The US is ranked as a 'Flawed Democracy', what needs to change?

[Chrkeller]

Eagle367 said:

Chrkeller said:

As somebody who does statistics for a living, polls are questionable.  Ask 11,000 people..  which people are being asked?  People in New York will have much different views than somebody in Alabama.  There are two ways of looking at it.  People don't know what they are voting for or people do know what they are voting for and the average person doesn't believe what we think they do.  I believe in the latter absolutely 100%.  But too each their own.  

Again, Hillary was suppose to decimate Trump...  how did that work out?  And I say this as somebody who never has nor never will vote Trump.  There is a massive disconnect between election results and what we think people want....  I'm not going to brush it off as "people are stupid and don't know what they are voting for."  I don't believe that is the case at all.  But again to each their own.

You are being a little disingenuous. And you should know better as a statistician. You can look at methodologies and what separates a bad poll from a good poll. You can critique individual polls too. The way and framing of questions is part of that. Just dismissing them outright though is weird.

And wait who said Hillary was supposed to decimate Trump? Everyone who looked closely at the elections was saying she's a bad candidate and it shouldn't have been her. Hell there was an entire scandal about the Clinton foundation using funding they gave to the DNC to make sure she won over Bernie. What people were saying was she would get more votes and she did. 

As for the question of people knowing or not knowing what they vote for, read manufactured consent. Also maybe look into the history of brainwashing and political maneuvering.  Messaging and perception have shown to be more effective than actual good policies people themselves want in countries where media literacy training is not taught. That's why teaching children how to get knowledge is way more important than maths, science, and all the things people thinks schools should be for. It's not that people are dumb, it's that we are people and people fall for things. Even the most intelligent of us, unless we are taught about and know how to avoid these tactics. Even then we fall for some of it. You and me and everyone here and everyone in the world.

Those with media literacy and taught critical thinking skills just fare better. Unfortunately those people are not the majority in the world because a properly educated population is a threat to the political careers of I would say most of the world politicians.

I'll take your two major points in one link. 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/why-2016-election-polls-missed-their-mark/

1) Hillary was predicted as the HEAVY favorite according to polls....