David Cole, at Taki Mag, thinks the unthinkable.

Last week was not a very good week for Donald Trump’s poll numbers. In fact, I had several Trump diehards—not bloggers or pundits, just private nobodies who are friends of mine—tell me that these days they find themselves thinking the once unthinkable: Trump might lose. Trump’s multiple recent statements speculating about the possibility of a loss have not helped soothe some of his followers’ growing anxiety. With so many Trump supporters framing the election as the “last hope for Western civilization,” it’s not exactly encouraging to hear your man say, “It’s okay. I have a yacht and a mansion; I’ll be fine.”

Now, I know that some of you are thinking, “The polls are wrong, the polls are biased, the polls lie.” You keep thinking that. Because by all means don’t listen to those of us with a little more experience in these matters. I mean, for a lot of pro-Trumpers, especially those who come from the alt-right fringe, this is their first time feeling like an active participant in a national presidential election. As a longtime GOP party hack, I can tell you that the “lying polls” line is not something you want to fall for. In 2008, many GOPs had convinced themselves that the polls were not to be believed because Americans were being untruthful with pollsters, as no white person wanted to admit he wasn’t gonna vote for the black guy. “But wait till they get in the voting booth,” we smugly assured ourselves. “Then they’ll vote our way.” And we all know how that turned out.

The “lying polls” rationalization made an encore in 2012. I wrote about it in my book, as I recalled the events of an October 2012 Condi Rice banquet:

I was taken aside by Derek Broes. Broes had been a senior VP at Paramount, and senior director at Microsoft. By 2012, he ran his own consulting firm, and he was a contributor to Forbes. “It’s a lock, David,” he told me. “It’s going to be a Romney landslide.” He painstakingly explained the polling numbers and the context and meaning. “We can’t lose.”

We lost.

So take some advice that I know you’re not going to take: Don’t buy the “lying polls” claim. Polls are imperfect, but generally they’re accurate.