Thanks to CNN and other leading news organizations for doing a damn fine job of making the 2020 presidential election feel like a heavyweight matchup. And not just a heavyweight matchup, but one on which the vast majority of Americans bet their next three rent/mortgage payments.

Also, what in the name of Nicholas Cage’s butthole is wrong with the mainstream polling systems? For months, countless voices in the media have congratulated themselves on their “highly accurate data” and so they were quick to make confident (but in actuality boisterous) claims that Joe Biden would handily defeat Donald Trump. Yet, just the preliminary results of the 2020 election exposed how horribly and embarrassingly wrong they all were—and are.

Oh wait—isn’t this the second consecutive presidential election where something like this has happened? Remember the general narrative back in 2016 and how certain everyone was that Hillary Clinton would win mostly uncontested? There were news reports, professional articles, opinion pieces, political advertisements, oodles of fucking polls, and cartoons like the one below, all of which formed a potent cocktail of assurances that the Democratic Party would be victorious.

Don’t like Trump? Well, if you’re not an idiot then you should have at least an equal amount of malcontent right now for the spoon-fed garbage you have been consuming from your favorite news outlet(s) for the last 6+ months. In fact, now would be an excellent time to begin removing your head from your ass so that you can attempt an objective reassessment of what the hell you were just put through (and of those organizations whom are most responsible for putting you through it).

Confirmation bias is a thing, folks—but at such high stakes it only works if you’re not also inept.