Let's Try a Poll That the Media Isn't Covering

Poll: 75% of Americans Are Opposed to Shutting Down Government for Partisan Budget Priorities

And there it is, for all to see.  

If you can stomach the news about yet another poll, this one provides some very interesting information into what Americans are thinking.  It's a Marist poll, and one of the reasons we haven't really seen much from this particular polling group this fall is that their data and their numbers aren't matching the narrative that the media wants to create around Presidential politics, basically, that we have a neck and neck race, and that the problems and issues brought to the table by Trump, namely criminal indictments, totalitarian fascist rhetoric and the possibility of running from prison, along with the general incompetence he displayed when he was President, can be balanced out by President Biden's age, the economy, inflation, the price of gas and a host of other things over which he has little to no control. 

Marist polls, which have had the President's job approval ratings in the mid-40% range for most of the time that the others have claimed it is lower, and which continue to show the President in the lead nationally, and in all of the battleground states, have all but disappeared from the composite lists.  But there, in this piece from an interesting source, a hair style and beauty advice website called "Loved by Curls," is the poll data, an explanation from the executive of Marist polls, and some interesting social media comments which don't necessarily reflect the poll response, or have anything to do with it, really, except to serve as clickbait. One of the social media comments said,  "Republicans have no common sense," in reference to their attempts to shut the government down to get the budget spending cuts, and the tax cuts for the rich, that they want.  

I can go along with that, since it's exactly how I feel.  

Among the results, 75% said that it was "unacceptable" for Republicans to threaten to shut down the government during budget negotiations to achieve political goals, 49% said they would blame Republicans if the government shut down, as opposed to 43% who said they would blame Democrats.  Beyond that, other than the explanation from Marist, about their poll, which is not funded by partisan interests, there's not much other information.   

"Loved by Curls," is a website aimed at beauty advice and trends in hairstyles.  The information on the poll is buried in slides featuring all kinds of advertising, which is typical of online information sources, including some that claim to be news outlets.  Random political coverage can be found there, among the hairstyle and beauty ads, rounding up social media comments of all kinds, including a short bit noting that Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a bill to reduce the salary of Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, and a rant about inflation, sans any polling data.  

But the Marist poll is real data. And I don't recall seeing it or hearing about it in any news coverage.  

What the Media Wants Us to Believe

They want us to believe that, somehow, there's been a shift in public perception of the Biden Presidency since the mid-term elections, which they very heavily labelled as a referendum on his administration.  That didn't quite go according to plan, since it turned out to be exactly that, with Democrats, supposedly "in disarray," we were told, and fragmented and divided, didn't lose control of the senate, as the pollsters and media pundits clearly predicted, using the phrase "red wave" to underline their predictions, and lost fewer house seats than the party in power in the White House has lost in a mid-term in almost two generations. 

They want us to believe that the polling data which gave Biden a comfortable lead in all of the battleground states, and in the national polling, as high as seven points across the data of at least two composite poll sites, during the summer has suddenly shifted, and turned toward the former incompetent, worldly failure who occupied the White House between January 2017, and January 2021.  That the GOP front runner, who is himself showing signs of aging, in both physical failure, needing assistance to climb stairs to get on stage,  and long, rambling, forgetful speeches, and who attacked American democracy and tried to shred the Constitution's provision for the peaceful transition of power, has somehow managed to gain enough support to be in a neck and neck competition with the President whose first two years in office were a model of success in terms of legislation, economic recovery and leadership in the world.  

They want us to believe that in just a few short months, basically August to October, there was a 10 point shift in the polls.  Well, I don't believe it.  

They have tried to bring it about, as much as they think they have the influence to do so.  The mainstream media has lost a share of its audience to extremists on the right, so it doesn't have as much influence over its audience as it once did.  But Biden is the first President in modern history who doesn't get nearly as much day to day news coverage of his administration as his predecessor gets for his re-election campaign.  I guess our FCC has, by now, lost its free and equal time provision, so suing the mainstream media for failure to provide equal coverage is probably futile.  But it's the truth and it doesn't take a professional evaluation to show that the amount of time given to anything Trump says or does is considerably more than the coverage of the President.  And even with that, they haven't really moved the needle as far as public opinion is concerned, so they use their network polling pundits to create this image.  It's a matter of changing a few numbers here and there and justifying it with some "factoring" based on the data that is collected.  

Even on a network like MSNBC, little was said about exit polling data which didn't support the "dismal news" narrative.  I emailed the network to ask when they were going to put that data up on their website, since what they posted wasn't nearly as detailed as we get during a mid-term or presidential election year.  Their response was that, since these were scattered, off year elections, they didn't actually publish that data.  

Nor has there been much criticism of the legislative and administrative moves of the Biden Administration.  It's hard to criticize.  He's been successful at just about everything.  I don't even buy the "Afghanistan was a failure" rhetoric, because he did what we should have done and what a clear majority of the American people wanted done, he got us out.  So where does that rhetoric go?  To criticizing his age.  That's it.  That's all they've got.  His potential GOP opponent, who is only three years younger, much fatter, and clearly having trouble recalling information and climbing steps to get on stage, and who won't allow himself to be examined by a reputable doctor, should be compared the same way.  So why isn't that happening? 

The media has spent very little time on what Trump is offering, which is basically nothing as far as the economy, foreign relations, or dealing with the problems of the nation is concerned.  It's all about him and getting even with those he thinks wronged him during his first term. It's about establishing the dictatorship he failed to establish the first time around.  If his name and face were not in news coverage every day, he'd have to focus his campaign on getting enough delegates to beat Nikki Haley and Ron Desantis, or Chris Christie.  They've made this into a sensationalistic personality contest, and that's the only reason it is close, if, indeed, it really is as close as they say it is.  I'm not buying that it is. 

So when a poll comes out that shows 75% of the respondents, 1,400 of them, which is twice as many as the recent infamous New York Times/Siena poll secured, are opposed to GOP plans to shut down the government, and they'd blame Republicans for it at a 49-43% rate, that tells me that the President's level of support is somewhere around the 50% mark, and that he's in good shape as far as the 2024 election is concerned.  People know what is at stake here, and they're not going to sit on their couch at home on election day and give up their freedom.