On Saturday afternoon, CNN’s Michael Smerconish hosted poll expert Sam Wang, who now finds himself among the most distrusted group of people on the planet. Indeed, no one (except Kellyanne Conway) wants anything to do with polls right now. In the blink of one Donald Trump victory, pollsters and poll experts find themselves right up there with attorneys and meteorologists in terms of professions that p*ss people off. The first two jobs are pretty self explanatory — attorneys are hated because there’s always a losing side, and meteorologists are working against a number of variables that sway the weather — but man, pollsters really screwed up in this election.
Wang recognizes that he and his colleagues led the nation astray, and he’s willing to keep his ultimate election promise — to eat a bug following a Donald Trump win. Wang proclaims that there are plenty of things that could bring the nation together, such as Donald Trump deciding to name Merrick Garland to SCOTUS, but eating a bug on live television is not one of them. Still, he’s willing to prove himself “a man of his word” and do the deed.
Naturally, this serves no purpose but sheer entertainment, and Wang sort of cheats. He doesn’t eat a live bug but opts for a “gourmet” cricket that has been sitting in a can on a pet store shelf. Although this is disgusting, one really wonders why Wang couldn’t have promised to eat his hat or wrestle with a Tasmanian devil instead.