Within hours of the conclusion of the Clinton/Trump debate Donald Trump was touting his “triumph” over Hillary Clinton. Although he would have been bragging even if he had lapsed into Mickey Mouse impressions doing sieg heil salutes.

The main problem with Trump’s victory lap is that it was based solely on the result of unscientific online polls. These are polls that invite web users to cast votes, but are not managed to produce a representative sample of the electorate. Anyone who feels like it can cast a vote and, in many cases, as many votes as they want. There are even reports that devoted StormTrumpers organized online armies to game the polls. That’s why they are generally dismissed as being “for entertainment purposes only” and no professional takes them seriously.

Consequently, the pathologically narcissistic Trump believes they are proof of his universal appeal to a nation that ravenously adores him. He posted at least twelve tweets promoting his supremacy in these bogus polls, beginning with this one:

I won every poll from last nights Presidential Debate – except for the little watched @CNN poll.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2016

Note: The CNN poll, which he lost bigly, was the only one that adheres to scientific polling standards. The other polls appeared on a variety of websites that use them to engage readers. They include Drudge, Breitbart (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump campaign), Time, Fortune, CNBC, and more. Trump also boasted about his win on the CBS post-debate poll – which was a true achievement since CBS didn’t run a post-debate poll.

Now, among the critics of these silly surveys is Fox News. A leaked memo from Dana Blanton, VP of public opinion research for the network, had a warning for her colleagues. She said that such unscientific online polls “do not meet our editorial standards.” The first question this raises is: Fox News has editorial standards? Blanton wrote that:

“News networks and other organizations go to great effort and rigor to conduct scientific polls — for good reason. They know quick vote items posted on the web are nonsense, not true measures of public opinion.”

Apparently that missive was not sufficient for certain Fox News hosts. After the memo went out Sean Hannity continued to cite online polls as evidence of Trump’s huuuge win over Clinton. It was Hannity that provided Trump with his list of polls that included the non-existent one from CBS. Then this morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes at Fox & Friends did the same. That earned them a thank you tweet from The Donald:

Wow, did great in the debate polls (except for @CNN – which I don't watch). Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2016

Additionally, A headline on the Fox News website heralded the phony polling saying that “Online votes declare Trump debate winner, despite media consensus for Clinton.” The article did concede that the online polls were not scientific, but it also implied that they are somehow better than professionally conducted polls. Fox argued that the number of votes cast was an indicator of their value as predictors of public opinion. Never mind that many of those votes are fakes and/or duplicates, or that the sample is self-selected.

On Fox’s Your World with Neil Cavuto, the host did a segment discussing the online polls with an obvious preference for their pro-Trump results. An on-screen graphic read “Snap Polls Suggest Disconnect Between Public And Mainstream Media Over Who Won Debate.” But they only suggest that to people willing to believe that the snap polls have any legitimacy. Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich made the same argument elevating pro-Trump online polls saying that:

“It is worth looking at a list of online polls to understand the gap between the elites and the vast majority of Americans. [… and how] willfully out of touch and dishonest the Intellectual Yet Idiot class is.”

No, it is not useful to look at sham polls. Since they are nonsense, they tell us nothing about alleged gaps between elites and other Americans. However, arguing that they are superior does show how willfully out of touch and dishonest Gingrich, Fox, et al are.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

There is something else we learn from Fox News continuing to push fake polls even after they are notified of their fakeness. It tells us is that the alleged editorial standards at Fox News are also “for entertainment purposes only.” Blanton’s memo seems to have had no effect on the propagandists bent on promoting Trump. It’s further proof that Fox has fully transformed into the Trump News Network. And nothing is going to interfere with their politically partisan mission.