The impression that we are given is of a close rerun of the 2020 election, polls shifting back and forth as the GOP makes it clear Trump will be renominated, and the Democrats go with Biden. Trumpies are planning violence at their candidates insistence that he's not being treated fairly, third party candidates and independents are being given a huge share of media time, far beyond what their support warrants, and the fact that the GOP's presumptive nominee faces 88 indictments and is now on trial, giving all kinds of fodder to the sensationalism.
But, is that a realistic perspective of what's actually happening?
My own observations, based on past experience, on having watched politics for a long time, and on a stretch of having taught it, among other social studies subjects, leads me to make the observation that things are probably not quite the way the news media makes them seem. I've thought, from the very beginning, that the polling data is not accurately reflecting the way people plan to vote, something that has been effectively confirmed in the primary elections held so far, where pollsters are scratching their heads trying to figure out, or cover up quickly, how they have missed the mark, in some cases very badly.
I'm OK putting my view out there, and allowing it to be evaluated by the results on election day. There are, of course, variables and factors for which I have no way to account, but that's OK. I think I'm pretty close, and I can explain why I think so. If I'm wrong, I'll say so. It's on the record here.
Enthusiasm for Trump is Clearly Down
In every possible way voter enthusiasm can be measured, it's clear that enthusiasm among Republicans for Trump's candidacy is way down. Whether it is the anecdotal evidence observing that his rallies aren't drawing the crowds they did in 2020, or that along stretches of roadway in "Trump country" that were littered with his banners, flags and yard signs in places like Southern Wisconsin or Western Michigan at this point in the 2020 election cycle are virtually empty of evidence he's even running, it's clear from the GOP primaries that a significant segment of Republicans aren't supporting him, continue to not support him even after all his opponents have dropped out, and are planning not to support him in November. That's showing up in primary elections everywhere.
Even in the face of protest votes being organized by those who are protesting Israel's attack on Gaza, Biden's showing among Democratic voters is much more enthusiastic. The numbers are holding in spite of the fact that he's the presumptive nominee. The differences, from 20% to 25% in most places, are pretty obvious, baffling pollsters who use their news media flunkies to try and defend their polls and downplay their mistakes. Voter enthusiasm is a big factor in polls predicting election outcomes and that may explain why there's been a shift in the data lately.
Republican voters are telling the pollsters they're not supporting Trump, they want someone else, and they'll not vote for him even if he is the nominee, if he has been convicted. I don't expect a lot of honesty here until we get close enough to the election that it will look like a mistake if they get it wrong. Trump cannot afford to lose 10% of the GOP vote, out of the more than 30% he has lost across the primary season. The media pays a whole lot more attention to the much smaller percentage of Democrats, basically fewer than 10%, who are protesting by voting "uncommitted." The other announced candidates together aren't getting enough votes to swing the percentages.
Do a couple of drives across Trump country, in the absence of yard signs, banners or flags, mean a lack of enthusiasm of support for Trump?
I made a couple of drives across the southern part of Wisconsin in 2020, in late spring, and noticed Trump signs, banners and flags along the way. There were Biden banners and signs too, but the Trump signs were proportionate to the support he got in those counties. I made that same drive, Kenosha to Madison, two weeks ago, and there's nothing. I didn't see one sign, banner or flag for Trump, though I did see several Biden-Harris signs, and a scattering of bumper stickers. Nor did I see any Trump evidence along the roads in western Michigan, when I spent a couple of days there during the early part of last week. The Biden campaign is running ads on local television, during the local news. From Trump, nothing.
And I think there's a media bias against Biden that's deliberately avoiding factoring in the enthusiasm that is showing up among Democratic party voters who, in spite of the foregone conclusion of his nomination, are still turning out strong. The uncommitted vote notwithstanding, his percentages and numbers are significantly better than Trump's. There are over forty polls feeding data into the various composites, and while they're all over the place, a fact that legitimately questions their accuracy, the Democratic party has, during the Biden administration, finished an unprecedented mid-term election performance and has won the most impressive string of off-year and special elections since well before the turn of this century.
The Media Misses a Lot of Potential Coverage
Joe Biden is the President of the United States. Donald Trump is a former President with a record of mostly failure and incompetence during the four years he spent in office. But he's a social media celebrity, an invention of his own worldly image. And the current crop of reporters and news media commentators, raised on social media with a phone in their hand at all times, don't know how to cover the Presidency. So Trump, who does the most ridiculous and outlandish things, and makes the most controversial, and idiotic remarks gets almost all the attention.
If Biden got the kind of coverage from the mainstream media, forced to report on everything he has accomplished as President, and appeared on television in sensational reports as often as Trump, he'd have buried his opponent in despair by now. Contrasted with the previous administration, which achieved very little in terms of beneficial legislation, and whose policies wound up creating high unemployment, high inflation, supply chain problems and kicked the can down the road on its tax increases for the middle class to fund the tax cuts it created for the wealthiest of the wealthy, the Biden Administration, left to resolve those problems, not only did that, but got some major initiatives of its own through Congress.
But where's the reporting been on those achievements? We know as much about Biden's age, his speech impediment and his personal health, as we have known about any President's, mostly in a way intended to be critical and damaging. But how much do we know about all of the infrastructure repair, which I see in multiple places every day, noted by signs showing how much of the money for the project is being paid for by federal dollars, or about how he resolved supply chain problems, or about how his economic policies have dealt with the inevitable inflation caused by a booming economy flush with paycheck dollars from workers who are being paid a living wage and who are on the job?
What we know is everything that happened along every step that Trump took on his way to the courthouse. We know about every derogatory and disparaging statement he has made about judges, attorneys, their families, and their social media posts. We know when he tweets idiocy in the middle of the night on his failing social media network. We know when he falls asleep in the courtroom and when he passes gas. And while the more we know, the more disgusted we should be with this man who has nothing but contempt for people who aren't like him or aren't loyal to him, and that he thinks his followers must be the world's stupidest people, it's not like any of this is worth the space it takes up or the time it takes to read it.
I'd rather hear from Joe.
And that's why I have serious doubts that much of anything we're hearing is worth listening to.
What I Think We're Going to Find Out
I have little hope that Trump will ever be held accountable for any of the massive crimes he has committed, including sedition and inciting an insurrection against the United States. If that decision had been left up to me, and to most of the rest of the American people, he'd have been in jail for about two and a half years now, with no hope of ever seeing the outside again. But justice in this country never interferes with the lifestyle of people like that. They get away with everything, and so will he.
What I do think will happen is that President Biden will comfortably win the 2024 election. He'll carry all the same states he did in 2020, expanding his margins of victory in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, he'll pick up North Carolina and Florida, and has a good chance of adding Ohio. He'll get a Democratic House of Representatives by a comfortable margin and he'll have a senate in which he won't have to worry about the whims and whines of Joe Manchin or Kristen Sinema.
I don't think that's just wishful thinking. I think that's a fairly accurate analysis, based on doing some digging, applying logic and listening to the few independent media sources who seem to be on the ball when it comes to finding out what is really happening. It seems, by observation, that Trump has lost more than he can afford to lose from his party, whether their current, out of touch leadership is willing to admit that or not. He already lost independent voters, and isn't doing anything to get them back. His campaign of retribution and vengeance is even turning off some notable conservative, Evangelical support. He has to increase his base to win, not decrease it, and with the electoral college relic still a factor, he has no place to go to make things any different than they were in 2020.
And no, those who are protesting the war in Gaza will not turn to Trump when they don't think they're getting their way with Biden. There might be a few of them who will, out of frustration, say something like that, which sensation-seeking reporters love to report. But most of them are intelligent enough to know that if Trump gets in there, their own lives will be in danger in this country, and Gaza's and the West Bank's Palestinian population doesn't stand a chance.
So be smart. Ignore the mainstream media's attempts at ratings. Dig out the truth and watch what happens.
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