Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on how the media seems confused by polls that not only fail to show former Vice President Joe Biden surging but some showing Trump pulling ahead with voters. The problem is that the media has never shown any real interest in understanding Trump voters, preferring to stereotype them as racists, as done in a recent Washington Post column. The truth might be found in a famous Stanford experiment called “Bobo the Clown.”
Here is the column:
Various media outlets are struggling with recent polls that not only show President Trump at the same popularity as this time last year but actually rising in states like Ohio. When one poll found him leading by 7 points in battleground states, John King cautioned viewers to “be careful not to invest too much in any one poll” especially amid the coronavirus. It was a CNN poll and, while Biden leads in other polls, it is not unique.
The media seems honestly confused. It was not supposed to work this way. With unrelentingly negative coverage of an impeachment, a pandemic, and an economic collapse, voters were supposed to be angry. There is even a psychological model for such social cognitive learning or conditioning called “Bobo the Clown” and, while this experiment by psychologist Albert Bandura focused on children, these polls suggest that conditioning does not work nearly as well in politics as it does on playgrounds.
In 1961, Bandura used a goofy inflatable clown named Bobo and had children watch adults as they acted aggressively toward it. Soon the children followed the adults’ example and beat the clown. Conversely, when children watched the clown being treated without aggression, they were less aggressive toward it.
For many voters, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are not so funny clowns, and voters are being conditioned by some in the media to treat one aggressively and the other not aggressively. It is not the first attempt at media conditioning: In 2016, when every poll indicated that voters wanted outsider candidates, Democratic leaders pushed through one of the two most unpopular presidential candidates in history, Hillary Clinton.
She was beaten by the other most unpopular figure on the Republican side, Trump. Yet, after largely positive treatment of Clinton and correspondingly negative coverage of Trump, the election results stunned experts who predicted an easy win for Clinton — and why not? Voters had been exposed to unyielding, continual media conditioning against Trump.
The conclusion of the media today appears to be that the scathing treatment in 2016 was not aggressive enough. Trump is routinely called an actual clown by some in the media. More importantly, there are now consistent attacks on Trump supporters. Washington Post “conservative columnist” Jennifer Rubin has declared that Trump supporters as a whole are racists. That common stereotyping of Trump supporters is uncontested, even as the media objects to Trump’s generalizations about other groups.
Columnist Leonard Pitts wrote a recent column entitled, “No, it’s not the economy, stupid. Trump supporters fear a black and brown America.” The narrative has moved beyond Clinton’s description of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” to now portraying all Trump supporters as open racists. “Make America Great Again” hats are denounced by academics as the symbol of “modern day hitlerjugend” and hate speech.
It is all part of media-cognitive learning, and it is working in a curious way. Recent polls show Trump at the exact same spot as he was last year, with roughly 43 percent support. In Ohio he actually is ahead by 3 percentage points in a survey from Emerson College and Nexstar Media; he and Biden are in a statistical dead heat in Wisconsin. In other words, as in 2016, the media campaign is forcing Trump supporters into the closet, but not away from Trump.
Meanwhile, the media has been working hard at non-aggressive treatment of Biden. His frequent gaffes are quickly dismissed; when he was accused of sexual assault, the media reluctantly noted the story. Even when Biden recently espoused a conspiracy theory that Trump was going to halt the November election, the media called it a “prediction” and ignored that it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution.
At the end of last year, the Media Research Center found that network evening news was 96 percent negative against Trump. The drumbeat has only increased with impeachment and pandemic coverage this year. Despite such saturated messaging, polls show that the number of voters expressing strong “enthusiasm” for Biden is wallowing at just 24 percent, while Trump remains at 53 percent. Biden is just 3 points ahead of Trump in the most recent polls, actually behind where Clinton was in 2016. The reason may be that the anti-Trump narrative is so overwhelming that voters feel they are being played like the kids in the Bandura experiment.
Consider again the recent attack of the Post’s Rubin on most Republicans. Rubin lashed out at the immigration freeze ordered by Trump during the pandemic; however, she was not satisfied with denouncing the policy as a political stunt to appeal to the unemployed. She declared: “No doubt Trump’s base is primarily motivated by racism. This is why Trump does this.” The statement captures the accepted, unhinged bias against all Trump supporters in the mainstream media.
I did not vote for Trump, and I have regularly criticized him in columns and blog posts. However, I have watched the stereotyping of Trump supporters at media conferences for years. It suggests that roughly 63 million people in this country who voted for Trump in 2016 are knuckle-dragging racists. It ignores the fact that Hillary Clinton had record negative polling before the nomination and was widely viewed as pathologically inauthentic.
Recently, polls show 85 percent of Republicans support Trump. Thus, according to Rubin, 85 percent of Republicans (and roughly 10 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independents) — in other words, almost half of America — are primarily motivated by racism. Does that track with any sense of reality? There are a host of reasons for these voters to support Trump other than racism.
What is not being discussed much in the media is that people might have non-racist reasons for supporting Trump. The fact is that Trump has a curious record: He has been repeatedly (and correctly) chastised for untrue statements, and yet he has one of the best records for actually keeping campaign promises — the crackdown on immigration, building of the border wall, pro-life policies and appointments, selection of conservative jurists, tax cuts, regulation rollbacks, opening up areas to oil drilling.
These and many other aspects of his administration are the most controversial but also are the long-held wish list of conservatives going back to Ronald Reagan. Indeed, while 85 percent of Republicans support Trump, a new poll shows that 23 percent would like to see someone else as their nominee. Yet, Rubin and others simply dismiss all Trump supporters as monolithic, pathological racists.
Thus, polls indicate that the unending attacks on Trump and his supporters in the media are not conditioning but, instead, are repelling voters. They are fulfilling his narrative that voters cannot trust the media. Many voters may still view both Trump and Biden as over-inflated clowns, but they resent being continually conditioned to hit one clown and hug the other. Indeed, if Trump is reelected, he may have the media to thank.
NEWSFLASH –
“Barr: Review of Russia probe unlikely to lead to prosecution of Obama or Biden”
– Axios
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AG William Barr, “Mr. Deep Deep State,” reveals himself in a lackadaisical moment of inadvertent candor.
__________________________________________________________________________________
“We will stop him.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI paramour, Lisa Page
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“POTUS (Obama) wants to know everything we’re doing.”
– Lisa Page to FBI paramour, Peter Strzok
You’re absolutely right, Mr. Turley, in saying that the relentless attacks by the media, along with the breathtaking bias of the judicial system as exemplified by the Flynn case, have made the people who reluctantly voted for Trump because they couldn’t get past Benghazi into diehard Trump supporters. I speak seven languages, I have a master’s degree from a prestigious institution, and I was furious when Trump decided to run. Now, I thank God every day for Trump, not just because he’s done a great job under extreme adversity, but because his Administration has revealed filth and corruption in the system that I would not have believed had I not witnessed it. We needed to know.
Trump is revealing filth and corruption in the system of covering it up? He fired 4 inspectors general in the last few weeks. They were all finding filth and corruption in Trump appointees.
And Benghazi was a scandal? It would not make the top 50 scandals if done by Trump.
Did you take a breath and take a moment to discover if the fired personnel were actually adversarial to the President and faithful and zealous Obama “holdovers?”
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Obama To Reward Political Supporters And Appoint Loyal Allies
__________________________________________________
“Obama to replace U.S. Attorneys”
“I expect that we’ll have an announcement in the next couple of weeks with regard to our first batch of U.S attorneys,”
“It is our intention to have the U.S. Attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can.”
– Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder, Politico
________________________________
Obama Gives Political Ambassadors Their Pink Slips
By Glenn Kessler
The incoming Obama administration has notified all politically-appointed ambassadors that they must vacate their posts as of Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office, a State Department official said.
The clean slate will open up prime opportunities for the president-elect to reward political supporters with posts in London, Paris, Tokyo and the like. The notice to diplomatic posts was issued this week.
– The Washington Post
Not In Trump Cult:
Trump’s firing of Inspector Generals should have no bearing on media perceptions (according to Turley). We, as readers, should only think Trump is ‘draining the swamp’ and ‘rooting out deep state’.
How prestigious can it be if you are unwilling to name it, could it be tRump U?
TRUMP IS ‘NOT’ A CLOWN..??
Turley makes this observation: “Trump is routinely called an actual clown by some in the media”.
Last week, in a Rose Garden press conference, Trump launched his ‘Obamagate’ drive, charging that Obama committed “some of the biggest political crimes in history”. But when Phillip Rucker of the Washington Post asked Trump to get specific and name the crimes, Trump would only say, “everybody knows”.
However insane Trump appeared at this one moment, it was hardly an isolated instance. Hardly a day goes by when Trump is ‘not’ acting clownish.
If the tidbits we’ve seen are representative, this goes well beyond Watergate in its severity and in the active involvement of the chief executive.
Oh yeah? What’s the crime Sherlock?
“Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law,” to start.
Section 1983
Why do I get the sense that I’m reading Mr. Shill?
Pretty Nails is back under an alias. The whiff of nuttiness gives him away.
His shiny new nom de deguisement?
Massive delay coming in the Flynn case. Judge Gleeson, the Amici chosen by Sullivan to depose the DOJ dismissal motion, and to consider perjury charges against Flynn, to make “initial” brief June 10. Months yet…
Who is the media? JT? Fox News?
I saw article after article after the 2016 election purporting to analyze Trump voters. Who does he think read “Hillbilly Elegy”? The guys and girls at the bowling alley?
What a BS column and one of apparently scores of subjects he can meld into attacking the “liberal media” and doing Trump work.
Nice of you to post your disagreement without contradicting any single fact in the article. Either you’re ignorant of the counter argument or there is none.
Definition of “BS” to a Demonkraut: “an argument that sheds a negative light on Demonkraut power grab.”
There are no facts in the article.
Carry on.
Sometimes Professor Turley’s articles just make you want to give him a yuge, friendly, bear hug! This is one of those times!
If you fear that the point of this article may somehow find it’s way into the minds of Rubin and these other Demoncrap scum journalists, that they are shooting themselves in the foot (they can never do it enough IMO), do NOT fear.
1. They are too stupid and lack the required self-awareness for this to occur.
2. Even if they did realize their error, and if they did rather stop, change, and turn to enlightened and intelligent debate Re. Trump/Biden, then Trump would still win. By direct and even handed comparison, Biden loses.
So either way it’s win/win for Trump!
Remember voting day 2016? “Hillary has 97% chance to win!” Oh, the humanity! Remember Rachel Maddow laughing, with a pointer and the electoral map, counting the votes every which way, each time ending with, “Trump loses! Hahahah!…..”
The fact of the matter is that the popularity of many Governors of both parties is soaring in this pandemic. Because they are leading in this pandemic response. That can happen in a time of crisis. The fact that it is not happening with Trump is due to several factors:
1. He has never tried to be a leader of the whole country – just the leader of his base and trying to attack the rest (most of the country).
2. In this pandemic in particular, he has not been leading, but has been sitting on the sidelines like an internet troll. He has shown he has no plan to make things better and really no roadmap to say what his strategy is, really just a plan to take credit when things go well, shift blame to others when things go poorly. The US effort has lagged most of the developed world.
3. He seems to be on every side of every issue. COVID is a hoax. No, Covid is not a hoax and he told us first it was not a hoax. Testing is unimportant. America is leading in testing.
4. He is lying every day on every topic. No serious person believes what he says on any topic, so when important things like COVID come up, most people don’t trust him.
Add to that that Trump has never been popular. Hillary won 3% more of the vote than Trump did.
How about this. We have a system of federalism which allows governners to lead in public health. And Trump is respecting that.
But hey if he didn’t they would be criticizing him as a tyrant. But today Obama says Trump is not leading, so the herd of Democrat repeaters online goes with that remark instead.
Kurtz, we don;tvhave that system. The only person with the power to marshal and coordinate a national response is the president and he is incapable of and afraid to lead. That should be obvious to even cult members.
Federalism is our system and the general police powers of the Crown to issue emergency orders for public health devolved in the first and most general sense upon the states not the central government, which under the constitution is a government of enumerated powers and not general ones
this is textbook constitutional law and even though you presume to judge turley here every day you seem perpetually uniformed about the basics
central government leadership from the POTUS is appropriate in respect of federal assets and there is clearly a role for it in the COVID pandemic but the governors can and should act based on their own state circumstances which vary widely between the vast open spaces of the plains states versus the crowded environs of NYC
OK Kurtz, we’ll have your speech printed on cards to give to mourners,
The governors do not have the power to ramp up production of test kits and PPEs or fairly and intelligently distribute them. Your ivory tower federalism was buried the 1st time with Hoover and no one believes in it but crackpots.
Agreed, BTB. Trump loves to call himself a wartime President, but he’s done nothing to respond like there is a war, because: 1. he really doesn’t care how many Americans get sick or die; and 2. he really doesn’t know what to do. He is no leader.
I don’t recall which pundit said it, but the comparison was made to WWII: Did FDR leave it to the individual states to figure out how to respond when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor? Of course not, that’s not how a country with a real leader reacts to a war. One other point: the places with the most COVID-19 are Democratic states, and that does play a role as far as Trump is concerned. He sent ventilators to Mikey Pence’s ruby-red Indiana even though they didn’t need them, couldn’t use them and didn’t ask for them. He insulted the Governor of Washington State when he asked for help, and did nothing to help California, and little to help New York. This is why various State Governors rank higher in approval than Trump.
Natch stop blabbering like a phony gypsy making a crystal ball reading. you do not see into the hearts of other people.
When has Trump even feigned any semblance of empathy for the soon-to-be 100,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19 or the 1.5 millions sickened? Never. He doesn’t care. All he cares about is pivoting to blame someone, anyone else for his failures. He’s even trying to blame Obama, and McConnell lied in a Fox News interview when he said that Obama didn’t leave a playbook–a lie he had to walk back.
Don’t believe Trump doesn’t care about suffering, then why wouldn’t he let those Americans on the Diamond Princess disembark? He gave us the reason: it would hurt his “numbers”. Have you read the accounts of what it was like for those people trapped on that boat, including those who needed to be in a hospital? Probably not–why bother.
America has only 4.3% of the world’s population, but 29% of the COVID-19 cases. Wonder why this is? Trump is the reason. Day after day, he lies, bloviates and tries to bluff his way past the facts. People are dying. He bears responsibility.
Trump is a classic sociopath.
You have no grasp of American freedom, self-reliance and self-governance or fundamental law. Nothing of what you say bears on the president, citizens or nation.
Charity is industry conducted in the free markets of the private sector. There is no legal basis for the comments above. Healthcare and Lonely Hearts Clubs are pursued in the private sector.
Please cite the Constitution for supporting sections. Congress has no authority to spend or tax for health or social issues. Healthcare and disease are not the constitutional purview of the legislative, executive or juridical branch. Americans enjoy freedom through self-reliance. There is no constitutional mandate for empathy and/or sociophillic candidates. Free Americans and candidates may love and hate whomever they choose. There is no “emergency power” in the Constitution while citizens enjoy nearly infinite rights, freedoms, privileges and immunities.
NUTCHACHA,
Everything FDR did was unconstitutional, including communistic central planning, control of the means of production(i.e. regulation), redistribution of wealth, social engineering and abusing power and corruptly causing the attack on Pearl Harbor and the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans, merely to facilitate America’s fraudulent and unconstitutional entry into WWII.
Wake up. So are they all. At least, that or malign narcissists — hard to split the diagnostic difference
I used to work as a journalist. I found a letter from Joe Lieberman in my files the other day praising my work, got into a fight with New Gingrich one-on-one over breakfast, had George Schultz put the phone down on me, and sat through senate/congressional hearings thirty feet from H. Clinton, L. Graham, and some of the others.
It’s the American empire. With a few brief interruptions it’s always been run by psychopaths. If there was ever truth in advertising, instead of Abraham Lincoln they’d put Al Capone’s face on the five-dollar bill and the one-cent coin.
Natacha – you pretend to be a nurse or former nurse, so what is your plan for the Diamond Princess? I want an exact plan, not some vague crap like you usually poop out.
Yeah Natacha – and Obama was Oh-SO-caring. Bulls*t. He sat on the lawn of Valerie Jarret’s Nantucket house watching fireworks on yet another of his family’s luxury vacations paid for by taxpayers….and he sat there golfing and socializing just as Louisiana was going thru the worst national disaster since Hurricane Sandy….oh but it wasn’t bad enough for Obama to interrupt his Martha’s Vineyard vacation and show up on the scene. And that’s just ONE example of Obama’s “caring”….give us a break with your utter bs.
The truth is this: Trump actually DOES care. And the people KNOW it. Unlike Obama. We don’t want a “cool” president who hangs with celebrites; we want “results” and Trump delivers in spades. Obama was “cool” and sure enjoyed all the perks of office. Nothing more to that empty suit. People know it, too.
Natacha – your nose is growing again.
Nobody but constitutional law professors and justices of the US Supreme Court. the tenth amendment has seen numerous holdings from them the past decades., it is not at all “buried with hoover” as you falsely suggest
The role of the federal government in this response is to restrict international and interstate travel to the extent necessary. Judy Chu and other Democratic politicos objected vociferously when this was done at the end of January.
If you’d bothered to examine the descriptive statistics, you’d see that the manifestation of this ailment has varied wildly from one location to another, which is one reason that a uniform response would have been most inappropriate.
Oh yeah, Judy Chu.
Who?
PDA. Tools for national emergency. Only the president has this power as well as the power to intelligently and fairly distribute the tools.
” … he is incapable of and afraid to lead.”
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Hahaha. Now that’s a knee slapper. I’m saving this to your top ten stupid statements of all time. We’ll do a recap show in December.
The only measure of popularity that matters is called an election. Trump won in 2016 and he’s well on his way to winning again this November. That’s really going to suck for the Dems as we will place a hammer lock on the Supreme Court and in the Federal Courts as well. But don’t worry, you’ll still be able to say you won the popular vote in 2016. LOL. But the polls said Hillary had a 99% chance of winning! LOL.
Trump must win in 2020. This country will not survive a Joe Biden ‘place holder’ presidency with the crooked Obama gang put back in power under a Biden presidency this time. No can do. Best part will be watching RBG try to hang on for another 4 years. She’s beat cancer what, four times now? She despises Trump so much that she just might pull it off.
When Demonkrauts lose the argument, just makeup lies.
Voters now sue 3 Demonkraut governors for their lockdown status. Please ‘splain how MI Governor outlaws buying paint and plant seeds (to grow food to eat) and hip replacements…but it’s OK to get an abortion and buy liquor and pot.
Did you miss, or do you just give NY Demonkraut Gov. Cuomo a pass for forcing by law elderly care facilities to accept Covid positive patients without training, without isolation, and without proper PPE, which promptly killed over 3k elderly patients?
You’re full of it.
Why is Trump? – if Trump is not President of all the people why did CA and NY get hospital ship?
The ships went to NY and CA because the Red states are mostly inland.
That could account for no mercy ships in Nebraska.
I wonder why New York sent covid patients into nursing homes like giving smallpox infected blankets to the Indians?
This when the mercy ship and the Samaritan Purse facilities were underutilized.
Yem – Trump did not have to send the hospital ships at all. They were never really used by either state.
They needed the ships in New York. They just didn’t use them. For some reason they preferred to send infected patients into nursing homes where they could kill the elderly–and, if fact, did kill the elderly.
People die during a pandemic. Sometimes things are managed badly, leading to additional and possibly preventable deaths. What’s done is done.
Time to move on and focus on what lies ahead.
The King, AKA Demonkraut: “My messenger brings me bad news!!! Off with his head!”
TURLEY ALL OVER MAP
It’s hard to say exactly what issue in particular Turley is addressing here. Polls? Trump’s image? Trump’s ability to win? The image of Trump voters? Trump’s current standing in battleground states?
One theme that comes through, however, is a sociopathic view that Trump is ‘treated unfairly’. There is also another gaslighting attempt to convince us we haven’t seen what we have seen.
Turley would have us believe we haven’t seen Trump at rallies ranting against immigrants to mostly White crowds. It never happened, Turley would have us believe. ‘The image of Trump as mean-spirited was simply manufactured by mainstream media’, Turley implies. Never mind that Trump’s Twitter feed is filled with mean attacks.
Almost every day, since this pandemic began, Turley has been running columns to the effect that Trump is a persecuted martyr. This view is completely divorced from reality. Yet Turley assure us he didn’t vote for Trump. So that presumably puts him in the clear from any suggestion he is running interference for Trump.
Will Kane is Seth? Hi Seth Peter Will
“Turley would have us believe we haven’t seen Trump at rallies ranting against immigrants to mostly White crowds.”
Where did Turley “have you believe” that? Or you just put words in his mouth every day?
Fake straw man conjured out of your own rhetorical imagination? or justify your assertion
Darren
I think you might have to generate a refund of subscription dues for the above commenter. Ordinarily I would suggest using Cuban pesos (1 CUP = 0.04 USD) however the exchange rate for Russian rubles (1 Rub = 0.01 USD) and North Korea’s Won (1 KPW = 0.0011 USD) are a 2-4-1. Give Peter Shill worthless money and land his whiny ass in a region he is sure to find sympathetic audiences. Charge him extra for parachute, pink of course
Try reading the title of the article.
Trump is obviously a despicable d..k of a human that most of us would avoid in real life. Or do you all like lying braggarts lacking all empathy who don’t pay their bills and even as a fat old man is too vain to do simple things like wear a mask to protect others because it will mess up his make up and maybe his hair?
“Trump is obviously a despicable d..k of a human that most of us would avoid in real life. Or do you all like lying braggarts lacking all empathy who don’t pay their bills and even as a fat old man is too vain to do simple things like wear a mask to protect others because it will mess up his make up and maybe his hair?”
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Enjoying your “love of argument” commentary. So logically; so profound. You really do love this stuff don’t you?
As TIA might say: “Thanks, it’s been an education.”
I would greatly enjoy a round of golf with the POTUS Donald J Trump. Alas I am a nobody and there is little chance of it. book is a VIP however so he can issue these fatwas.
He cheats.
Just as a single instance of the typical Leftist tactics: “Turley would have us believe we haven’t seen Trump at rallies ranting against immigrants to mostly White crowds. It never happened, Turley would have us believe. ”
Yours is the exact same tried and true strategy used by the Tempter in the garden, when he asked of Eve, “Hath God said?” You’ve left out the pivotal word of the phrase, which, if you had included it, would have undercut your own argument and shown it to be the empty, baseless contrivance it is: “Illegal.” Mr. Trump has never ranted about immigration. He has, however, ranted, rallied, and decried illegal immigration with extreme consistency.
This demonstrated how disingenuous your comments are, and why they do not merit any further consideration. To quote Willy Wonky, “You win nothing! Good day, sir.”
I am going to do a write in vote for the mayor of Ferguson, MO.
“knuckle dragging racists….Recently, polls show 85 percent of Republicans support Trump. Thus, according to Rubin, 85 percent of Republicans (and roughly 10 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independents) — in other words, almost half of America — are primarily motivated by racism.”
The problem is partly in the word “Racism”
It is so overused that it is meaningless
it denotes something narrow, but the connotation is very very broad
Mostly it just tells you something about the people who USE the insult, more than the TARGETS of the insult.
Mostly it tells you that they hate poor and middle class white people who are counted out of the administrative state and bureaucratic and financial winners of the past 30 odd years.
In other words, the mass media hates Trump, which is why they insult Trump voters, thus to induce more insulting and bad treatment, a la the “Bob the clown” experiment.
yes and after years we are very sick of it and Bobo the clown may one day start hitting back
Trump doesn’t need media, mainstream or otherwise, to cause people to be repulsed by his arrogance, narcissism, lack of empathy and lack of leadership. The endless lying alone is enough to turn the stomachs of anyone who holds American values as precious. “The mass media” wouldn’t have an audience if they didn’t report facts, and it is the facts that are killing Trump. in a little over 3 years, he turned around the booming economy he inherited from Barak Obama into a recession that is sliding into a depression. Unemployment is at record highs. By month’s end 100,000 Americans will have died, and already 1.5 million have been sickened Despite only having 4.3% of the world’s population, the U.S. has 29% of the world’s COVID-19 cases. Those statistics demand accountability.
Natacha – you so funny.
“The media seems honestly confused. It was not supposed to work this way. With unrelentingly negative coverage of an impeachment, a pandemic, and an economic collapse, voters were supposed to be angry.”
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I like Donald Trump but he’s hardly my first choice for POTUS. What the Left has done is to so incessantly decry the man, that the institution is being affected. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way, for sure. But there’s another thing at work: people hate being manipulated more than they hate anything Trump has said or done. Everyone knows the press is incredibly biased and many are coming to believe they are infinitely, transparently stupid, too.
Anytime you test people’s common sense, you’ll feel their wrath in whatever forum they can express it. God help the Dims in November.
While I cannot reveal my sources, I have conclusive evidence that Donald Trump caused the First and Second World Wars, the sinking of the Titanic, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, and the assassination of the John and Bobby Kennedy. He may also have caused my divorce but I am saving that for the next news cycle.
You left out the Black Death.
¡Racista!
Estovir–
Good point!
I should have said Diseases of Color Death.
It is clear that had Democrat supporters referred to Trump as Drumpf a few more times, he would never have been elected president.
All joking aside, the biggest piece of evidence that voters mostly don’t care about the stupid analogies in which Trump is compared to Hitler/Putin/EVERYBADMANINHISTORY, nor the false accusations of racism, is the FACT that around 200 counties in the upper Midwest that voted for Obama twice also voted for Trump.
Maybe, just maybe, voters responded to Trump’s ideas that massive immigration may actually be hurting wages of no-skill and low skill Americans; that trade deals like NAFTA really have hurt the blue collar working class; that the unending military adventurism has been a hindrance to building out infrastructure, and so on.
“There are a host of reasons for these voters to support Trump other than racism.”
Where would the left be without the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy?
It is their go-to strategy in any number of situations.