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The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. The third most active thread was titled, "Trump wants Ann Selzer punished for her Iowa poll Predicition." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster links to a New York Post article describing a demand by President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump for an investigation of J. Ann Selzer. Selzer is the pollster behind the highly regarded Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll. Despite its reputation for accuracy, Selzer's poll had a big miss in this election, predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris would win Iowa by 2 points. Instead, Trump won by 13. Right-wingers have long viewed polls with skepticism, accusing pollsters of skewing polls for the past several elections. Moreover, it is fairly routine for MAGA posters on DCUM to brag about lying to those conducting polls. They are apparently invested in ensuring that polls are inaccurate. Trump did not specify what sort of investigation of Selzer he wants to see conducted. Selzer recently announced that she would be leaving the Des Moines Register, a departure that has been long planned and is unconnected to the polling failure. The MAGAs in this thread are certain that Selzer intentionally skewed her poll in order to boost Democratic morale and give a false impression of Harris' chance of winning. Some go so far as to describe it as an illegal campaign contribution. Liberal posters don't see any advantage to Selzer posting false polling results and accuse Trump of interfering with freedom of the press. The best explanation that I've seen of why Selzer missed so badly was posted as a response in this thread. According to the poster, Selzer's method of identifying "likely voters" unintentionally overlooks many likely Trump voters and leads to Trump voters being underrepresented in her poll. According to this poster, Trump voters tend to be hostile and uncooperative, if not downright belligerent, in response to polls. Selzer discards responses from those who are not cooperative as unlikely voters. In reality, antagonistic Trump supporters are apparently very likely voters. Don't forget that some of this lack of cooperation includes outright lying. At any rate, many posters question why Trump is bothering with Selzer given that he won the election. Some suggest, correctly, that Trump voters are mostly motivated by anger, and Trump needs to provide a constant stream of reasons to be angry. I think another explanation for Trump's threat is his desire for dominance. Josh Marshall, editor of Talking Points Memo, has spent years discussing Trump and dominance. As he has pointed out, Trump does not seek compromise with his opponents, but rather complete dominance over them. His goal is to leave them cowed and unwilling to challenge him in the future. This explains his frequent ritual humiliations of those who have crossed him. There is no question that Selzer's reputation has been severely hurt by her last poll. Normally, that would provide plenty of satisfaction for her critics. But not for Trump. By piling on, Trump is sending a message to anyone else who might challenge him. Act in a way in which Trump disapproves and he will come after you. Intimidation and bullying are Trump's tools of the trade. We can expect to see this behavior frequently during his second term.