Polls, polls, polls! We have polling on just about everything. And now we have the latest fad in political punditry – to dismiss polls because Trump won. Which like most Conservative commentary completely misses the point of polls.

In 2012, Nate Silver shocked everyone by predicting the Presidential election. That impressive feat spurred a surge of polling reporting as gospel. But even in 2012, Silver’s predictions allowed for error in possible outcomes. Because, and this is the most important point, polling is not a prediction. Polls ask a sample of the population questions and then extrapolate their answers to the entire population. So you should ask if the sample collected represents the population as a whole. Landline polls tilt more conservatively. A small sample may skew either way, requiring a large margin of error. Finally these polls assess opinions, not actions and voting is undoubtedly an action.

Fast forward to 2016. If you remember the Primaries, then-candidate Trump routinely lauded the polls showing his lead over the field. Day after day, Republicans polled favored Trump and he ultimately won. Then in the General, the polls routinely showed Clinton with the lead and suddenly Trump hated polls. September through October the difference between the two candidates widened and narrowed. At the end of October, the polls were widening after Trump’s erratic behavior, terrible debates, and a audio of him admitting to sexually assaulting women because he is famous. But with a Week to go, Comey sent a classified letter to Congress about some Clinton emails on another computer which was promptly released by the Republicans. The national polls narrowed to near the margin of error. Election Day would be tight with an advantage to Clinton.

But alas, the President isn’t elected by the nation. He or she is elected by states. States are generally harder to poll due to costs, responses and other constraints. The national poll reflects the overall mood, with a 3% advantage to Clinton. Again this is based on opinions not actions. That 3% has to be translated into votes. If people don’t vote, it doesn’t matter what their opinions are. But people did vote. Clinton received the second most votes in history, only behind Obama. And her 3 million votes more than Trump was a difference of 2.5%, just as the national polls predicted. Unfortunately, the votes were not evenly distributed and about 80,000 votes in 3 states accounted for the Electoral difference from the popular vote. But let’s state it again more loudly, THE POLLS WERE RIGHT! Clinton had a 3% advantage and received roughly 3% more votes. The problem with 2016 wasn’t the polls, but the pundits.

Professional predictors eager to repeat Nate Silver’s success jumped on Clinton’s polling advantage to predict that she would become the first female President. At one point, someone gave her a 90% chance to win. Nate Silver by the way forecast a 66% chance of a President Clinton. Now, conservatives pounce on these prognostications as proof that polls don’t matter. But even here they are wrong again. Just as the polls were right about a 3% difference, the pundits were still correct. Clinton had a better chance to win. The prediction all still gave Trump a 10-33% chance to win. It was still possible and their predictions showed that. Pundits took these predictions and declared a landslide in an election that was already over. These pronouncements no doubt affected the outcome as well. Voters that preferred Clinton over Trump but still didn’t like her were given license to either not vote or throw a vote to a third party. Add the #nevertrump Republicans voting for the Republican anyway and what was an unlikely outcome, but still possible, happens. Again, the predictions were still correct in giving Trump a smaller, but possible path to victory.

So now people like to say that they don’t trust polls. Americans really suck at statistics and probabilities. And that applies to 100% of poll-haters. Now I don’t hate polls, but I recognize a major issue about them – the reporting. Reporters that don’t understand stats attempt to explain them poorly. But my biggest peeve has to be reports about what Americans believe. If the polls asks people if they believe in God. Sure, the report will say 75% of Americans express belief In God, 15% don’t believe in God and 10% didn’t answer/don’t know. I’m fine with that. But I hate, loathe, despise polls that report beliefs about facts. It doesn’t happen all the time. I read a report that only 30% of Americans can name all three branches of government – executive, legislative, and um, the other one, oh yeah judicial. The report clearly that people got the question wrong. But ask a question about climate change? Forty percent of Americans don’t believe in climate change? No 40% of Americans are wrong. It’s a scientific fact whose understanding is expressed in terms of belief. It might not be their fault that the don’t understand climate change, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are wrong. The worst offenders are polls about Republicans. Over 50% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in this country. No, over 50% of Republicans are morons that can’t answer a basic question about the former President. It’s not a one off. Polls of Republicans routinely demonstrate what Republicans don’t know – either legitimately don’t know or actively “don’t know” to own the lives – reported as matters of belief instead of knowledge. That’s the problem. Facts are real things that don’t care about your political persuasion. Reporting falsehoods as beliefs contributes to this idea of alternative realities that Trump takes advantage of. In the real world you get things right or wrong.

As the 2020 primaries kick off and we approach the 2020 election, remember this about polls – it’s just a number. Not good, not bad. Just a number. The media will hype the numbers, those ahead in the polls with praise them, those behind will attack them. Look for polls with large sample sizes, broad samples, and the types of questions asked. With any luck we will get through this together.

With the revelations of terrible conditions faced by women, children, and men in the concentration camps at the Southern border, it would be nice if the preachers and pastors of America could speak out against this self-made atrocity. They should talk about how we should treat immigrants and, you know, anyone else for that matter. Moral leadership should mean leading with morality. With courage, not cowardice.

If you need help developing an appropriate sermon for the current situation , I have several verses that they can choose from:

Exodus 22:21 “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

Deuteronomy 24:14-15 You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or a foreigner residing in your cities. You will pay his wages on that day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and needs the money), lest he cry out against you to the Lord, and you are guilty of sin.

Deuteronomy 1:16 Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.

Leviticus 19:34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreign in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 25:35 If any of your people become poor and unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner or stranger, so they may continue to live among you.

Leviticus Deuteronomy 27:19 Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.

Zechariah 7:9-11 This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Malachi 3:5-6 “I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

Ezekiel 47:22 You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

Job 29:15-17 I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.

Matthew 25:35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

I know some people have a difficult time thinking rationally when it comes to the American Flag or the National Anthem, but I am going to attempt to explain it anyways. Before July 4th, Nike was set to release a shoe with the Betsy Ross Flag (13 stars in a circle) on it until Colin Kapernick intervened. Nike reversed course and recalled the Betsy Ross shoes – stoking a vocal outcry from people that don’t read past the headlines. Kapernick and others were concerned about the growing use of the Betsy Ross flag by white nationalist militia groups.

It is unclear how widespread the use of the Betsy Ross flag is by the white nationalist groups, so criticism of the flag may have jumped the shark. I don’t think we should cede the original 13 stars to white nationalists, which is kind of what this would do. That’s still our national flag, belonging to all of us. Unlike the Confederate Flag, the original use of the flag wasn’t white supremacy (that’s also the secondary use of the Confederate flag too). That the militias have taken to using Betsy Ross is disappointing, but I think we can make clear it is ours not theirs.

Now some of the people criticizing Nike’s decision were also wrong in their interpretation. Like the suggestion that Kapernick doesn’t know who Betsy Ross is. I don’t know if he does or doesn’t, but that phrasing implies that you don’t either. The link between the 13-stars and 13-stripes with Betsy Ross is at best unproven. It is a story first told by her decendents. For sure, Betsy Ross was a seamstress pressed into service to make the large number of flags needed for a war. No contemporary evidence links her to the design of the flag. Her story expresses the American Mythology – an origin story of the nation and flag – representing all the women who made independence happen.

So what did we learn today? Did Nike and Kapernick shelve the Betsy Ross Flag because they hate America and the flag? No, absolutely not. There is a growing, but still obscure, use of that flag by white nationalists. Did Betsy Ross actually make that flag? Probably not. Will Nike survive? Yes, because they still make great products by children in foreign sweatshops at low costs and high mark ups while massively donating to Republican Congressmen to secure great tax cuts and avoid regulatory oversight. :). Oh, and the Betsy Ross Flag? It’s still a beautiful flag. E pluribus unum

“Love it or leave it.” This is a far too common statement from conservatives when you voice any criticism about anything in this country, specifically when a Republican sits in the White House. Any disagreement means you should be the one to leave, or that you are somehow un-American. Think for a moment on the absurdity of that statement. Criticism does not equal hate. In fact, the MOST American thing to do is complain. We are great at it. We are even better at complaining about complainers. That’s why we have Facebook/Twitter to begin with -to complain. But it’s also woven throughout American history -the Boston Tea Party, Declaration of Independence, the FIRST Amendment, the Civil War, Women’s suffrage, Civil Rights movement, the Tea Party, the Women’s March. Criticizing our current government in order to fix it is how we fulfill the promise in the Constitution “to form a more perfect union”. And today we still have things to work on – income inequality and corporate greed, structural racism, access to health care, a flailing educational system with crippling student debt, and on and on.

But alas, Conservatives often invoke that differences in opinions means that you hate America. Wanting something to be better doesn’t mean you hate it. Wanting to improve things doesn’t mean you hate them. Your parents don’t correct your behavior because they hate you. It’s based on love, a desire to see you be your best self, realizing your potential. Same is true of teachers and coaches. And if criticizing the government or the current administration means that you hate America, then what did that mean about Republicans between 2009-2016? That would have been the most unpatriotic period for an entire party. Republicans complained about everything relating to Obama, and even protested. The Republican Party sent a letter to Iran saying that the President doesn’t speak for America, really? Was that un-American? No. Completely and utterly wrong, but perfectly in the vein of being American. People screaming MAGA were literally saying that America wasn’t, in fact, great. Un-American? Nope, just really annoying.

We are meant to disagree and we are free to be who we are – Christian/Jew/Muslim/Athiest/etc, Straight/Gay/Whatever, Capitalist/Socialist/(even)Communist. There is no Un-American, because literally everything is American. We are everything That is the freedom we celebrate as Americans. Resorting to the “Love it or Leave It” or Un-American argument means that you have no argument. You have no rebuttal but ad hominem attack. It is intellectual weakness. That is true from the left or right. Heard on one of my podcasts this week, and cringed. Things can be unethical, unconstitutional, illegal, or just plain wrong, but not really un-American.

Wanting to make things better is patriotism. Loving your country, despite the flaws of our history or current politics, is patriotism. Holding a corrupt administration accountable, is patriotism. Finding a way to help your fellow citizens afford health care, afford college, and protect the environment, and realize the American Dream is patriotism. Meanwhile, failing to accept differences of opinion is nationalism. Demanding absolute loyalty to a particular partisan President is nationalism. Pretending everything is perfect despite available evidence is nationalism. Thinking only your personal beliefs represent America is nationalism. Nationalism stifles the debate, but Patriotism encourages discussion. Nationalism disparages large swaths of American citizens and residents, while Patriotism celebrates them. In America, you are completely free to be a nationalist but as you can tell, patriotism is far superior to nationalism. And when a President says that American citizens should go back where he thinks brown people come from or that the opposition party simply hates America, that President espouses the most vile of nationalism, a racist white nationalism that doesn’t make America great. Our diversity makes us great -diversity of opinions, thoughts, and beliefs.