Friday, July 20, 2018

The Media Goes "Russia" Mad-The Voters Yawn



 Shakespeare that man for all seasons, even our politically crazed one, has the words for it “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Sound and fury indeed as President Trump described it as “Trump derangement syndrome” reached new, mad heights during the president’s sojourn at NATO and with Putin in Helsinki.

Bizarre reactions to the Putin meeting ranged from Congressman Steve Cohen’s ambiguous tweet which some saw as a call for the armed forces to overthrow Trump’s government “Where are our military folks ? The Commander in Chief is in the hands of our enemy!” James Comey  appearing to call on the citizenry to handle the overthrow Patriots need to stand up and reject the behavior of this president.”

The Media, NeverTrumpers, disgruntled soon to be ex-GOP senators, Democratic Party leaders, raged and spluttered 24/7 that, at the very least, Putin had embarrassed America, Trump had kowtowed to the most evil man who ever lived to, Trump is a sleeper agent of Russia (and, incredibly, Putin is a sleeper agent of the C.I.A. such is the madness among us).

The voters, as measured by a series of opinion polls including daily tracking polls that would capture every expected massive drop in Trump’s approval under this onslaught (“is this the final straw when even his hard-core supporters finally desert him”? Ran the meme) apparently looked, when they weren’t getting over the World Cup and enjoying their employment opportunities, and yawned. 

From July 11th  the start of the madness at NATO “Trump is destroying our allies and cozying up to dictators” Real Clear Politics had Trump’s approval at 43.1% Disapproval 53.4% after all the Sturm und Drang had, for the most part settled down (of course the MSM’s attacks never end they just ebb and flow) on July 19th it was at 43.3% Approval and 52.6% Disapproval so approval for Trump actually ticked up a bit across all polls.

Over at Nate Silver’s 538.Com his aggregator which uses some polls RCP excludes we see July 11th Trump Approval 42.3% Disapproval 52.7%  July 19th Approval  41.8% Disapproval 52.8% effectively the slightest of movement over a period of supposed dramatic game changing developments.

Individual polls showed larger shifts e.g Rasmussen dropped from 49% Approval to 45% then back up to 46%,YouGov from 43% to 39% then back up to 42% over three two day polling periods but these are just normal “noise.”  Why then would such breathless, often bizarre and yes, even crazed media attacks have such little apparent influence on the public?


Firstly the sad lesson for the media is that they have little influence over the public anymore as the fact of Trump getting one newspaper endorsement in 2016 showed. The MSM has morphed into being a repository for partisanship with each outlet carving out its niche to which it caters blatantly. Nobody, surely, now expects to get unfiltered “news” from the networks anymore and minds that are made up for or against Trump will stay just that.

However in the real world where jobs, wages and the normal factors of day to day life impact voters’ well things look entirely different to the drama of the media. In a new Axios Poll of 2100 voters “which of the following issues affects you the most right now?”  Jobs and the economy ranked number one at 25% healthcare in second place at 19% immigration placed third at 17%. “Russia” “Mueller” appeared to have no concerns whatsoever unless buried among “foreign policy” at 7%.

Trumps approval stood at 45% down just 1 point from the previous poll taken through the brouhaha of NATO/Putin. What further stands out, perhaps a continuation of the warning signals set out in The Federalist is the politically stunning approval of Trump among Blacks (22%) and Hispanics (38%) in the same survey. 

If these figures actually turn into voting patterns the industrial Midwest will be solid red for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the recognition of this by the Dem strategists (and its ignoring by the MSM) explains the desperate partisan rage.

That these figures are tied to the fact of the lowest Black unemployment since records were kept and a near similar record for Hispanics in an economy growing for all show that “It’s the economy stupid” is still the main driver of voting sentiments and the media hysteria is just a source of page clicks from the, often sadly, TDS possessed.


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