We are about to learn a tragic lesson.  It is that we must totally distrust the mind-warping commercial media, right along with most elected politicians.  The NORC Poll* (identified below, and upon which we will be basing this commentary) may or may not be a deliberate part of this fact-warping and fact-hiding media.  The reader can decide.
A December poll taken by NORC for each of the last four years reveals how Americans’ minds have been altered and even reversed about key issues including war, the cost of wars, and the enormous federal debt burden caused primarily by war.

This poll tells us how our current US President has convinced most Americans that immigration and healthcare are thought to be four to five times more important than the moral and financial cost of war.  The word “war” does not even appear in the NORC reports! The pollsters did not ask the question, apparently.  Instead, it tells us that Americans concerned with Immigration leaped to 49% in the December 2018 polls, an increase of 81%.  It suggests that the President’s plan to scare us with immigration fears is working well!
The poll indicates that almost five times as many (49%) of those polled consider “public health” and “immigration” to be the most critical American issues.
The poll did not name nor even mention the cost of wars, federal deficit spending, nor Federal Government indebtedness as critical issues needing a change.  NORC barely touched on war, and only under the broad and gentle category of “US involvement with other countries.”  Deficit spending and public indebtedness were never directly mentioned.
Even the kind and gentle category of “Government spending” was named as a problem by only ll% of poll takers. This category of concern would rightly include everything from the cost of the local library to that of federal welfare and war, and yet almost five times as many poll takers named “health care” as the greater problem!
NORC concludes: “Most Americans are discontented with the state of affairs in the country,” and “few are confident government will make progress on the top issues in 2019.”
Are such pollsters carrying out a political agenda on behalf of a favored group, including most probably the current US President and his personal peers and supporters?  Sadly, that appears quite likely.
According to this poll, Americans, perhaps as many as 49% of us, have allowed their minds to be twisted to think that the President’s Mexican wall and the cost of health care are the most vital issues taxpayers face.  That means that almost half of us have been brainwashed by the President, and by a willing press, to believe this, even though ours is a nation built by immigrants.  It happens, for example, that all four of my grandparents were immigrants! I would not be here were it not for immigration!
We also note that the issue labeled “taxes” in the NORC report is suddenly of little concern to Americans, as only13% named it, a decline of 58% from 1017.  This no doubt results from the current president’s rash promise to cut taxes for Americans, which is not only talked about but is promoted through spam advertisers who huckster products and promises, using the president’s face and words as bait.  I received two such pieces in the mail last week, one of which is attached here.
We know our Federal Government is already out of money and running massive deficits, heading for a $1-2 trillion deficit in 2019, following on a $600-750 billion dollar one in 2018.  Therefore, tax cuts can only be for only a few of the President’s pals.  Again, I must ask if this NORC poll is a deliberate attempt to mislead us, for I simply cannot believe that matters of war-spending and other international acts such as embargoes, and excessive tariffs leading to yet more wars, would not be reflected among the people’s concerns.
This writer concludes:
War and deficit federal spending to pay for both new and past killing events is an unavoidable moral and financial problem for the coming year.  So, why is it being hidden from us?  We voters must recognize this.  If the news media, including pollsters, did not set this course of distorted news and mind-warping issues, then the President and his administration did, and the media is simply enabling them. Who do you blame?
*NORC at the University of Chicago, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs and Research