ZzElZvWskT
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) May 4, 2016
Well, the Republicans now have the Presidency, the Senate and the House.
Some oblivion, New York Times.
As with Brexit "experts" in the US and UK, who are paid good money to "enlighten" us on political trends, didn't see the US election result coming.
One London punter had the good sense to disregard these wise and learned articles.
He put £200,000 (US$250,000) on a Trump victory — and won a cool half a million pounds.
The mutually back-slapping "pundits" who told us Trump couldn't win, met the "shock" result on the morning of November 9 with incredulity, anger — and in some cases four-letter profanities.
One irate Oxford-educated columnist tweeted:
"Just woke up. Jesus H Christ, America. What the f*** just done. You should be ashamed of yourselves."
The fact that ordinary US voters are being scolded by UK and US punditocracy for voting the "wrong way" shows us the massive disconnect between large sections of the MSM in both countries and the people.
How many of those who pontificated on the US elections — and gave their "expert" opinions on how Trump couldn't possibly win — have actually spent any time in the "Rust Belt" or the poorest states of the deep south, or ever engaged with working-class Americans, struggling to make ends meet?
If they had, they might just have anticipated what happened on election day. But they were all too busy massaging each other's egos on Twitter and predicting the result that they wanted to see, to hear the cries for change coming from the despised ‘little people', and whose opinions were ignored by Establishment "experts" once again.
Follow Neil Clark on Twitter @NeilClark66
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
