The legacy media is claiming that Donald Trump's approval rating is down to 40 percent just ahead of his inauguration.

That would, the reports from ABC and others claim, make him "the most unpopular incoming president since at least Jimmy Carter."

But critics point out that these are some of the same pollsters who predicted Hillary Clinton would soundly defeat Trump on Nov. 8.

And they contend the results come from a cesspool of manipulated numbers, with factors ranging from skewed population samples to outright intimidation and threats against anyone who expresses support for Trump.

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The issue reared its head again Tuesday with a Drudge Report headline, "Bitter Media Play with Approval Polls," that linked to a Zerohedge analysis that got right to the point.

It featured a note about the poll results and then a comment from President-elect Donald Trump.

"The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval ratings polls. They are rigged just like before," Trump tweeted.

The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017

But Americans have watched polling for years, and many have respected them as indicators of the nation's perspective.

Is there something different now?

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Yes, according to Zerohedge.

First, there are the "oversamples."

"In the month leading up to the election on November 8th, we repeatedly demonstrated how the mainstream media polls from the likes of ABC/Washington Post, CNN and Reuters repeatedly manipulated their poll samples to engineer their desired results, namely a large Hillary Clinton lead (see 'New Podesta Email Exposes Playbook for Rigging Polls through 'Oversamples'' and 'ABC/Wapo Effectively Admit to Poll Tampering as Hillary's 'Lead' Shrinks To 2-Points'). In fact, just 16 days prior to the election, an ABC/Wapo poll showed a 12-point lead for Hillary, a result that obviously turned out to be embarrassingly wrong for the pollsters," the analysis revealed.

"But, proving they still got it, ABC/Washington Post and CNN are out with a pair of polls on Trump's favorability this morning that sport some of the most egregious 'oversamples' we've seen. The ABC/Wapo poll showed an 8-point sampling margin for Democrats with only 23 percent of the results taken from Republicans ... while the CNN poll showed a similar 8-point advantage for Democrats with only 24 percent respondents identifying as Republicans."

In layman's terms, it's this: If you have many more Democrats responding to a poll than Republicans, especially on political issues, it's not a surprise that the results favor Democrats.

"Of course, as we've repeatedly pointed out, these sampling mixes couldn't be further from reality," ZeroHedge said, citing a party affiliation measure that shows Republicans and Democrats in the nation within a few points.

Politico was one of the outlets accepting the polling results on their face, stating that the results are "a major break from recent presidential transitions."

"Past presidents-elect have been catapulted to the White House by a surge of popular opinion – even those elected under contentious and controversial circumstances."

The report claimed, "It's a huge contrast from just eight years ago, when pre-inauguration CNN/ORC and ABC News/Washington Post polls pegged Obama's approval rating at 84 percent and 80 percent, respectively."

The report said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., of the Trump transition team pointed out the real problem.

"Listen, I think this has been a pretty combative relationship between Donald Trump and the press. And frankly, I think the press has been tougher on Donald Trump than most other president-elects. And as a president-elect, Donald Trump has been harder on the press," he said. "What's actually happening here is the public fight that Mr. Trump is having with CNN and other media groups is taking some skin off his poll numbers, and it's gone down."

There's also the negative portrayal and intimidation of Trump supporters, some of whom have even been threatened with death.

A series of examples have come from the reporting of the entertainers who will appear at Trump's inauguration.

Billboard reported Garth Brooks isn't participating because of his schedule, which suddenly required extra concerts through the weekend because of high ticket demand. But some questioned whether that is the real reason.

Billboard also said Jennifer Holliday had looked forward to performing but then was attacked.

"It's amazing because I'm not a person that gets a lot of attention or that seeks a lot of attention," she said. "And I've spent all day yesterday and all last night reading all the terrible" messages.

TMZ stated bluntly that after Holliday "bailed," it learned that her agent contacted the Inauguration Committee and said the reason was death threats.

TMZ quoted a representative for the performer: "It was all of those things. She wasn’t scared to perform. She didn’t want to put her family at risk based on the death threats, and she also didn’t want to offend the LGBT community, which was especially upset that a past ally would perform on a program with President-elect Donald Trump."

The stunning claim that there are those who would threaten a popular star with death for just performing at an event associated with Donald Trump was repeated, too.

The London Daily Mail said opera star Andrea Bocelli dropped out of events because of "death threats."

The trashing of Trump supporters was building steam even before Hillary Clinton called them the "deplorables."

Eventually, even the left-leaning New York Times published an opinion piece by Michael Lerner, a progressive rabbi, headlined, "Stop shaming Trump supporters."

"The left has buttressed [an ideology of shaming people] by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed," Lerner wrote. "The rage many white working-class people feel in response is rooted in the sense that once again, as has happened to them throughout their lives, they are being misunderstood.

"Democrats need to become as conscious and articulate about the suffering caused by classism as we are about other forms of suffering. We need to reach out to Trump voters in a spirit of empathy and contrition," he wrote.

However, in the London Guardian, opinion writer Jessica Valenti endorsed the attacks on Trump supporters.

"Trump voters sure are sensitive lately. They're upset that the cast of the hit play Hamilton made a statement to Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, and that the audience booed him. They're displeased that their vote is costing them relationships with family and friends," she wrote.

"Being socially ostracized for supporting Trump is not an infringement of your rights, it's a reasonable response by those of us who are disgusted, anxious, and afraid. I was recently accused by a writer of 'vote shaming' – but there’s nothing wrong with being made to feel ashamed for doing something shameful."

At the Peoples View blog, Spandan Chakrabarti wrote: "We have no reason to excuse a Trump voter. We have every reason to shame Trump supporters. It can work. It has worked."

The writer cited a campaign of vicious attacks, both verbal and physical, on voters in California who eight years ago voted to define marriage in the state constitution as the union of one man and one woman.

Those attacks, the writer explained, contributed to changing the public opinion about homosexual "marriage."

The author cited the case of a restaurant owner who lost the business because a manager and hostess donated $100 to the campaign supporting traditional marriage.

"Shaming is not about trying to change the minds of the most ardent supporters of a candidate or of a cause. Shaming is about making it clear that there will be consequences to one's hate. Shaming is about shaking the confidence of those who weren't sure of their votes to begin with and with whom arguments of justice resonate, even if it didn't resonate enough in a given election," the article explained.

Slate at one point said flatly, "There is no such thing as a good Trump voter," and the Guardian's Valenti said, "Trump supporters deserve to be vote-shamed."

Just weeks before the election, Trump bashed the polling results.

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Trump charged at the time, "They are phony polls put out by phony media,” because they are trying "to suppress the vote."

"This way people don't go out and vote."

There also might have been evidence to support Trump's contention that polls showing him badly trailing, or trailing at all, may be a mirage.

After all, that was when an ABC/Washington Post poll showed the Democratic Party presidential candidate had suddenly jumped to a double-digit lead.

Then, a Democratic email was leaked that seemingly showed how to manipulate poll results.

The report said virtually all major polls interview more Democrats than Republicans, even though in "the most recent national survey on voter allegiances, conducted by Gallup just after the 2014 midterm elections, more Americans actually side with the Republicans than the Democrats."

The survey found 42 percent identified as or leaned toward the Republican Party, and 41 percent identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic.

There also was an email released by WikiLeaks, among the 17 batches of leaked emails from the files of Clinton campaign director John Podesta, that contained what looked like instructions on how to skew poll results by polling more Democrats than Republicans, or more left-leaning groups than right-leaning, to get the results Democrats desire.

Among Podesta's emails was a chain containing one sent by a group called The Atlas Project to Democrat activist Tom Matzzie in 2008, outlining how to oversample polls.

The email from Matzzie sent on Jan. 10, 2008, reads:

"Hey, when can we meet? I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling."

The ABC/Washington Post poll showing a 12-point Clinton lead sampled 9 percent more Democrats than Republicans.